https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/DC_2013.jpg
Posted on 08/06/2018 8:57:28 AM PDT by sickoflibs
Mueller’s team continues to flop around with no clear direction as the trial of former Trump associate Paul Manafort approaches the end of it’s first week.
A few days ago, RedState Editor Joe Cunningham wrote about the Mueller team’s attempt to publicize Paul Manafort’s clothing choices. That was clearly an shot at coloring jury perceptions while having no factual basis to the charges at hand. You can read about that here.
To be sure, anyone who wears a jacket made out of ostrich probably deserves to do hard time, but the relevance to which it played in proving Manafort a criminal was suspect at best.
Judge T.S. Ellis III agreed. He chastised the prosecution’s obsession with trying to use Manafort’s lavish lifestyle to insinuate misconduct.
While it’s part of their effort to paint Manafort as a tax scofflaw who spent big on luxury items, Ellis would not allow the photos for now.
“Enough is enough. We don’t convict people because they have a lot of money and throw it around,” he said.
The judge said the photos would seem “unnecessary, irrelevant” and potentially “prejudicial.” Further, he reminded the lawyers that Manafort “is not on trial for having a lavish lifestyle, but for not reporting income on his taxes.”
He also told them to stop using the term “oligarch,” which has become a fairly loaded, biased term given it’s widespread use in the media to paint any foreigner as a sinister figure.
U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III specifically told prosecutors to stop using the word “oligarch” to describe wealthy Ukrainians, whose dealings with Manafort are at the heart of the fraud charges he faces in northern Virginia federal court.
The judge said the term has a “pejorative” meaning and is not relevant in this case. Further, he cautioned that using it could suggest Manafort is associated with bad people – and guilty by association.
“It’s not the American way,” the judge said. He noted that wealthy donors like George Soros or the Koch brothers also could be considered oligarchs.
Well, not to be outdone by their prior day’s work, Mueller’s team decided to screw around again.
Paul Manafort‘s third day on trial over charges of bank fraud and tax evasion was cut a bit short on Thursday after government attorneys made the same mistake twice in a row…
…Ayliff was mostly providing foundational testimony regarding the basic functions of a tax-preparation company. Prosecutors then moved on to specifics and attempted to “publish” one of Manafort’s e-file forms. Judge T.S. Ellis III‘s weariness all but amazed the courtroom as he denied the request–complete with an actual and pronounced finger-wag–before shouting: “No! You move it along!”
It only got worse as it was revealed that they had called the witness out of order and were attempting to use him as an expert despite not being noticed as such.
Composing themselves again, the prosecution moved slowly forward before asking Ayliff to define the term “financial interest.” Ayliff began to answer the question but was immediately cut off by Ellis who noted that Ayliff was not a noticed expert.
Mueller’s team of crack prosecutors then made the same mistake again.
Static filled the courtroom as the longest bench conference of the day ensued. Upon returning to Ayliff’s testimony, the jury learned that the issue had been deferred until Friday–if ever. Then, Assistant U.S. Attorney Uzo Asonye asked about another term of art contained on federal tax forms.
Judge Ellis, who was already standing by this point, advised Ayliff to wait and announced the court would recess early.
After the jury left, Ellis took a few minutes to tell the press and public all about the bench conference. As it turns out, not only was Ayliff a non-noticed witness being asked to give the equivalent of expert testimony, but the prosecution and defense had already agreed on what the term “financial interest” meant. Moreover, this agreement was provided on a proposed–and approved–jury instruction.
That is, not only was Ayliff not an expert and not a noticed expert as necessitated by the Federal Rules of Evidence–but his testimony had the potential to derail an already-agreed-upon definition of the term(s) in question. This, Ellis said, could have “confused or clouded” things for the jury.
This amateur hour display finally gave Judge Ellis all he could handle for the day. He shut things down and called a lengthy bench conference, no doubt to give the Mueller’s US attorneys a nice bit of correction on their conduct.
What we are seeing so far doesn’t bode well for the prosecution. I say that because their strategy hints that they simply doesn’t have the goods. Their attempt to unduly influence the jury at multiple junctures reeks of desperation. Mueller’s team is quickly learning that proving their case in a courtroom is not as easy as illegally leaking things and having the media dutifully spin a narrative for you.
Manafort is an unsavory figure. That doesn’t mean that the government’s case here is anything other than a hastily thrown together political mess. I do not think they expected Manafort to do anything but “flip” and plead after their attempts at intimidation toward him. This is why they were caught flat-footed early on when the defense demanded document production. It’s why they requested extensions several times. It’s why the Judge saw right through their games and called them on prosecuting Manafort simply to try to get to Donald Trump.
We’ve also recently learned that Mueller’s “star witness” against Manafort, Rick Gates, might not even testify (to be sure, this is BS bluster and he will testify because they have no case without him). If that doesn’t smell like confidence, I don’t know what does.
Now that the trial has officially started, their flailing continues. Judge Ellis is apparently having none of it as he shuts down the prosecution’s attempts to turn this into a political show of guilt by insinuation. If Mueller and his team had a real, air-tight case here, would they be going about things this way? I somehow doubt it. They’ve bitten off more than they can chew and if Manafort is ultimately found not guilty, it’s going to be a big embarrassment for them.
The location will convict him. No way to pick an unbiased jury.
