Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, sued special counsel Robert Mueller, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and the Justice Department, saying Mueller has strayed beyond the scope of the investigation he was authorized to pursue. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Washington and is the most direct challenge to the legal authority of Mueller and the scope of his mandate as special counsel, Associated Press reported.
The suit alleges the order appointing Mueller exceeds the deputy attorney general’s authority and that’s why all actions taken by the special counsel must be set aside.
“The actions of DOJ and Mr. Rosenstein in issuing the Appointment Order, and Mr. Mueller’s actions pursuant to the authority the Order granted him, were arbitrary, capricious, and not in accordance with the law,” the suit says.
The suit takes aim at Rosenstein too. He is overseeing the investigation into the alleged Russian meddling in the American presidential election and the alleged connection between Trump campaign and the Russians. Recently, Rosenstein said that he was satisfied that the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was staying within the scope of his authority.
Manafort was indicted on charges, including money-laundering conspiracy, related to his lobbying work on behalf of a Russia-friendly Ukrainian political party and has pleaded not guilty. Now he says that the investigation into the old business dealings is unmoored from the mandate Mueller was given. According to Manafort, a paragraph in Rosenstein’s order appointing Mueller, which allows him to pursue new matters he comes across during his investigation, is too broad to be permitted under the regulation that governs special counsels, Associated Press informs.
The complaint urges a judge to strike down Rosenstein’s order as an abuse of discretion and asks a judge to set aside all actions brought against Manafort by Mueller’s office and to issue an order narrowing the scope of the investigation to only matters explicitly laid out in the appointment order. A spokesman for the Justice Department said that the lawsuit was frivolous, but that the defendant was entitled to file whatever he wanted.
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