By Printus LeBlanc

Paul Manafort is in a fight for his life, literally. He is currently facing up to 305 years in prison if he is convicted of all the crimes he is alleged to have committed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Manafort is currently in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day now as terrorists at GITMO are live better than he does. For what? Did this man murder, rape, or commit an act of violence? No. Surely, he is a mastermind behind a criminal organization spanning the globe? No.

Paul Manafort is in jail for one reason and one reason only, he worked for President Trump during his election campaign. The trial of Paul Manafort makes participation in the political process illegal.

The Mueller investigation has been tainted from the beginning. Robert Mueller staffed the investigation with over a dozen partisan lawyers and investigators. Many of the investigators also have disturbing conflicts of interests while others have horrendous records at the DOJ.

It is easy to call the investigation phony because Mueller’s team hasn’t investigated anything to do with Russia collusion. The team has not taken control of the DNC server to prove Russia hacked the server. The Russian lawyer working for Fusion GPS that had the meeting with Donald Trump Jr., Natalia Veselnitskaya, has yet to be interviewed by anyone from Mueller’s team let alone contacted.

And finally, there have been no media reports about Mueller or anyone from his hit squad attempting to interview Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange. The entire premise of the Russia collusion story hinges on whether Assange got the emails from Russian government sources or not. One would think at least one of those leads should be followed up on if Russia collusion is the real purpose of the investigation. Maybe Mueller isn’t looking into Russia collusion because if he did and found none, that would mean his investigation might be terminated?

It has become crystal clear the probe has nothing to do with Russia and everything to do with going after political enemies, and the most recent filing by Mueller’s team in the case against Manafort should scare every American. The filing has turned the criminal case against Manafort into the most important criminal case in U.S. history.

For the last few weeks Manafort’s defense team has argued their client’s work for then-candidate Trump has no bearing on the current trial, stating, “Evidence or argument relating to Mr. Manafort’s work for then-candidate Trump’s campaign in 2016 or the Special Counsel’s investigation of the campaign’s alleged collusion with the Russian government is wholly irrelevant to whether Mr. Manafort’s personal income tax returns were false, whether he willfully failed to file reports of foreign accounts, and whether he conspired to commit, or committed, bank fraud.”

Mueller’s team agrees with the defense that the trial has nothing to do with Russia collusion, responding to Manafort’s lawyers, “The government does not intend to present at trial evidence or argument concerning collusion with the Russian government and, accordingly does not oppose the defendant’s motion in that respect.” But the Mueller team still argued the case has something to do with the President because when Manafort allegedly lied about his income on a loan application while he was working for then-candidate Trump.

Remember, the special counsel was set up to investigate Russia collusion and has now admitted it is investigating subjects that have nothing to do with Russia collusion. Why?

As Judge T.S. Ellis stated earlier in the trial, “You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort. You really care about what information Mr. Manafort can give you to lead you to Mr. Trump and an impeachment, or whatever.”

What the Mueller team is doing here should turn every American’s stomach. Mueller knows Northern Virginia and Washington D.C., the two venues for the Manafort trials, are virulently anti-Trump. Mueller is using the political hatred for the President to get a favorable verdict against Manafort. Is this justice?

If it is considered justice, the Department of Justice should change its name to DOP, the Department of Persecution. The latest moves by the Special Council has made it abundantly clear Paul Manafort is being prosecuted because of his political affiliations. If found guilty, Manafort will be perhaps the first political prisoner in U.S. history since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.

Mueller, his henchman, and the DOJ should be extremely careful moving forward. The persecution of political enemies will destroy any confidence the American public has left in the justice system. The next defense lawyer going into court against a U.S. Attorney only has to bring up the political persecution of Manafort and claim the same thing for his or her client while making sure there is at least one Trump supporter on the jury. Instant hung jury. By making politics illegal, Mueller is in danger of making the DOJ and FBI irrelevant institutions.

Printus LeBlanc is a contributing editor at Americans for Limited Government.