ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CN) – The Virginia trial for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on multiple counts of bank and tax fraud will be pushed back two weeks from its previously schedule July 10 start date.
In a one-page order filed Friday, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III said the court needed to move the scheduled start of the trial due to “a family member’s medical procedure.”
A motion hearing to consider Manafort’s request to dismiss the indictment, originally scheduled for Friday, was also rescheduled, to June 8.
Judge Ellis recently requested the Justice Department provide him with an unredacted copy the August 2017 memo in which Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein defined the scope of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigative authority.
The memo vested in Mueller the authority to investigate a range of issues beyond potential collusion between Russian entities and Trump's 2016 campaign, but Manafort has argued investigators exceeded their mandate when they delved into his financial and professional ties to the Ukrainian government where he offered consulting services to Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych.
Jason Maloni, Paul Manafort’s spokesman, had “nothing to add” to today’s announcement.
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