DOJ helps Manafort dodge Rikers stay
Paul Manafort still has friends in high places.
The nation’s second-highest-ranking law enforcement official moved last week to ensure President Trump’s former campaign boss was spared a stay on Rikers Island, the Justice Department said.
The extraordinary intervention from Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen came in response to a May 17 request by lawyer Todd Blanche to the Federal Bureau of Prisons asking that his client be allowed to remain in federal custody as he faces state fraud charges brought by Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr.
He said Manafort, 70, has “health challenges” and Rikers is “unsecure, unsanitary and dangerous.”
Rosen on June 11 asked Vance asking if he objected to Manafort staying in a federal lockup, a senior Justice official Tuesday told the Daily News. Vance did not protest.
“The department determined to err on the side of caution by keeping Mr. Manafort in federal custody during the pendency of his state proceedings,” the official said.
Manafort is serving sevenand-a-half years for his conviction federal fraud and conspiracy charges stemming from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.
Shortly after Manafort’s federal case wrapped up in March, Vance’s office indicted him on state mortgage fraud charges — a move meant in part as a firewall to make sure the disgraced Republican politico faces justice even in the event that he’s pardoned by President Trump, according to sources.
Manafort (above) was transferred to the federally-administrated Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan on Monday morning in advance of being arraigned on Vance’s charges.
Most felons in Manafort’s position would be transferred to Rikers, and Rosen’s intervention may be unprecedented, according to legal experts.
“Calling this highly unusual doesn’t even begin to capture how strange it is for the No. 2 official at DOJ to intervene in a state custody issue,” tweeted Joyce Vance, the former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama.
Trump nominated Rosen to the post in February after Rod Rosenstein resigned. Rosen is Attorney General William Barr’s right-hand man.
In a June 14 response letter to Rosen, Vance’s office laid into Blanche for going behind its back in reaching out to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which falls under the purview of the Justice Department.
Vance’s office said Manafort had agreed in March to waive “any right to challenge” the way he was brought to New York and suggested Blanche’s letter to the Justice Department flew in the face of that deal.
“By submitting the Blanche Letter in opposition to our request for temporary custody, Mr. Manafort has violated the terms of our agreement,” the DA wrote.
Blanche declined to comment.