How It’s Being Spun: Right

Plain and simple, this is being falsely cheered as a victory, a direct exposure of supposed Trump-hate and lack of professionalism that is integral to the Russia investigation.

There are two main issues with this assumption, the first being that this lawsuit against the Russia investigation is far from over, and as such is by no means a victory for Manafort. Rather, the opposite seems to be true. Secondly, this lawsuit is not connected to Trump specifically. Manafort is alleging that Mueller overstepped the scope of his investigation in charging him. That, in and of itself, does not connect to collusion between Trump and Russia, but is rather an argument about the scope of the investigation. The multitude of other uncontested evidence uncovered in this probe still displays at least some interactions between Trump campaign/transition-team members and Russian officials, and that won’t change with this case.

As such, it is important to understand that this is by no means a successful challenge against Mueller, or especially against the notion of Russian interference, but rather a standard legal one that Manafort has the right to attempt.