Barr: No Rikers Island For Manafort

This is a signal that Barr is on top of every aspect of the Russia Hoax, including Team Mueller's actions and those of allied locals. 

The NYT is reporting that DoJ has stepped in and nixed the Manhanttan District Attorney's sadistic plans for Paul Manafort:

Paul Manafort Seemed Headed to Rikers. Then the Justice Department Intervened.

The decision came after Attorney General William Barr’s top deputy sent a letter to state prosecutors. Mr. Manafort will now be held in a federal lockup while he faces state charges.

Manhattan prosecutors were surprised to receive a letter from the second-highest law enforcement official in the country inquiring about Mr. Manafort’s case. The letter, from Jeffrey A. Rosen, Attorney General William P. Barr’s new top deputy, indicated that he was monitoring where Mr. Manafort would be held in New York. 

And then, on Monday, federal prison officials weighed in, telling the Manhattan district attorney’s office that Mr. Manafort, 70, would not be going to Rikers. 

Instead, he will await his trial at a federal lockup in Manhattan or at the Pennsylvania federal prison where he is serving a seven-and-a-half-year sentence ...

Todd Blanche, a lawyer for Mr. Manafort, acknowledged that the involvement of the deputy attorney general and the decision not to hold his client at Rikers was atypical. But he said the case itself was also unusual: Mr. Manafort, he argued, should not be facing state charges for behavior that was the subject of two federal convictions. 

“You’ll find no example of someone like Mr. Manafort being prosecuted by the feds and then by the district attorney for exactly the same conduct,” Mr. Blanche said. 

As early as last month, Mr. Blanche had objected to his client being held at Rikers. In a May 17 letter, he asked the warden at the federal prison in Pennsylvania not to approve New York’s request that Mr. Manafort be transferred, citing his age and health issues. 

In the letter, a copy of which was reviewed by The New York Times, Mr. Blanche also criticized the charges against his client, arguing that they were “a blatant violation” of New York’s double jeopardy laws and calling the case “politics at its worst.” The district attorney’s office has said it is confident the charges will stand. 

...

Here's a nice touch. the Manhattan District Attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., claimed he didn't receive either the hard copy letter or the email that Manafort's lawyer sent. Yeah, right. So DAG Rosen wrote to Vance asking whether he was going to respond. That got Vance's attention:

While Mr. Blanche’s letter indicated that copies were sent to Mr. Vance by email and registered mail, other correspondence and people with knowledge of the matter indicated Mr. Vance did not receive the letter. 

Instead, Mr. Rosen wrote to Mr. Vance last week, asking whether his office was going to respond. 

The question of Mr. Manafort’s detention was one of the first high-profile matters to be undertaken by Mr. Rosen, who was confirmed as the deputy attorney general one day before Mr. Manafort’s attorney asked the Bureau of Prisons to keep his client out of Rikers.