Someone just made a super-secret court filing in the Paul Manafort case
Last night we learned that Special Counsel Robert Mueller plans to file a sentencing memo on Paul Manafort this Friday, and that, aside from some possible redactions, it will be a public document. We also know that at some point today, Mueller will file a sentencing memo for Michael Flynn, and that it will also be public. Now someone just made a surprise secret filing in the Manafort case.
The “Big Cases Bot” run by USA Today just posted a brand new court filing in the “United States v. Manafort” case and it’s described as a “transcript.” The catch: the corresponding link goes to a restricted page on the United States court system website, which says “This is a Restricted Web Site for Official Court Business only.”
For now at least, no one can see the transcript without a password, so we don’t know what the transcript is. It’s not even immediately clear to us if this filing was made by Mueller’s side or by Manafort’s side. But when you put this filing within the context of everything else that’s playing out with regard to the Manafort case, and Mueller’s larger overall Trump-Russia moves, it’s a given that this new filing is a new – if perhaps incremental – piece of the puzzle.
But stay tuned, because Robert Mueller’s sentencing memo for Michael Flynn will be filed at some point today – probably during court hours – and it will indeed be a public document. Our expectation is that Mueller will use the Flynn filing to expose some of Donald Trump’s crimes to the public.
