Middleboro Review: The 5-Minute Fix: How to follow the Paul Manafort trial

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By Amber Phillips

It's just the first full day of his former campaign chairman’s trial on bank and tax fraud charges, and President Trump seems to be following it closely. For him — and anyone else who also has a day job — your 5-Minute-Fix today is a viewing guide to the trial, with lots of details from The Post's fantastic live blog.

Does it matter that the judge is limiting talk of Paul Manafort's wealth?

Paul Manafort in June. (Mandel Ngan/AFP)

Manafort is an international lobbyist. He's really rich. He wears crystal watches and owns six homes as well as a $15,000 ostrich jacket. On Wednesday, the prosecution brought in salespeople to tell the jury how Manafort spent $334,000 in two years at what is billed as the world's most expensive suit store. And that was just one of the stores where he apparently shopped.

But how much do Manafort's personal spending decisions tie into the prosecution's allegations that he committed bank and tax fraud? The judge is skeptical that it's relevant. He keeps cutting off the prosecution when he thinks it is going too far on talking about Manafort's wealth.

That could be a problem for the prosecution, because it seems as if Manafort's wealth is a key story line for them so far.

“This is a straightforward paper case on tax and bank fraud,” said Jeffrey Jacobovitz, a white-collar defense lawyer who has tried cases in this court. “But [limiting talk of Manafort's wealth] certainly detracts from some of the flavor the prosecution is trying to add about Manafort.”

Will Rick Gates testify? Gates was Manafort's business partner when they lobbied together in Ukraine. He was Manafort's deputy on the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016. The special counsel investigation into Russian election meddling charged Gates alongside Manafort with financial crimes. But here's where their story splits: Unlike Manafort, Gates pleaded guilty to lesser charges and is cooperating with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. The Post's legal team reports that Gates was expected to be a star witness against his former boss.

Richard Gates, in the sweater, in January. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Manafort's team raised the stakes of Gates's importance when they blamed him for bad bookkeeping.

Then the prosecution raised eyebrows when it suggested that Gates might not testify, saying everything is up in the air.

Will Manafort testify? Jacobovitz thinks Manafort may have boxed himself into a risky move. Testifying on their own behalf can backfire on defendants: “They end up hanging themselves because frequently the jurors do not think they are credible.”

But Manafort may have no choice. His main defense so far is that Gates took advantage of him, and Jacobovitz said Manafort is the best person to explain why: “There's no one else who could do it for him.”

Is Trump shaping the trial at all? Conspicuously, on the first full day of the first criminal trial in the Russia investigation, Trump is going out of his way to try to discredit the broader investigation — and even suggest that he wants to make moves to end it.

In a series of tweets, Trump tried to distance himself from Manafort:

He defended Manafort by comparing him to a mob boss:

And he called on the nation's top law enforcement official to end the Russia investigation. (Attorney General Jeff Sessions technically can't, because he recused himself from all things Russia.)

While the jury is prohibited from talking about or reading about this trial, it seems the president is determined to shape public opinion about it.

A group that you should be familiar with: QAnon

Audience members at a Trump rally in Tampa wear T-shirts referring to the “QAnon” conspiracy theory. (The Washington Post)

What it is: A “deranged conspiracy group,” as described by The Post's Isaac Stanley-Becker, that inhabits anonymous message boards and often spouts sometimes racist or anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to defend the president. But things got very real Tuesday in Tampa, when people came to Trump's rally wearing Q T-shirts or holding Q signs.

Why they matter: These aren't just your average conspiracy theories peddled by the president about, say, the Russia investigation. The stuff that these people believe is way, way out there, Stanley-Becker writes: “In the world in which QAnon believers live, Trump’s detractors, such as Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, wear ankle monitors that track their whereabouts.”

The Post's media columnist, Margaret Sullivan, called their presence at the rally “dangerous.”

Now, this stuff is out in the real world and part of our national political conversation.

Your water-cooler conversation talker about the Manafort trial: Judge T.S. Ellis III

This courtroom sketch depicts Paul Manafort, fourth from right, standing with his attorneys in front of U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III. (Dana Verkouteren/AP)

Judges are normally not the story line in a case already filled with colorful characters. But Ellis, who is presiding over the Manafort trial, has become one of the trial's most talked-about people. The Post's Rachel Weiner reports that he was appointed by President Ronald Reagan and is senior enough to pick and choose his cases.

He's also senior enough, apparently, not to put up with any nonsense. “He has torn my head off in front of my wife multiple times,” a former U.S. attorney told Weiner.

And he is super-quotable. Here are some things he has said in the trial:

When news broke that Gates might not be called to testify, Ellis said of the journalists in the courtroom who had left to write about the news: “Twenty-five people just scurried out of here like rats leaving a sinking ship.”
When asking for more details of the case in plain language, he said: “I don’t have an email account; I never have and I never will.”
And when picking the jury, he asked who has business with the Justice Department. The case being heard about 10 miles outside D.C., nine hands shot up: “Oh, my goodness. I’m not going to ask that question again.”

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