JUSTICE DEPARTMENT/MEDIA/PAUL MANAFORT/ROBERT MUELLER/RUSSIA/TRUMP PEOPLE: “Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s defense is going after one of special counsel Robert Mueller’s top deputies in a bid to persuade a federal judge to order a hearing into leaks to the media. In a court filing Monday [5-21-18] night, Manafort’s attorneys singled out prosecutor Andrew Weissmann over a meeting he attended with The Associated Press in April 2017 — about a month before Mueller was appointed to take over the Trump-Russia investigation. At the time, Weissmann headed the fraud section of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. The precise nature of the session with the AP reporters is unclear, but it came a day before the news agency reported that financial records showed Manafort actually received payments attributed to him in a so-called black ledger of secret Ukrainian government compensation. Manafort’s defense attorneys suggested the episode makes Weissmann a logical suspect as a source for anonymously sourced press accounts about the Manafort probe.”
-Josh Gerstein, “Manafort defense targets Mueller prosecutor Weissmann,” Politico, May 21, 2018 9:45 pm