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Monday, June 17, 2019

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.

15 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. I'm very pleased, and it sends a message to the whole world. Barr is like Honey Badger. He don't care--not what the NYT or anyone else thinks.

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  2. Mr. Barr is kicking butt and taking names.

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    1. He's sending a message--no doot aboot it, as (I think) the Canadians say.

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  3. I recall Cyrus Vance (the father) as being an honorable man. His son is a vindictive jerk. These days, it seems, there are precious few honorable people in the Democrat Party.

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    1. If you want confirmation of that view, look no further than the Dems trying to make something of the Shanahan situation. From what I hear, the guy was attacked by his wife and his kid took a baseball bat to her to stop her beating him.

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  4. Mark -- Notwithstanding Barr's excellent message...and all of his unfolding efforts and apparent good faith, we live in extraordinary, dangerous and unprecedented times. The game is far from over. We know that Brennan, Clapper, and Comey (and their subordinates) actively attempted to prevent Trump's election and when they failed have attempted to destroy his Presidency. It seems certain that they were enabled by the then President of the United States, as well as senior officers of his Justice and State Departments, all of whom have denied or lied about their involvement. Now multiple stories describe the current and on-going obstruction and/or recalcitrance of Wray and quite possibly Haspel in getting to the bottom of their organizations involvement in the Russia Hoax...which recollects the utter ineffectiveness of Sessions and Huber...with the assistance of other government officials like Cyrus Vance and Letitia James in New York. Not to mention the calumny of legislators like Schiff, Nadler, Booker, Harris, et al, who persist in repeating the lies which Mueller and Weissmann couldn't prove (couldn't even charge) notwithstanding grand jury and subpoena powers and essentially unlimited resources. Think about all of the foregoing and its implications...and yet apparently somewhere around one half of the country, and a large preponderance of our elites can't or won't see it. Right before their very eyes. Truly extraordinary times.

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    1. Right now I wonder whether the greatest danger to Trump doesn't come from the War Party.

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    2. Yes, add in the War Party...and the US Chamber of Commerce...and Never Trumper RINOs...

      I'm not particularly religious, but I do pray for him. Pray that he prevails.

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    3. I'd be interested to know who his true advisers are.

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  5. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senior_Advisor_to_the_President_of_the_United_States

    Good question. Jared Kushner, Stephen Miller and Ivanka Trump?

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  6. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_Office

    FWIW, another list...

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    Replies
    1. Who does he really listen to. Right now, from what I read, Pompeo is bustling around as if he's CINC instead of SoS. Maybe Kellyanne can head this madness off.

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    2. Melania is in control. Think about it. If she suggested you do something, wouldn't you do it? Yep. Not sure she cares about China though....

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