Manafort trial: Judge Ellis is historically anti-special council/independent prosecutor

[emulatorloo]

Paul Manafort trial Day 6: Gates explains how millions were funneled to Manafort
By Justin Jouvenal, Rachel Weiner, Matt Zapotosky and Rosalind S. Helderman
August 7 at 10:17 AM

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2018/08/07/paul-manafort-trial-day-6-live-coverage/?utm_term=.88bed031a1bb

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9:37 a.m.: Behind judge’s clash with prosecutors, sharp opinions about special counsels

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However, Ellis has made clear that he has no love for the special counsel. He told prosecutors earlier this year that “the American people feel pretty strongly about no one having unfettered power.”

While he ruled that Mueller did have the authority to bring the charges against Manafort, he added in his opinion that “the wisdom of allowing all links between individuals associated with President Trump’s campaign and the Russian government to be subject to investigation, irrespective of how stale those connections might be, is seriously in doubt.”

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“The longer that an independent prosecutor remains an independent prosecutor, the more likely it is that he or she becomes politicized in one way or another,” Ellis said during that conference.

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“To provide a Special Counsel with a large budget and to tell him or her to find crimes allows a Special Counsel to pursue his or her targets without the usual time or budget constraints facing ordinary prosecutors, encouraging substantial elements of the public to conclude that the Special Counsel is being deployed as a political weapon,” he wrote in May.

A better way to deal with Russian interference in the 2016 election, he argued, would be a bipartisan commission (something Republicans in Congress have blocked).

More at link

[emulatorloo]

1. On the other hand ...

“At the same time, Ellis noted Monday evening that the special counsel has evidence Manafort committed tax and bank fraud. The more they stick to the facts, he said — that he did not pay his taxes or report foreign bank accounts, and that he submitted fraudulent loan applications — the less he will intervene.”

[Eyeball_Kid]

2. In baseball and all other sports,

when the umpire/referee becomes the center of attention, it usually means that they're incompetent. When they insert themselves into a game played by players, they interfere with the purpose of the sport. The same is likely true of jurisprudence. Judges need to weigh evidence, give a balanced framework for both plaintiff and defendant, and maintain professional decorum. They are NOT an active third party. Ellis begs and itches to cross the line. Not good.

[Fred Sanders]

4. The comments were at a conference, not related to the trial...and I do not see the problem with

them...remember he also said no one is above the law with unfettered power and he is a lover of facts.

[dalton99a]

3. Yeah, a bipartisan commission chaired by Nunes

and controlled by Republicans