Manafort trial Day 8: Judge concedes fault after Mueller protest, Airbnb exec takes the stand
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Source: Politico
The federal judge overseeing the Paul Manafort trial conceded Thursday morning that he made a mistake in chastising special counsel Robert Muellers prosecutors a day earlier in front of the jury.
Addressing the jurors before prosecutors called their first witness of the day, U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis said he may well have been wrong on Wednesday when he slammed the Mueller team for allowing an expert witness from the IRS to remain in the courtroom while other witnesses were testifying.
Typically, witnesses aren't supposed to hear anyone else's testimony in a trial so they don't influence each other, but Muellers team got Ellis permission during the trials opening arguments last week to have the IRS agent in the court on a regular basis.
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Muellers team has been frustrated by repeated slapdowns from Ellis during the Manafort trial now in its eighth day. Before court started on Thursday morning, they filed a written motion to formally protest how they had been called out over the IRS witness.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/09/paul-manafort-trial-day-8-judge-ellis-769889
It may be time for the Gov't to request a mistrial over the judge's repeated and continuing criticism over the Prosecution attempts to put on their case and doing it in front of the jury. It is hard to un-prejudice a jury.
Thomas Hurt
(13,903 posts)Mr.Bill
(24,228 posts)The prosecutors should be screaming for a mistrial.
Fullduplexxx
(7,840 posts)FakeNoose
(32,553 posts)... even though he's not trying the case himself. Rosenstein and Mueller both know that there won't be a second chance on this case, and they have to get it right. It seems the judge is doing his best to eff-it-up for everybody.
empedocles
(15,751 posts)Trump had some positive thing to say about Ellis back in May I recall.
Haven't seen anything on who assigned this case to Ellis. A case of this importance just isn't casually assigned - the Rocket Docket Court has some serious crap in it.
The assigning judge would know that the evidence against Manafort was overwhelming, - and, have a very sensitive feel for how Ellis would likely come out on the case.
DonViejo
(60,536 posts)Duplicate, at best an update of https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142129990
Please join the ongoing conversation in that thread.