524

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/15/manafort-mueller-indictment-590215

“In a blow to Manafort’s defense, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that Mueller’s prosecution of the longtime political consultant on charges of money laundering and failing to register as a foreign agent for Ukraine was “squarely” within the authority that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein granted to Mueller last May.”

“The indictment falls squarely within that portion of the authority granted to the Special Counsel that Manafort finds unobjectionable: the order to investigate ‘any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign,’” Jackson wrote.

“Manafort was, at one time, not merely ‘associated with,’ but the chairman of, the Presidential campaign, and his work on behalf of the Russia-backed Ukrainian political party and connections to other Russian figures are matters of public record,” the judge added in her 37-page ruling. “It was logical and appropriate for investigators tasked with the investigation of ‘any links’ between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign to direct their attention to him.”

It turns out that if you’re trying to see if there were connections between a Presidential campaign and the Russians it makes sense to look into the history that the campaign manager had with Russian interests over a period of 10 years in Ukraine. To be sure, the connection is not as obvious as Ken Starr’s leap from investigating Whitewater to Clinton’s extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky but there’s still enough there…