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Reuters
WASHINGTON
President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort is asking a federal judge on Wednesday to suppress evidence seized by FBI agents working for Special Counsel Robert Mueller, saying they violated the US Constitution's ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.
The hearing before U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson is Manafort's latest bid to hinder the criminal case against him, though last week Jackson refused to dismiss the charges that include conspiring to launder money, conspiring to defraud the United States and failing to register as a foreign agent.
An court official said the hearing began on schedule at 9:30 am in Washington. Manafort's lawyers were expected to tell Jackson that FBI agents unlawfully conducted an initial warrantless search of a storage locker housing documents from his consulting company by improperly getting a low-level staffer to unlock it and let a special agent look around.
They also planned to challenge the legality of an FBI raid on Manafort's Virginia home, saying agents conducted an overly broad search by seizing"every electronic and media device"there. Manafort is asserting that his rights under the Constitution's Fourth Amendment were violated.
Mueller's office has defended the legality of the FBI raids, saying that the agents had secured written consent from the storage unit's lease-holder and that the warrant used to search Manafort's home was not overly broad.
Manafort performed lobbying work for a pro-Russian former Ukrainian president before serving as Trump's campaign chairman in 2016. He has pleaded not guilty.
