Judge counters Manafort's attorney's claim that Mueller has gone beyond his mandate.

[pnwmom]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/19/politics/mueller-rosenstein-hasnt-gone-rogue/index.html

Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, countered that it's unlikely the Justice Department fully knew what Mueller should pursue when he was first appointed.

"As good as he is, I don't think the deputy attorney general could see into the future," she said.

Investigators shouldn't have to "start with the conclusion" that crimes were committed, she added. Instead, prosecutors could follow the question of whether Manafort had links to Russians. That work, even if it didn't connect directly to Manafort's time on the campaign, would be essential to any criminal investigation, she said, and Dreeben later echoed her.

Manafort is also challenging the special counsel's office's decision to charge him with both lying to federal authorities and failing to register as a foreign lobbyist and the decision to charge him with a conspiracy money laundering count because of his failure to register his work with federal authorities. Mueller's prosecutors have pushed back on both arguments on technical legal grounds. If Manafort were to convince the judge to dismiss the money laundering allegation, assets that the government locked down following his indictment in October would become available to him.