Paul Manafort filed a motion Friday to suppress evidence special counsel Robert Mueller’s team found in a storage locker in Virginia.
Politico reported that the former Trump campaign head is stating that Mueller unlawfully had access to the business records in the unit because a former Manafort employer listed on the lease allowed entry. According to Manafort, the employee didn’t have the authority to allow an FBI agent into the unit.
During the search in the storage locker, the agent didn’t seize any records but “entered and observed a number of boxes and a filing cabinet inside the premises, as well as some writing on the sides of some boxes,” the filing said.
“The agent wrote and signed an affidavit in favor of a search of the storage unit the next day, in May 2017, using the information he had obtained during his warrantless search to argue in favor of a warrant to search and seize documents from the unit,” it was written in the court document.
Manafort argues that the first search of the storage violates his Fourth Amendment rights saying that the agent did not have a warrant and that the former employee lacked the authority to let the agent in.
The documents seized during the second search of the storage unit were used to back the criminal charges against Manafort when he pleaded not guilty to money laundering and tax fraud charges.
Manafort’s attempt to suppress the evidence comes a day after it was revealed that FBI agents searched his Virginia storage locker.
Manafort has previously also attempted to challenge Mueller’s investigation. In early March, Manafort filed a lawsuit claiming that Mueller had overstepped the authority of his probe into the alleged conspiracy between Trump’s campaign and Moscow. However, a federal judge rejected all of the arguments in the case on Wednesday.
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