Prosecutors from special counsel Robert Mueller's team are saying that a search of a condo and a storage locker belonging to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was lawful, Politico reported.
Manafort's defense team asked a federal judge to rule those searches illegal and to exclude the evidence from a future trial he faces on money laundering and not registering as a foreign agent for his work related to Ukraine, Politico reported.
The storage locker search took place May 27, 2017, and the condo search took place July 27 of that year.
In a court filing, prosecutors said that the application for the search warrant "had not sought permission to enter without knocking."
Mueller's prosecutors said in a separate filing Monday that the court-approved search was lawful because an assistant to Manafort, Alexander Trusko, cooperated and opened the locker for the FBI, Politico reported.
The prosecution team said that the searches were organized and approved by prosecutors and FBI agents with pre-existing authority, while the defense's argument is that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's order appointing Mueller was more open-ended than Justice Department regulations appear to allow, the website noted.
Manafort is facing a separate prosecution by Mueller's team over charges of bank fraud, tax fraud, and failing to report overseas bank accounts, with trial set to begin July 10, Politico reported.
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