https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2018/08/14/paul-manafort-trial-day-11-live-coverage/?utm_term=.1b58051ed822
The trial will close and the jury will begin deliberations today!
The Defense rests... in pieces.
Already? Goddamn. It probably amounted to "But can you reeeeeeeeally trust Rick Gates, he hangs out with criminals like Paul Manafort."
They held a sealed hearing on something (will be revealed at the end of the trial), filed a procedural motion asking the judge to dismiss all charges (part of a potential appeal strategy, apparently) and then rested. They didn't call any witnesses or present any evidence AFAIK
As a non-lawyer with no law experience, this sounds like a hail mary and shows just how fucked they know they are.
I guess they are going with the trump pardon defense.
I read that in cases of significant financial crimes like this, it's fairly typical for the defense not to introduce many, if any, witnesses, and thus rest their defense very quickly once the prosecutors have concluded. I guess it can even be detrimental to the defense to call witnesses in some cases, to call witnesses, as if they are facing a huge stream of evidence and witnesses from the prosecutors, only being able to drudge up a comparatively small handful of people to offer character testimony makes it appear as if they have no actual defense. So, the bulk of their defensive strategy involves attacking the credibility of the prosecution's witnesses, introducing as much confusion as possible into the already complicated matter of financial and tax law, and essentially just obfuscating and deflecting to such a degree that the jury has a hard time understanding the case well enough to feel confident in rendering a guilty verdict.
Yeah I read that they were unlikely to call Manafort to the stand because the prosecution would get to question him and they were worried the jury would play LA Noire while he answered every question like this
https://twitter.com/robdelaney/status/844547602184048642
With the hostility of the judge to the prosecution this does make me feel a bit nervous.
Closing arguments will be delivered tomorrow. In any case we should have a verdict this week.
Translation: 'We've got nothing, Your Honor'.
My best guess is that Manafort never flipped or felt the need to defend himself in this case because the moment he's declared guilty, he knows Trump will just pardon him.
He'd still be getting state charges and going to prison for that, even if he did get pardoned.
Manafort is manafucked. 👌
Not to mention that with all those charges, Trump will look even worse—even his cult might have trouble supporting a move like that.
They'll just shit on the courts as being some liberal conspiracy.
They're too far gone to try and take issue with anything their geriatric saint does
It's all part of the plan.
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