Jan. 3, 2018, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement agreeing with a legal complaint by Paul Manafort’s attorneys that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation has far exceeded its original mandate to investigate potential ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government:
“Paul Manafort is absolutely correct that the charges he is facing far exceed the original mandate of potential contacts between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and have gone years into the past prior to the 2016 election campaign and in many cases do not even invoke official Russian government contacts. Federal law requires that a crime have been committed in order for a special counsel to be appointed to specifically investigate. Instead, Special Counsel Robert Mueller was granted wide latitude by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to search for a crime that could be tied even loosely to the Justice Department’s unbridled Russia election interference investigation.
“The special counsel should have referred anything beyond the scope of the original investigation to the Department of Justice. But now it is clear that one of the original rationales for this investigation was a political campaign hit piece paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
“The proper response by the Justice Department to the lawsuit is to acknowledge its legal standing and to shut down this ill-conceived Mueller investigation.”
To view online: https://getliberty.org/2018/01/paul-manafort-is-right-mueller-investigation-far-beyond-mandate-set-forth-in-special-counsel-declaration/
Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 100 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.
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