A federal judge on Friday harshly rebuked Special Counsel Robert Muellers team during a hearing for ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort suggesting they lied about the scope of the investigation, are seeking unfettered power and are more interested in bringing down the president.
"You don't really care about Mr. Manafort, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III told Muellers team. You really care about what information Mr. Manafort can give you to lead you to Mr. Trump and an impeachment, or whatever."
Further, Ellis demanded to see the unredacted scope memo, a document outlining the scope of the special counsels Russia probe that congressional Republicans have also sought.
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The Reagan-appointed judge asked Muellers team where they got the authority to indict Manafort on alleged crimes dating as far back as 2005.
The special counsel argues that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein granted them broad authority in his May 2, 2017 letter appointing Mueller to this investigation. But after the revelation that the team is using information from the earlier DOJ probe, Ellis said that information did not arise out of the special counsel probe and therefore may not be within the scope of that investigation.
We dont want anyone with unfettered power, he said.
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He summed up the argument of the Special Counsels Office as, "We said this was what [the] investigation was about, but we are not bound by it and we were lying."
Shockingly, there are still non-corrupt judges in the US... I am as surprised as you are!
The judge also gave the government two weeks to hand over the unredacted scope memo or provide an explanation why not -- after prosecutors were reluctant to do so, claiming it has material that doesnt pertain to Manafort.