Paul Manafort’s Home Was Raided By The FBI

Sources close to Mueller’s special counsel investigation have revealed to the Washington Post that Paul Manafort’s home was raided by the FBI, with no advance warning, late last month.

The Washington Post reports:

Federal agents appeared at Paul Manafort’s home without advance warning in the predawn hours of July 26, the day after he met voluntarily with the staff for the Senate Intelligence Committee.

 

The search warrant was wide-ranging and FBI agents working with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III departed the home with various records.

 

The raid came as Manafort has been voluntarily producing documents to congressional committees investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. The search warrant indicates investigators may have argued to a federal judge they had reason to believe Manafort could not be trusted to turn over all records in response to a grand jury subpoena.

 

It could also have been intended to send a message to President Trump’s former campaign chairman that he should not expect gentle treatment or legal courtesies from Mueller’s team.

According to these same sources, the documents found were no different than those Manafort had already willingly turned over. “If the FBI wanted the documents, they could just ask and he would have turned them over,” said one adviser close to the White House.

Josh Stueve, spokesman for Mueller, declined to comment to the Washington Post, as did Reginald Brown, an attorney for Manafort.

The rest of the report seems a little shady to me:

The search came as Mueller has increased legal pressure on Manafort, consolidating under his authority a series of unrelated investigations into various aspects of Manafort’s professional and personal life.

 

Manafort’s allies fear that Mueller hopes to build a case against Manafort unrelated to the 2016 campaign, in hopes that the former campaign operative would provide information against others in Trump’s inner circle in exchange for lessening his own legal exposure.

Mueller is now taking on “unrelated investigations” into Manafort’s professional and personal life. This feels less like a special counsel investigation of Russia’s interference with the election, and more like a full-blown partisan fishing expedition.

If Manafort has conducted additional, unrelated shady business, it should be brought to justice, but Mueller has a different job to do right now. I could be wrong, but that really doesn’t sit right with me.