Mueller Investigation Targets Manafort (Audio)

back going back to two thousand and six. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journals reported that Mueller's office has questioned Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein about President Trump's firing of James Comey as FBI director as the investigation heats up. Here to talk with us about it are Jeff Kramer, a managing director at the Berkeley Research Group, and Bradley Moss, a partner at Mark's Aid PLC. Bradley they certainly seemed to be focusing a lot in Robert Mueller's office on

Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign manage her. What does this tell us about what Mueller is trying to do as he moved the investigation forward? Absolutely so it's always been kind of understood that there were two easy pieces of low hanging fruit for mueller investigation. One was Paul Manafort and one was Michael Flynn. Both of them had legal exposure on issues that were separate from whatever may or may not have happened in terms of the campaign

and the alleged collusion. But it gave First Director Coma when he was running it. Now Robert Muller as he's running it and into apply pressure and price and trying to gain some leverage on these two senior level Trump officials who would have obviously insight into what had gone on during the campaign. And for Paul Manafort in particular between the years of alleged issues between possible money laundry and reporting obligations with respect to him being a foreign

agent for I believe a political party in Ukraine. It all just it was all too easy for Robert Muller to focus on him, Michael Flynn to an extent to begin their potential prosecution. Jeff they picked, according to The New York Times, the investigators the FBI picked the lock on man of fororts home to get in, which means they got a no knock warrant. What do you need to convince a judge to give you a subpoena for no knock warrant? Um? Yeah, I mean it's uh, it

is an extra hurdle. You basically have to show to the judge that if you didn't have the no knock warrant, that someone might be destroying evidence. Um, you don't see it too much. You see it a lot in uh in certain kind of violent crime cases, gang cases here in Chicago, organized crime cases and the like. But they clearly convinced a judge that if it was just a regular search warrant h that evidence might be evidence might be destroyed. So yeah, they picked a lock and apparently

woke up his wife. So it was very unusual, uh, Mark the Bradley rather the The Times also reported that they have the prosecutor is told Manaford that they were going to indict him. Um, why would they do something like that? Uh? Two possibles is one. It might just be a ploy in the sense of trying to see if they can intimidate and possibly guarantee the extent that they can use that as a means of leverage to get him to be more cooperative and to provide more information.

Of what is arguably the more pertinent and larger target, which is whatever did or did not happen during the campaign. And the other part is it's a standard tactic that prosecutus will often use to kind of give potential criminal defendants more or less a preview um in order they're trying to get them to complete guilty and avoid the necessary expense of the whole simial trial the law. Let's give them a preview of here's what we expect to be able to indicte you for into prosecuting and convict

you for. And he was what other episodes is going to be. It's not really given the defendense anything they wouldn't ultimately go anyways, because it's the entitled to it in the context of the trial. So it's either one of those, we don't know enough which one it is, or it's a combination of both. I think time will talent see where exactly the Mueller was going here and what he was planning to use leverage wise. With respectrum Manaphort, Jeff.

That raid came a day after Manafort was interviewed by the staff members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Could some of Mueller's aggressiveness. His team's aggressiveness be the result of the multiple investigations in the Senate in the House that might hurt his investigation. I think there there could be something to that. I mean, this is a little bit unique where you have an investigation, but you have several

bodies also looking at this. I don't want to say, you know, mudding the waters if you will um with other witnesses. So well, I'm sure Director Mueller is somewhat coordinating and knows what's going on with the other piece of the investigation. It does make it a little tougher. I mean, if you had your druthers, if you were a prosecutor or an investor FBI agent, you want to keep these things clean. So that does make it does

make it harder. And therefore because it as a result, uh, Director Mueller I think is going very hard and no nonsense approach. I mean we saw that with the team he has constructed, which Franks is one of the better prosecutorial investigative teams going on in the country right now. Well, Brad, what look at it from the other side, If you're on the congressional side of this, one of the one of the committees that's investigating. You see Mueller acting very

aggressively here, apparently trying to move very fast. Are you more or less inclined to want to take your time and let Mueller give Mueller space or do you want to get your stuff into the into hearings more quickly. Well, I mean it's it's competing um institutional interests and congret ends are in constitutional prerogatives. I mean, obviously Congress, even in their most arrogant nature, wouldn't want to interfere in

getting the way of what Mr Mueller is doing. But at the same time, they have their own prerogatives, they have their own views on how this should be investigating, and what they in their respective authorities and rights as the heads of different committees in the Senate and the House,

should be allowed to investigate. And we've seen there's already a little ruined fight possibly between Mr Mueller and the Senate Judiciary Committee over whether or not um to high level a FBI official to be allowed to testify before Senate Judiciary without the circumstances of the firing of Director Combe. So it's this is not unheardably seen this problem in the past. It was most notably an issue during a

