Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's defense argued that the warrant for the locker was invalid because of the lack of any time limitation. | Keith Lane/Getty Images Prosecutors defend searches of Manafort's storage locker, condo Special counsel Mueller's team says FBI's first look at the unit had consent of Manafort's assistant

Prosecutors from special counsel Robert Mueller's office are defending the legality of searches the FBI conducted last year of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's Alexandria, Virginia, condo and a storage locker he used a couple of miles away.

Manafort's defense team has asked a federal judge in Washington to rule the searches illegal and exclude the evidence from a future trial he faces on charges of money laundering and failing to register as a foreign agent for his work related to Ukraine.


The search of the storage locker just off Duke Street took place on May 27. Agents showed up at Manafort's condo overlooking the Potomac River just after 6 a.m. on July 27. Some reports said the FBI obtained a so-called no-knock warrant out of fears Manafort would destroy records or data, but prosecutors said in a new court filing Monday night that "the warrant application had not sought permission to enter without knocking."

A key defense argument revolves around the fact that the FBI obtained the cooperation of an assistant to Manafort, Alexander Trusko, to gain access to the storage locker the day before the court-ordered search on May 27.

However, Mueller's prosecutors said in another court filing Monday that the court-approved search was lawful, in part because Trusko signed the lease for the storage unit. Trusko also had a key and opened the locker for the FBI, apparently without Manafort's knowledge.

"Special Agents ... entered the storage unit after obtaining written consent from an employee of a Manafort-affiliated business who had a key to the unit, was listed as its occupant on the lease, and had personally moved the contents of the unit into the unit. The employee thus had common authority to consent or, at a minimum, apparent authority to do so," Mueller's team wrote. "Manafort 'assumed the risk that [the Employee] would' use the key he possessed to 'permit outsiders (including the police) into the' unit."

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Trusko has not responded to messages from POLITICO seeking comment on his role in the episode.

Prosecutors also said that even if the initial viewing of the locker by the FBI was illegal, the court-approved search was lawful because the FBI already had enough evidence to get the warrant without the details they picked up during the first quick look inside.

Mueller's team also seeks to push back against what is developing as a key theme of Manafort's defense: The notion that the work investigators have done on the case is flawed because of flaws in the Justice Department's order appointment Mueller and because Mueller has overreached.

During a hearing last week, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson indicated she saw some merit in the defense's argument that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's order appointing Mueller was more open-ended than Justice Department regulations appear to permit.

The judge gave no indication that such a flaw jeopardizes the overall case against Manafort, but she hinted that searches of Manafort's storage unit and Alexandria home might be open to challenge if Mueller wasn't properly appointed at the time they were done.

Prosecutors insisted Monday that the search of the storage locker, which took place just 10 days after Mueller was named, was organized and approved by prosecutors and FBI agents with pre-existing authority.

"Manafort’s opening assertion that the agents who executed the warrant 'acted pursuant to Acting Attorney General Rosenstein’s invalid grant of authority to the Special Counsel...' overlooks the information in the warrant application making clear that the agent who sought the warrant was assigned at the time to the FBI’s International Corruption Squad...and that the warrant application was reviewed by an Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA) in the Eastern District of Virginia," Mueller lawyers Andrew Weissmann, Greg Andres and Scott Meisler wrote.

Manafort's defense has also argued that the warrant for the locker was invalid because of the lack of any time limitation on the records authorized to be seized. The warrant issued in July for Manafort's Alexandria condo was limited to records dated 2006 or later.

Prosecutors say no time limitation was legally required and the FBI agents involved were entitled to rely on what appeared to be a valid warrant. However, Mueller's team seems to sense some weakness on the issue and argued to Jackson that if she believes the lack of a time limit was critical, she should suppress evidence before 2006 but allow the records found from after that date.

In addition to the Washington case, Manafort is also facing a separate prosecution by Mueller's office in federal court in Alexandria on charges of bank fraud, tax fraud and failing to report overseas bank accounts. Similar defense motions are expected to be filed in that case. They will go before a different federal judge.

Manafort's trial in the Alexandria case is set to open July 10. His trial in the Washington case is set for Sept. 17.