Exclusive: Mueller team's focus on Manafort spans 11 years

[Right_in_Virginia]

Exclusive: Mueller team's focus on Manafort spans 11 years
CNN, Sep 19, 2017, Evan Perez and Shimon Prokupecz

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team is reaching back more than a decade in its investigation of Paul Manafort, a sign of the pressure Mueller is placing on President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman.

The FBI's warrant for a July search of Manafort's Alexandria, Virginia, home said the investigation centered on possible crimes committed as far back as January 2006, according to a source briefed on the investigation.

The broad time frame is the latest indication that Mueller's team is going well beyond Russian meddling during the campaign as part of its investigation of Trump campaign associates. Manafort, who has been the subject of an FBI investigation for three years, has emerged as a focal point for Mueller.

The search, an unusually hard-nosed tactic in a probe that centers on possible tax and financial crimes, began before dawn as Manafort and his wife lay in bed, according to sources briefed on the matter.

FBI agents entered with guns drawn and insisted on searching Kathleen Manafort for weapons, a standard part of FBI searches but a jarring event for the Manaforts, the sources said.


Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/19/politics/mueller-manafort-pressure-decade-investigation/index.html

[Right_in_Virginia]

The search, an unusually hard-nosed tactic in a probe that centers on possible tax and financial crimes, began before dawn as Manafort and his wife lay in bed, according to sources briefed on the matter.

FBI agents entered with guns drawn and insisted on searching Kathleen Manafort for weapons, a standard part of FBI searches but a jarring event for the Manaforts, the sources said.

Is anyone paying attention to what Mueller is doing?  Who's giving him permission to go outside the scope of the investigation and employ such tactics?

[endicom]

Is anyone paying attention to what Mueller is doing?  Who's giving him permission to go outside the scope of the investigation and employ such tactics?

Don't you worry, Missy, the same will be done to the Podesta Group and Mercury LLC. Yeah, right.

[Concerned]

I think it's simply a tactic to use as leverage to get him to “flip” on higher ups relative to collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians to interfere with the 2016 Presidential election.  I don’t think it’s unusual at all to search out unrelated leverage to “flip” potential witnesses/co-conspirators. 

[jpsb]

I think it's simply a tactic to use as leverage to get him to “flip” on higher ups relative to collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians to interfere with the 2016 Presidential election.  I don’t think it’s unusual at all to search out unrelated leverage to “flip” potential witnesses/co-conspirators.

What crime is Mueller investigating?

[Concerned]

What crime is Mueller investigating?

"Russian government efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election and related matters" according to the announcement Trump-appointee, Rod Rosenstein, made appointing Mueller.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/appointment-special-counsel

[Free Vulcan]

I get that they are trying to leverage Manafort, but that doesn't cancel that trying to go back 11 or more years to find dirt to do it is outside the scope of this investigation.

[jpsb]

"Russian government efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election and related matters" according to the announcement Trump-appointee, Rod Rosenstein, made appointing Mueller.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/appointment-special-counsel

Re Russian government efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election

Is that a crime? Didn't we (USA) try to influence the Israels last election, dido Ukraine? I'm pretty sure trying to influence elections is a common thing that all nations do, and not a crime. Meuller is conducting a witch hunt, Meuller best bud the criminal liar and leaker Comey is the one he should be investigating along with Hillary.

Obama State Dept: $350K For Campaign Infrastructure Used Against Netanyahu In Israel Election

[Concerned]

Re Russian government efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election

Is that a crime? Didn't we (USA) try to influence the Israels last election, dido Ukraine? I'm pretty sure trying to influence elections is a common thing that all nations do, and not a crime. Meuller is conducting a witch hunt, Meuller best bud the criminal liar and leaker Comey is the one he should be investigating along with Hillary.

Obama State Dept: $350K For Campaign Infrastructure Used Against Netanyahu In Israel Election

My response from when you asked me similar (if not the same) questions in a different thread:

Foreign nationals providing anything of value in connection with a US election is certainly a crime.  I think campaign finance law is pretty clear on this (although I’m certainly not an attorney):

“The law (https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/11/110.20) prohibits foreign nationals from providing “anything of value … in connection with” an election.  The hacking of the Podesta emails, which were then transmitted to Wikileaks for posting, clearly had value, and its connection to the election is not disputed. None other than the Republican nominee said so publicly, egging on the Russians to locate and publish Clinton emails to aid his campaign. He famously declared: “I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” One well known Trump confidante, Roger Stone, is among those backing the President’s candidacy who offered similar contemporaneous statements about the value placed on these disclosures (and who, having intimated that he had inside information about when the materials would be released, now faces inquiries from the Congress (and from the Special Counsel’s investigation)).”

<snip>

“Of course, investigators will examine whether there were Trump campaign communications or private assurances to foreign nationals—including Russians and associates of Wikileaks acting as their “agents”—to encourage them or help coordinate the dissemination of these materials.  Coordination at this level could well trigger the application of other provisions of the rules directed at the political campaign’s acceptance or receipt of the Russian assistance, or even its direct solicitation of it.  But the “substantial assistance” prong would cover the more indirect of the Trump campaign activities—including public statements—that were conducted at more of a distance, and yet still intended to signal the Russians that help was needed and of “value.”

The link below provides a good overview of the law potentially broken here and some of the defenses the Trump Administration could possibly use (if someone is ultimately indicted).  I can’t speak to what’s a crime in other countries and the US may or may not have done to influence other country's election, but I hope we get to the bottom of foreign meddling on our Presidential election and am able to do a better job at detecting and preventing it in the future.   I would have thought all patriot Americans would want to prevent foreign meddling, but I'm coming the conclusion I was wrong about that.  Sadly.

https://www.justsecurity.org/41593/hiding-plain-sight-federal-campaign-finance-law-trump-campaign-collusion-russia-trump/

[endicom]

What crime is Mueller investigating?

That seems to have evolved to tax evasion. Anything will do.