Manafort judge asks if Mueller overstepped his authority

Bloomberg

A judge sharply questioned whether Special Counsel Robert Mueller overstepped his authority by charging Paul Manafort with crimes unrelated to Russian election interference while also suggesting that the onetime Trump campaign chairman was indicted to coerce his cooperation against the president.
US District Judge T. S. Ellis III
expressed deep skepticism about whether Mueller went too far in signing a bank- and tax-fraud indictment against Manafort.
Ellis questioned how Mueller could prosecute financial crimes dating back a decade without charging Manafort for his election activities.
“I don’t see how this indictment has anything to do with anything the special prosecutor is authorised to investigate,” Ellis said at a hearing on a motion by Manafort to dismiss the case. The hearing ended without a ruling, and Ellis didn’t say when he would decide the matter in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia.
The judge’s unusually provocative remarks and questions don’t necessarily indicate how he will rule, but they put Mueller’s team on the defensive. The special counsel’s office was given two weeks to deliver an unredacted version of a Justice Department memo authorising Mueller’s work.
A dismissal would be a blow to Mueller as he faces political attacks by President Donald Trump, congressional Republicans and conservative media. Still, Manafort faces an indictment in Washington on charges that he laundered millions of dollars and failed to register as a foreign agent of Ukraine.
After the judge’s critique of Mueller made news, Trump praised him. “Judge T.S. Ellis — who is really something very special, I hear from many standpoints, he is a respected person,” Trump said at the annual National Rifle Association conference in Dallas.
On the judge’s contention that Mueller was going after Manafort to get to Trump, the president said, “I’ve been saying that for a long time. It is a witch hunt.”