The judge hearing the bank fraud case Special Counsel Robert Mueller has brought against former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia has betrayed hostility to Mueller’s team.
U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis said Mueller's team seemed to be pursuing the case — which involves bank and tax fraud — in order to "tighten the screws" on Manafort, in the hope that he will testify against others including President Donald Trump.
"I don't see what relation this indictment has with what the special counsel is authorized to investigate," Ellis said during an hourlong hearing in Alexandria, Virginia. "You don't really care about Mr. Manafort's bank fraud. ... What you really care about is what information Mr. Manafort could give you that would reflect on Mr. Trump or lead to his prosecution or impeachment."
A Reagan appointee, Judge Ellis reiterated that accusation throughout Friday’s hearing, which lasted an hour.
The obvious problem? Ellis’s comments bode poorly for Mueller & Co., who is fighting a challenge to Mueller’s jurisdiction to bring the bank fraud case in Virginia.
Fortunately, this case is just one of two cases spanning 30 charges. Even if Ellis did find a jurisdictional problem in this case, the second case, brought in the District of Columbia, would proceed. Moreover, Ellis committed both an ethical and a legal error. The latter means that there’s a good chance that the most Ellis could do is delay rather than totally derail the bank fraud charges.
One of the most critical criteria for judges is what the American Bar Association refers to as judicial temperament. That includes “compassion, decisiveness, open-mindedness, courtesy, patience, freedom from bias and commitment to equal justice under the law.”
Ironically, if the judge truly does think Mueller should be blocked from prosecuting Manafort in Virginia, his accusation against Mueller means that if he does rule against the special counsel, that ruling isn’t likely to stand.