Former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort claimed in a court filing Monday evening that government leakers sought to boost Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and influence the grand juries that ultimately brought indictments against Manafort.
The court document, filed in the case against Manafort brought in Virginia, zeroed in on news stories detailing investigations into Manafort’s communications with Russian intel operatives. Manafort said the government has not turned over any evidence in its discovery process of such communications, leading Manafort to suggest that the leaks were an “elaborate hoax” to sway the grand jury.
He is asking that U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III hold a hearing on the issue later this month.
Manafort has been charged with bank fraud, tax fraud and other financial crimes, many of which stem from lobbying work in Ukraine that predated the 2016 campaign. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges, as well as to similar charges brought against him in Washington, D.C.
His court filing on Monday evening pointed to about a half dozen stories starting in October 2016 and through February 2018 that allegedly “contained information from government sources that was clearly subject to grand jury secrecy, was potentially classified information, or was simply false.”
Manafort acknowledged that some of the stories don’t specifically say they came from government sources. But he alleged that even in those instances it is “abundantly clear” that the sources were current or former government officials. To support that claim, he brought up a CNN story about Rick Gates working on a plea deal in which Gates’ attorney did not respond to CNN’s request for comment. By process of elimination, Manafort concluded that the “only reasonable inference” is that government officials leaked the negotiations.
Regardless, his filing urges that the alleged leakers be identified.
Read the full filing below:
This filing will produce results similar to that dog over there chasing the parked car.
A legal defense strategery soon to be emulated by the Dotard-in-Chief.
Flail away at anything, lie and deny and wrap it in a RWNJ conspiracy.
Stop drooling, Mr. Avenatti…
The tried and true GOP strategy.
“The crimes are fake news! What about those leaks over there? That’s the real injustice! Terrible! Unfair! Deep state! Argle bargle! Jiggery Pokery!”
By process of elimination, he determined that Colonel Mustard did it in the library with the candlestick.
One model of looking at Capone which is suggested by Laurence Bergreen is the idea of that he is a pivotal figure in the movement from the “Old World” to the “New World.” Capone did, after all, seem to maintain some of the mannerisms and business approaches of the Neapolitan Camorristi crime groups. These were smaller-scale criminal societies who offered their services as “political fixers,” manipulating politics at a local level and even helping the local police forces maintain order.
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Along with this idea of the “New World” we see evident a certain glamour, an acceptance of the surface-value and an almost nihilistic devotion to self-promotion above every other concern. Morality is brutally murdered with the figure of Capone, who seems to represent a coming to terms with the darkness inside of man. For one thing, Capone basked in his celebrity. He even hired Damon Runyon as his press agent. When he heard news of the intent to bring him to trial, of the ongoing government investigations to pin hard evidence against him, Capone began to mount a “publicity campaign” to sway public opinion in his favor. Among a number of other falsely philanthropic gestures, Capone opened a soup kitchen during the annals of the Depression. He murdered or arranged the murders of countless men, many of whom were innocent. With Capone, then, even the abandonment of morality is made to appear beautiful and is worthy of celebrity and glamour.
http://www.umich.edu/~eng217/student_projects/nkazmers/capone2.html