Trump’s been trying to distract from this trial but it simply keeps moving, with a second Manafort trial in the future, so Manafort’s “huge dumpster of hidden money” isn’t going away, regardless.
Tomorrow the jury deliberates, as there seems to be no plea-bargaining happening...
“This case is about Paul Manafort and his money and how he kept that money [hidden]. The evidence is overwhelming to tax fraud and failure to register foreign bank accounts,” Andres concluded. “Ladies and gentleman, this case is about when he didn’t have money and how he lied to get more.”
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia — On Wednesday morning, special counsel Robert Mueller's team of prosecutors told a standing-room-only courtroom that the tax and bank fraud evidence against Paul Manafort is simply “overwhelming.”
The besieged political operative's lawyers fired back with a two-lawyer tag-team closing argument, lasting over an hour, that boiled down to: No, it isn’t.
This simple answer, they said, explained why Manafort called no witnesses to testify in his defense.
Prosecutors may have unloaded a dump-truck of paper evidence in this case, including emails and financial records — and brought forward over two-dozen witnesses, from Manafort’s bookkeeper to the guy who sold him fancy suits and got paid via offshore companies with funny-sounding names. But Manafort’s attorneys argued that the case against their client remained unproved.
“Let’s talk a bit about reasonable doubt,” defense attorney Richard Westling told the jury. “Hold the government to its burden, ladies and gentlemen.”
The judge in the case, T.S. Ellis, has written that prosecutors’ real purpose in charging Manafort is to pressure him into agreeing to tell all he knows about Trump. But Judge Ellis has also called that approach permissible, and limited tangential discussion about political issues not directly related to the substance of the financial charges against Manafort.
We can speculate as to why Manafort even went to trial. Perhaps he’s expecting a pardon. However, now that the public has gotten a good look at the financial machinations and opulent lifestyle of his former campaign chairman, would President Trump risk the political hit by pardoning him? (Remember there is another trial coming up in Washington in September.) It’s one thing to know intellectually that one could be convicted, but quite another to hear an adverse verdict and get a prison sentence.
- First, Trump declaring a trial a “witch hunt” or unfair, or vouching for the character of an ex-staffer tells us nothing about the strength of the case or the actual character of the defendant. The president operates in a fact-free and lawless universe, one in which any proceeding that implicates either him or his inner circle is by definition a “witch hunt.”
- Second, the general public, as noted above, knows a fraction of the evidence prosecutors have collected before they put on their case. The same is true of potential conspiracy and/or obstruction charges against Trump, his family and top advisers.
- Third, prosecutors know all about burden of proof. They aren’t going to file charges or go to trial unless they have lots and lots of evidence. (Remember all those indictments obtained by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III?)
- Fourth, PR arguments and political spin (Not fair! What about . . . ?) have zero weight in court. Manafort cannot avoid prison time by saying the government didn’t catch all tax cheats. (So-called “selective prosecution” defenses are available in very narrow circumstances and rarely succeed.)
- Fifth, understanding that the facts and the law are not favorable to Trump, his legal team seems more inclined these days to fall back on far-fetched constitutional pleas — e.g., a president cannot obstruct justice — or baseless allegations against prosecutors.
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Defense attorneys Richard Westling and Kevin Downing each delivered part of closing arguments for Manafort’s team.
Westling began by telling jurors that he and other attorneys are “proud and honored” to have represented Manafort over the course of the trial and that he was confident in their ability to render a fair and impartial verdict.
He emphasized the “pillars” of the justice system: presumption of innocence, burden of proof and reasonable doubt.
“The presumption of innocence requires you to acquit unless there is definitive guilt,” Westling said. “Paul Manafort is innocent.”
Reasonable doubt, Westling told jurors, “sometimes is very difficult to overcome.”
On rebuttal, prosecutor Andres used his 15 minutes to argue the special counsel’s case by reminding jurors of a few facts.
“The defense wants you to believe this is about Gates but they haven’t explained the dozens of documents Mr. Manafort authored or wrote himself,” he said.
Referring to an email from accountant Philip Ayliff to Manafort where Ayliff asked if he had any foreign bank accounts to disclose ahead of tax preparation, Andres reminded jurors Gates was not included on the exchange.
“When Mr. Manafort sent false profit and loss statements to Dennis Raico, there was no reference to Rick Gates. Not in the from line, not in the to line and not in the subject line,” he repeated.
Andres also cited an email in which a Banc of California representative asked Manafort if Gates would be “the quarterback” in the coordination of providing requested financial documents.
“If Gates is the quarterback, then who is the coach? Who is the owner of the team?” the prosecutor said.
Manafort also once asked for help converting a PDF to a Word document so he could alter records, Andres noted.
“How is it Manafort has nothing to do with these accounts but he is the one who provided the documents?” Andres said.
“And you don’t need to be an underwriter to know that false statements about mortgages are important and relevant to bankers,” he added. “The defense is asking you to ignore your common sense.”
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As the trial of former Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort draws to a close, however, Jared Kushner is finding himself under that unwanted spotlight.
Kushner is reported to have told Manafort that he was “on it” after the former campaign manager asked him to consider appointing a banker friend to a high-ranking government post, according to ABC News. According to the exhibit submitted before the court as evidence on Monday, Manafort had sent an email to Kushner in November 2016 — not only after the election but months after Manafort had been pressured into stepping down from the campaign — asking that Stephen Calk, the CEO and founder of Federal Savings Bank, be considered for the position of Secretary of the Army.
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