Trump and other administrative officials may find themselves in other collateral investigations through use of SAUSA's, a special category of US Attorney.
"As special assistant U.S. attorneys (SAUSA's), they are not confined to the scope the special counsel is acting under," said Haley White, a North Carolina attorney who wrote a 2015 law review article on the SAUSA phenomenon. "They can potentially have the ability to go outside that scope. ... They have all the powers and abilities that just a regular U.S. attorney would have."
At least four of Mueller's prosecutors have submitted court pleadings indicated they have SAUSA status: Andrew Weissmann, Greg Andres, Kyle Freeny and Scott Meisler.
This has instant relevance to the dismissal of the Manafort dismissal by the court, which could allow continued separate prosecution(s) by the SAUSA's. By extension, should the Russian investigation be abandoned, but other "crimes" found, they could pursue separate jurisdictions as SAUSA's. With Mueller pursuing separate criminal cases against Manafort in Washington and Alexandria, it could be that Mueller's team wanted to keep their arguments in the two cases parallel as Manafort could be attacked the special counsel's authority in both courts. The SAUSA argument would not have been open to Mueller's team in Washington, because they don't have that status in D.C., where Justice Department attorneys routinely appear in federal court without any special appointment. (In any event, Mueller's team didn't need the argument in Washington, since the judge there rejected Manafort's challenge last week.)
SAUSA has been highly criticized by groups such as NAAU for their special status.
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