SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Paul Manafort is in custody. A federal judge ordered President Trump's former campaign manager to jail on Friday over charges he tampered with witnesses while out on bail awaiting trial. Manafort has pled not guilty to charges that include money laundering, tax evasion, conspiracy and failure to register as a foreign agent, charges that stem from Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. Shan Wu's a former federal prosecutor and a legal analyst, joins us in our studios. Shan, thanks so much for being with us.
SHAN WU: A pleasure to be here.
SIMON: Well, Mr. Manafort's lawyers know where to reach him now to prepare for the trial. But how unusual is this? Because incarcerating a defendant before he goes to trial makes it seem like he had something to tamper with, doesn't it?
WU: Yes, it's very unusual, particularly in a white-collar case, and I should add anything I'm commenting on is on the public record because, as you know, I represented Rick Gates, who was Manafort's co-defendant, and we were before the same judge. It is very unusual in a nonviolent crime, in a crime where the defendant is not looking like they're about to escape to a different country, which the special counsel did allege that possibility here. I think this judge in particular runs a very tight ship. I think she really struggled with this decision. I mean, she apparently took a recess, and she told Manafort in court this was not really her preference. I think she made the remark that it's not middle school. She can't just take away his cellphone.
But it is unusual. And particularly I think because he was indicted that caused a problem for her. It'd be one thing if they were just making this argument he's violated the conditions, they can go back and forth about it. But they had him actually charged with it, and that was, I think, very troubling to the judge. And it's going to be a huge problem for the defense. It's just a devastating blow for them.
SIMON: Yeah. And reading between the lines, that gives Mr. Manafort more of an incentive to cooperate.
WU: It certainly ratchets up the pressure tremendously on him. It's just so hard for a defense team to prepare when the client's incarcerated, particularly in the white-collar cases because it's so paper intensive. And now you have all these logistics in trying to get your client.
SIMON: But we should explain a lot of these charges have nothing to do, near as we can tell, with President Trump and 10 years beforehand, right? So he may have no information to offer, or at least that's what the president says.
WU: That's absolutely correct. The charges themselves don't go to anything about the collusion aspect. I think one thing that's important to understand, though, some folks don't realize this about cooperation - cooperation's like being a little bit pregnant. You're either cooperating or you're not. You have to be completely in (laughter). And the value of somebody like Manafort for the prosecutors may not necessarily be a smoking gun but rather just the fact that he's so familiar with what happened and they'll be interested in that as well.
SIMON: Let's turn now to Department of Justice's inspector general report on how James Comey and the FBI handled the investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server. Mr. Comey didn't come off well, did he?
WU: He did not come off well at all. I think it had been widely thought that he was not going to come off well, and he really violated some basic protocols at the Justice Department. I mean, I was there with Miss Reno as the attorney general. You're very, very careful about anything that could affect a political election. And then on top of that, he is supposed to simply talk about, are they doing the investigation or not? And he really kind of usurped the authority of the prosecutors in making that statement - no reasonable prosecutor would take on this case. He's not a prosecutor there. He is the director of the FBI.
SIMON: Yeah. At the same time, what do you think of Rudy Giuliani, the president's lawyer, saying that the Mueller investigation ought to be suspended because of the IG report?
WU: Well, as with many of Giuliani's remarks, they don't seem to have any basis in investigative reality. The IG report simply was talking about what had happened with the Clinton investigation. It certainly did criticize Comey. If anything, it points out the fact that had the president not said anything more and simply rested his firing of Comey on the email issue, he would have been on solid ground. But, of course, he somewhat muddied the waters by then making the statement that he fired him because of the Russian probe.
SIMON: Yeah. Based on everything you know, everything that's on the public record, is this process reaching any kind of fruition?
WU: I think much of the fruition has already been reached because they've had so many guilty pleas. So in that sense, you know, they're making progress. Where it's going it's very hard to say. They've been extraordinarily buttoned up and tight-lipped about it, so it is very hard to say right now.
SIMON: Former federal prosecutor Shan Wu, thanks so much for being with us.
WU: A pleasure to be here. Thanks. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.