New York’s highest court has denied the Manhattan district attorney’s effort to charge former President Donald Trump’s one-time campaign manager Paul Manafort in a mortgage fraud case. The New York State Court of Appeals decision, which was handed down last week, upholds a lower court ruling that the state charges brought against Manafort by District Attorney Cyrus Vance were too close to the ones Manafort had already been prosecuted for at a federal court. Vance, a Democrat, had been pursuing prosecution of Manafort with 16 felony charges, including mortgage fraud and falsifying business records since March 2019, when he received a second prison sentence in a case brought by special counsel Robert Mueller. The move was seen by many as the Democrats’ effort to bypass a potential presidential pardon, which covers Manafort’s federal criminal offenses but will not protect him from state charges. Trump granted Manafort a “full and complete” …