A directed verdict from the bench would be one solution.
there is no doubt he will be convicted..... mainly because he’s guilty.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/DC_2013.jpg
excellent commentary and summary. thanks for the post.
it also supports the wisdom of just letting muller “hang” himself in the courtroom and in front of juries.
please Mr. President, continue to give this leftist, deep state political hack, muller, zero, zip, nada, nothing. just let him “twist in the wind.”
Then you have the fact that virtually every lawyer on Mueller's team (perhaps every single one) is a Trump-hating Hillary Clinton partisan and hard to the left. This almost had to be done on purpose. And to what end? Any convictions obtained can be challenged on that fact alone.
One has to think that this investigation was setup to fail and perhaps to even distract from something else.
I think Manafort walks. Mueller is running a clown car of a prosecution.
Bttt.
5.56mm
We can hope that the case gets thrown out and the Democrats want to put this behind them so they make Mueller the fall guy.
Concord Management hired a team of lawyers who showed up in court to defend them.
The judge ruled at Mueller's request that they were not allowed to show or talk about the ‘evidence’ against them to anyone without permission.
The Democrats were expecting to get away with another Stalinist Show Trial.
But the Judge won’t play.
The verb “to flounder” means to lie on one’s side on the bottom, waiting for food items to float by. Cool!
Jackets, yes, but nobody had better lay a hand on my boots!
I forget how many years in prison Roy Moore got after the Media convicted him...
Of course Manafort is guilty of a crime, we all are according to the Byzantine, poorly written, vague, and open laws. Using one hand to slightly swat a toddler on the behind for pulling away from your hand and running into the street can be prosecuted as assault and battery.
You Commit Three Felonies a Day - WSJ, L. Gordon Crovitz, Sept. 27, 2009>
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act has subtly provided the legal groundwork for prosecuting people for something like deleting their browser history. This is something that I do myself often because my Browser start acting like shit dude all the cookies and whatever else trying to steal my data and information.
Our 'public servants masters' have been eroding the hard-won and essential protections that Americans inherited from English Common Law by denigrating the concept of Mens Rea when they say 'ignorance of the law is no excuse' like praying asses while they find Americans guilty of obscure crimes that no one outside the legal profession would have any reasonable expectation expectation to know about and/or understand.
Mens Rea is described as "A guilty mind; a guilty or wrongful purpose; a criminal intent; Guilty knowledge and willfulness". In criminal law it is the basic principle that a crime consists of a mental element and a physical element. A person's awareness of the fact that his or her conduct is criminal is the mental element, and ‘actus reus' (the act itself) is the physical element. The concept of Mens Rea started its development in the 1600s in England when judges started to say that an act alone could not create criminality unless it was adjunct with a guilty state of mind. The degree for a particular common law crime varied for Mens Rea.
Murder required a malicious state of mind, whereas larceny required a felonious state of mind. Mens Rea is generally used along with the words general intent, however this creates confusion since general intent is used to describe criminal liability when a defendant does not intend to bring about a particular result. On the other hand specific intent describes a particular state of mind above and beyond what is generally required.
NEED TO ESTABLISH MENS REA IN ORDER TO SECURE A CONVICTION
To secure a conviction, the prosecution side must prove that the defendant committed the crime while in a certain state of mind. The definition is specified of every crime before a person can be convicted as a prerequisite for Mens Rea. There are three states of mind which constitute the necessary Mens Rea for a criminal offence. These are intention, recklessness and negligence and are described below.
Intention
Direct intent is the normal situation where the consequences of a person's actions are desired. Oblique intent comes in the situation where the consequence is known by the defendant as virtually certain, although it is not desired for its own sake, and the defendant goes ahead with his actions anyway.
Intention Based On Foresight of Consequences
The law states that foresight of consequences can only be evidence of intention if the accused knew that those consequences would definitely happen. Therefore just a possibility of a particular occurrence is not sufficient. To clarify the jury's comprehension, Section 8 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967 deals with how intention or foresight must be proved, provides: "A court or jury in determining whether a person has committed an offence, (a) shall not be bound in law to infer that he intended or foresaw a result of his actions by reason only of its being a natural and probable consequence of those actions; but (b) shall decide whether he did intend or foresee that result by reference to all the evidence drawing such inferences from the evidence as appear proper in the circumstances. Consequently, where foresight needs to be established a person is not to be taken as intending the natural and probable consequences of his act simply because they were natural and probable, although a jury may infer that from looking at all the evidence. The test is therefore subjective and a jury is to decide what the defendant's intention was from considering all the evidence."
Recklessness
Recklessness may be defined as the state of mind where a person deliberately and unjustifiably pursues a course of action while consciously disregarding any risks flowing from such action.[1] Recklessness is less culpable than intentional wickedness, but is more blameworthy than careless behaviour.
The Supreme Court on Mens Rea: 2008–2015, The Heritage Foundation, January, 14, 2016>
“A directed verdict from the bench would be one solution.”
I would love to see this judge, who was appointed by President Reagan, just throw this whole thing out on Manafort. I would laugh myself silly.
Nothing to do with Russians but lots to do with tax evasion.
Maybe Mueller will get Manafort to flip on Trump to avoid prison time.
They probably already wrote what they want Manafort to swear to under oath, something that actually sounds illegal they can claim that Trump or a relative did.
Although if its related to $$$ transfers they will need some sort of proof.
WOW , all they had was an Ostrich Jacket ,LOL
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