Russia Probe Expands with Raid on Manafort's Home (Audio)

to taxes and banking. The Post said they reportedly left with binders full of material. A Manafort spokesman subsequently confirmed that agents had conducted the search and said that Manafort. Manafort had cooperated with me to talk about it is Bradley Moss, a partner at Mark's Aid PLC here in Washington. He specializes in national security matters. Brad, thanks for joining us. Um. Manafort has been voluntarily producing documents for the congressional committees

looking into Russia. What does the fact the FBI felt it it still needed to conduct a raid tell us about the state of the investigation. Absolutely happened to give you a hand here. So the fact that this raid was still conducted the fact that they still got a judge to sign off on the search warrant has to raise eyebrows and raise concerns that the documentation that was

being produced by Mr Manafort's legal team was insufficient. In that the FBI, particularly Special Counsel um lest Mr Mueller, had concluded the additional records that Mr Manafort had not been turning over, that there was probable cause to believe that the records that were located at Mr Manafort's home in Alexandria reflected evidence of a crime. And the fact that they didn't have to announce themselves. They got what's

called a no knock warrant. They could just barge in without announcing FBI from the door indicates they were able to convince the judge that there was a credible fear that if they had announced themselves, Mr Manafort would have destroyed the records. Now, this in and of itself doesn't necessarily mean there's much more to this than Mr Manafort's own troubles. It doesn't mean there's something else beyond In terms of the overarching Rush investigation. We don't know what

they found. It sounds like very much has to do with financial proprieties if that ultimately turns out to be the case. But it'll be interesting to see how this plays out whether or not the Special Counsel is essentially using a smaller fish like Mr Manafort to try to gain leverage and get information out of him to go after juicier and larger targets. Yeah, talk a little more

about how Manafort fits into this broader investigation. Is he more of a of a standalone figure in it that had his own particular financial issues, or is he potentially connected to other broader allegations involving the Trump campaign. That remains somewhat the sixty four thou dollar question because the

honest answers, we don't truly know. There was there were leaks, and I said they were concerned even before UM this big investigation started with respect to Mr Manaford and his financial ties to certain political groups and organizations in Eastern Europe, particularly pro Russian Ukrainian groups. So there's a question about whether or not some of these financial issues and financial proprieties were unrelated to his work on the Trump campaign.

There was whether or not he had properly registered as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agent Registration Act. So

all that would would somewhat be separate. But there's also been a lot of discussion, and admittedly this must have been officially disclosed one way or the other ongoing investigation, but the leagues that have come out in the media have suggested the possibility that if there was some measure of financial coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government or associates of the Russian government, that Mr Manafort

would have been the go between. That if anybody had that level of contact, whether intentionally or possibly unwittingly, that Mr Manafort would have been that person in the middle. And he was also not in that meeting involving Donald Trump Junior and the Russian lawyer that we were all

talking so much about over the last couple of weeks. Yes, he was president, which, of course, you know, if you really think that this is going to be a known nothing you know and nothing meeting with no real information, why would you bring your campaign manager there. But he was president, And we don't know beyond the emails that Donald Trump Jr. Has published, we don't know what else necessarily occurred. We know what they told us in public statements.

But there's been concerns that there were more conversations or powerful discussions beyond this one meeting, and that's part of what this raid. It's part of what the document request of both Congress and Special Counsel been making to Mr Manaford, as well as to Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr. Have been looking into, is whether or not this was just a one off meeting or part of a larger

coordinations game. Brad only about thirty seconds more, uh is used the phrase probable cause um, suggesting that there's a more a likelihood that crime was committed. Um. Should we take that as a as a significant sign of of an escalation in this investigation and the likelihood of an indictment of some sort coming soon. Yeah, it's it's certainly an escalation if they're not used simply using subpoenas, which

are more easily challenged and have a lower threshold. Securing a search warrant requires more revidence, requires going to the judge, requires more eventuary basis, It doesn't mean indictmental happen, and I didn't. Even if there's an indictment means the person is guilty. Everybody's in a sent until proven guilty. But the fact they were able to secure this. The fact that they already took this step is most definitely an escalation of the process. Okay, I want to thank our

guest Bradley Moss. He's a partner at um Mark's AID PLC. He specializes in national security matters. Talking about the raid on the home of Paul Manafort, donald Trump's former campaign chairman. I have a little breaking news right here. Uh. Donald Trump has selected a new chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. It is Neil chatter Gee. He is already been confirmed to serve run the commission. Now he's going to be the chair