FBI Agent Tells Judge of Day He Searched Manafort Locker

These reports, Downing said in a motion hearing this past May, amounted to a “false narrative” created to give Mueller’s appointment legitimacy.

Judge Ellis tossed Manafort’s request to dismiss the indictment based on what defense attorneys argued was the “unauthorized” nature of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s appointment by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

Though Ellis threw out the request, he said his conclusion shouldn’t be read as tacit approval of the process behind appointing Special Counsel to “prosecute cases of alleged high level misconduct.”

On Wednesday, Ellis granted Manafort’s request to skip the hearing and avoid a two hour commute from the jail.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who presides over Manafort’s trial in Washington, D.C., revoked Manafort’s bond last month and ordered him to jail in Warsaw, Virginia. His bond was revoked after the federal judge aligned herself with allegations offered by another FBI agent monitoring Manafort since his indictment. The agent claimed Manafort tampered with a potential witness.

Pfeifer's testimony was corroborated by information contained in a pair of recently unsealed, though redacted search warrants obtained for Manafort’s storage unit and his Virginia residence.

According to the warrants, the FBI uncovered tax returns  - and more specifically, a $10 million loan reported on a 2010 tax form - connected to a company the former campaign chairman once controlled, but shared in part with his wife.

With help of the records found in the storage unit, prosecutors traced the $10 million loan back to Oleg Deripaska, a wealthy Russian aluminum industrialist. Deripaska is widely reported to have close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In emails obtained by the Washington Post last year, Manafort allegedly offered to give Deripaska “private briefings,” about the 2016 campaign by way of a third-party link, which court documents have suggested may be Konstantin Kilimnik, a political operative with ties to various Russian spy agencies. Kilimnik has denied the connections.

Deripaska also denied allegations Manafort ever offered the deal but according to testimony from an unidentified source found in the unsealed warrants, Manafort and Deripaska’s relationship helped Manafort keep money flowing into his lobbying work for Ukrainian political parties.

Manafort served as Trump’s chairman for less than six months but Mueller is diving into the lobbyist’s financial records dating back years. In the partially redacted search warrants provided by the FBI, it was also revealed that Manafort had a run in with money laundering issues before.

Manafort once objected to a freeze put on an account he held at First Republic Bank. The bank, the same used by Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen to make alleged hush money payments to Stormy Daniels; warned Manafort he was in violation of its “anti-money laundering policies.” The bank also warned Manafort it had “concerns about incoming international wires.”

One of the Cypriot banks Manafort used to receive payments for his consulting work had mysterious origins, according to his affidavit: Manafort told authorities it wasn’t clear to him who had opened the account. He said say, however, that the funds were “totally legal.”

His next statement conflicted with testimony given by Manafort’s former partner Rick Gates. In 2014, Gates told the FBI “various oligarchs” chipped in to keep the lobbying firm afloat. In Manafort’s affidavit, he denied any interaction “with oligarchs for business.”

In regard to the defense attorney’s request that a separate hearing be held to discuss the impact of media leaks, Ellis refused at first, but said that he may change his mind if Manafort’s legal team was able to bring together enough persuasive evidence by the end of next week.

“There are all manner of sanctions for leaks of materials and I’m prepared to impose them,” Ellis said. “But that doesn’t effect this trial. I’ll think about it. I do see them as serious breaches of security but they must meet all the necessary thresholds of burden and I haven’t seen that yet.”

In search of a remedy for the leaks, Manafort’s defense attorney Kevin Downing pressed the judge again but to no avail.

“I know what you want,” Ellis told Downing. “But tell me – what is the remedy?”

“Dismissal?” Downing asked, to some laughter in the court.

“Put that aside,” Ellis said.

“I’d like to deal with that for a moment,” Downing interrupted.

“No. Move on. This case is not being dismissed,” Ellis said as Downing interrupted again.

Ellis cut him off before asking: “Can you listen to what I’m saying to you? How can we remedy this?”

Downing told Ellis the most feasible remedy for now would be a change of venue, though he admitted he had not yet filed any motions to request it.

Like the hearing for the leaks, Ellis said he would grant the defense until next Friday to compile sufficient arguments that could justify changing the venue.

Ellis was also unenthusiastic about a request from prosecutors Friday: the original two week-long trial time suggested during Manafort’s arraignment last year, should be extended to three weeks, prosecutor Uzo Asonye said.

“This is a bank and tax fraud case,” Ellis said. “I can’t remember a case like this that has lasted that long. You better work on that too,” he said. “I liked your original estimate better, though I thought that was excessive too.”

The trial in Virginia begins July 25.

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