Fox anchor Jon Scott: "Some might call” the FBI's raid of Paul Manafort's house “witness intimidation”

Heritage Foundation's Hans Von Spakovsky: “I frankly have a bad suspicion that this is part of [special counsel Robert] Mueller's shock and awe to get back at critics of him”

From the August 9 edition of Fox News' Happening Now:

Video file

JON SCOTT (HOST): A Fox News alert, as we learned, the president's former campaign manager reportedly was the target of an FBI raid. According to The Washington Post, FBI agents showed up at Paul Manafort's home late last month, seizing documents and other materials related to the ongoing Russia investigations. This as congressional committees delve deeper and, according to Bloomberg's headline today, demand thousands of documents from the Trump campaign. Joining us now, Hans Von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation. John Flattery is a former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York and former special counsel to the U.S. House and Senate Judiciary Committees. Thanks very much for being here. John, Paul Manafort says he was cooperating. In fact, he had been testifying in front of a committee. Why send FBI agents to raid his house when he says he was handing over everything?
 
JOHN FLANNERY: Because they obviously didn't think he was, and they convinced the judge that they had reason to search his house for documents I assume that they didn't find in the productions made to that date. And I think it was about a month before the search he had revised his identification as an agent for a foreign government, and the $17.1 million that he got spread over several years from the foreign government appears to have been spread among a Potemkin village of LLCs and corporations. So, like every good investigation, you follow the money, and that's what I think they were doing here.
 
SCOTT: Well, Hans, some might call it, I don't know, witness intimidation.
 
HANS VON SPAKOVSKY: Well, what I would say is -- look, there was no reason that the special counsel could not have simply issued a grand jury subpoena. There is no evidence yet been produced that a search warrant and a raid was necessary, particularly given the cooperation of this particular witness with all these committees in Congress. I frankly have a bad suspicion that this is part of [special counsel Robert] Mueller's shock and awe to get back at critics of him and to show them that he may take advantage of the power he's got, particularly with regard to his critics.

FLANNERY: That's entirely unsupported. There's no evidence of that at all.

Related:

The Washington Post: FBI conducted predawn raid of former Trump campaign chairman Manafort’s home

Previously:

Jake Tapper: Trump administration comments about Trump Jr.'s meeting are “so misleading as to be a lie”

Hannity: Special prosecutor “has put together a Democratic hit squad” to take down Trump

Trump administration met with a GOP donor and a Fox contributor about a fake story meant to distract from Russia probe