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On Wednesday, Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort filed a motion in federal court seeking to dismiss charges against him by special counsel Robert Mueller, saying Mueller exceeded his authority by charging him with crimes that had nothing to do his investigation of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election. 

The terms of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's appointment by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's was to probe links or coordination between Trump's campaign and Russia as well as "any matters that arose or may arise directly" from the investigation.

The 46 page long motion filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia quotes Manafort's attorney Kevin Downing saying his client had been threatened with additional indictments and "faces a game of criminal-procedure whack-a-mole" by the Special Counsel, "whose massive resources he cannot possibly hope to match."

The filing also said Mueller was given a blank check for a wide-ranging investigation by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who it insist exceeded his legal authority by "granting Mr. Mueller a carte blanche to investigate and pursue criminal charges in connection with anything he stumbles across.

"It is a blank check the special counsel has cashed, repeatedly," it said. 

Manafort and his business partner Rick Gates were indicted in October on charges including conspiracy to launder money, conspiracy against the United States and failing to register as foreign agents of Ukraine's former pro-Russian government.

His partner Gates, whose also a former Trump aide, has pleaded guilty to lying to investigators and conspiring to defraud the United States last month.