The federal judge overseeing the case against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort in Washington, D.C. denied the defense team’s request to suppress evidence seized by the FBI from Manafort’s Virginia residence.
The evidence was seized in a raid of Manafort’s home in July 2017 as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
[More: Judge denies Manafort’s request to move trial away from DC]
“Given the nature of the investigation, the warrant was not too broad in scope,” U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote in a Wednesday afternoon opinion.
“And, even if the Court could find fault with the warrant application if it were reviewing it in the first instance, the agents relied in good faith on a warrant signed by a United States Magistrate Judge,” she added.
Jackson previously denied a motion to suppress evidence seized from a storage unit Manafort kept in Alexandria, Va.
Manafort also lost bids to suppress evidence from his residence and storage unit in the case Mueller brought against him in Virginia.
The 69-year-old lobbyist and consultant is facing charges of money laundering, obstruction of justice and failure to disclose foreign lobbying, bank fraud and tax fraud in both Washington and Virginia. He has pleaded not guilty in both.
The trial in Virginia is slated to begin next week. He will stand trial in Washington in September.