Roan contra. We're talking with Bradley Moss of Mark Zad and Jeff Kramer of the Berkeley Research Group about the investigation into possible Trump campaign collision with Russia and possible instruction of justice being conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller

and his team of prosecutors. The Wall Street Journal reported that those investigators have spoken with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who happens to be the official who over who appointed and oversees Special Investigator Mueller because Attorney General Jeff Sessions is recused from the Russia investigation. Jeff, it's a little bit unusual to have investigators ask questions and you know,

interrogate the person who oversees their office, isn't it. Yes, you know, irony abounds on this one because as you say, Uhdud roses eignd appointed Mueller and now Mueller and his investigators are talking to him. But you'd have to, I mean, if you're if the question is was the president's firing of Jim Comey related all or is it a bullet point in a prosecution for obstruction of justice? You have to talk to the guy who wrote the memo upon

which the President said he relied. So it's a logical interview. It's an interview that had to happen. But it's certainly uh an odd one. Uh, certainly given the situation, Brad. You spoke before about Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley saying the Senate Council's preparing subpoenas for two FBI officials that the d o J is preventing from being interviewed over the COMI firing. How much strength do congressional subpoenas have compared to those of Robert Mueller, let's say, and will

there be a fight over these subpoenas? Oh, they're there. They go through a slightly different process that Congressional subpoenas are different in the sense that if someone refuses to comply with the congressional subpoena, then Congress has to actually more or less go to the d o J to enforce it and to seek criminal contempt um charges against the individuals who declined it. Whereas of Robert Mueller issues of subpoena, he is working out of the d J, so he he doesn't have to go to that entire

bureaucratic process. He can more or less circumvent it. He is the person who would see the charges. But I think there will be a bunch way some type of resolution behind the scenes, as the various inclustional UH players kind of butt head in terms of these various UH is the information we're going to copy fire? I think right now just a lot of political posture. Well, Jeff, one of the things though, I mean you mentioned irony.

It's it's a bit confusing sometimes when you have a lot of you know, you have senated how's committees working, you have the Attorney General confused recused, you have the Deputy Attorney General appointing a special prosecutor. They're all racing against each other to some degree to get information. And if in fact, you know, how is it, you know, how is it that somebody like Rosenstein ends up being a witness in this but isn't recused himself from the investigation,

and then all would happen. Yeah, he might have to be. And there's a lot of ways this plays out, And as you indicated, Uh, there's a lot of a lot of cooks in this kitchen. If it does get to the point where this is a couple of steps on the line, Roseneside could be a witness and if they think there's obstruction and legal minds different whether or not that charge can be brought against the sitting president. But

let's put that to the side for a second. Um, roses I would have to presumably recuse him self from technically overseeing h. Mueller's investigation. Uh. And then we go to the third person. Uh, and she's been in d O J for a long period of time. But there would have to be someone else appointed other than the a G and the Deputy Attorney General. Uh. So that's you know, they say that's a few steps down the line, um, but you know it's not out of the realm of possibility.

If again, charges can indeed be brought by the president in the first instance, Brad, this very in aggressive investigation of Mueller's almost scorched earth tactics in some instances. Are there any downsides to this? Well, yes and no. I mean the concern of going this hardness fast is that there's going to be an accusation in the post of the media by certain parties that he's on a mission to find and purge traps and is not a mission

to find someone the prosion to justify his missing. On the other hand, the part of the reason he is it's like you're probably going this hard, this fast, because the longer drags out, the longer he faces the problem that kind of stars face during the Clinton years, which is the investors just kept going and kept going and kept going, and it became a political of atross and its own right, and it seems like he was just gonna go forever. I don't think that's what Robert Mueller's

trying to do. I think He's trying to get to whatever the underlying facts are, what the prosecutions need to be brought to bring and that's the end of it. He wants to end it. So, Jeff, I mean, it's probably impossible to figure out a timeline, but you know, in about forty five seconds, do does it look like Mueller might be moving towards indictments based on what we're hearing now, I think you'd have to say yes. And I agree with the statement that was just has just made.

Mueller has a reputation as being no nonsense. He's going to go forward. It's either there or it's not. And I think it's not to come full circle he is going to the low hanging fruit with Manafort um, and I think those charges are probably going to be brought. It's pretty straightforward. If he made a certain amount of money overseas and didn't declare that, or worked with certain groups and didn't declare that, that's a viable charge independent of anything going on in the White House. So I

think we are looking at charges relatively soon against Mr Manafort. Well, our thanks to Brad Bradley Moss at Mark's Aid PLC and Jeff Kramer, Managing director at the Berkeley Research Group, for being on Bloomberg Laud Day to talk about Robert Mueller's investigation into possible obstruction of justice and possible Trump

campaign collusion and who knows what else. Uh, We're gonna be following this story obviously, and I'm sure it's not the last time in Bloomberg Law we're going to be talking about it.