Manafort defense rests...

. Manafort's legal team says it was not proven by the prosecution's evidence and witnesses that those things were done at Manafort's personal direction or with his direct conscious knowledge.


That would not be the law. Could you imagine every person who used a tax preparer saying they had no "conscious knowledge of their tax return".......too funny, and not even handgrenade and horseshoe close. Also, if it was not proven, why did the judge deny a motion for a directed verdict, and then the defense put no evidence into the record.

Manafort will be found guilty eventually. It is a slam dunk case for the prosecution.

But you can't correlate "extreme carelessness" with "gross negligence"... lol.

2seaoat wrote:  Could you imagine every person who used a tax preparer saying they had no "conscious knowledge of their tax return".....

The charges against Manafort are not quite as simplistic as that.

But you can't correlate "extreme carelessness" with "gross negligence"... lol.


That would be correct. Conceptual confusion would immediately kick in when one term is a legal concept and one is descriptive of an action. The legal term also has many definitions, and differs in the case law from administrative, statutory, and regulatory rules. So you would certainly need to build context, but in the end it is like correlating a verb and a noun.

These charges against Manafort are is not quite as simplistic as that.


There are multi counts, and yes......it is that simple in each of the counts.

https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000015f-6d73-d751-af7f-7f735cc70000

Sometimes ya just never know what some member of jury might have bouncing around in their head:

....
This court case is on taxes, and whether or not he paid them. It is a rather abstruse topic considering how large the tax system is, 73,954 pages as of 2014 and running., and that is just for the personal side. To see how that works in Manafort’s chart, we find Jupiter (or the mob) conjunct transiting Mars in Capricorn i.e. the Judge trying to take hold of the trial but he is overwhelmed by the external events via the squaring of the Moon (outright fear from the threats) and are worried about personal vituperations because of their work here.

With the Moon square Pluto, the truth, or Marc Jones’s keyword for Pluto probity, is on dicey ground conjunct transiting Mercury both in the third and we feel a hung jury i.e.: the jury’s verdict will not be unanimous, the asteroid Justice conjunct this pairing rather assures us we are on the right track. Here the Judge gets the call as to whether to call for a mistrial or make them go back and try again. If there is still no unanimous decision, a mistrial is called and then at some later date and time another trial with another set of jurors occurs — all at Virginia taxpayer expense. ....

https://sabianearth.wordpress.com/2018/08/18/deciding-on-paul-j-manafort-jr/

EmeraldGhost wrote:

Vikingwoman wrote:  .....  He didn't pay taxes and hid accounts. You can't get around that.  ....

If taxes weren't paid' accounts not reported that were legally required to be; and false information was included on loan application documents ... Manafort's legal team says it was not proven by the prosecution's evidence and witnesses that those things were done at Manafort's personal direction or with his direct conscious knowledge.

No don't take what I'm saying there wrong .... I'm not claiming Manafort didn't direct certain activities or have knowledge of them  ... I'm just questioning did the prosecution prove he did? .... beyond a reasonable doubt?

It will be interesting to see how the jury sees it.   I'm certainly not making any predictions.

(Saw something in the news this morning that Papadopoulos wife his hinting he  might withdraw his guilty plea now?   I imagine he'll wait to see how the Manafort trial comes out before he makes that decision)

I don't think any jury is going to believe Manafort had all these accounts out of the country and didn't know about them. So who opened the accounts and put money in them? Manafort signed his tax filings w/o looking at them? Come on! If the jury acquits him there is something wrong w/ that jury and major tampering going on.

Sometimes ya just never know what some member of jury might have bouncing around in their head:

I cannot argue with that, and that is why I used the qualifier of eventually.


Manafort signed his tax filings


Bingo. The IRS imputes knowledge and the courts have backed this up for a hundred years with reams of cases.

However, any case no matter how locked tight it is, can have a juror do a nullification of the law and facts. This is what is so disturbing about a President commenting on a case while the jury is out for the weekend. Fortunately, at best he will get a new trial, and he will be convicted as certain as the sun will rise.

This is a long article, but definitely sheds some light on Manafort's career:

The Plot Against America

Decades before he ran the Trump campaign, Paul Manafort’s pursuit of foreign cash and shady deals laid the groundwork for the corruption of Washington.

I. The Wisdom of Friends
the clinic permitted paul manafort one 10-minute call each day. And each day, he would use it to ring his wife from Arizona, his voice often soaked in tears. “Apparently he sobs daily,” his daughter Andrea, then 29, texted a friend. During the spring of 2015, Manafort’s life had tipped into a deep trough. A few months earlier, he had intimated to his other daughter, Jessica, that suicide was a possibility. He would “be gone forever,” she texted Andrea.

His work, the source of the status he cherished, had taken a devastating turn. For nearly a decade, he had counted primarily on a single client, albeit an exceedingly lucrative one. He’d been the chief political strategist to the man who became the president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, with whom he’d developed a highly personal relationship. Manafort would swim naked with his boss outside his banya, play tennis with him at his palace (“Of course, I let him win,” Manafort made it known), and generally serve as an arbiter of power in a vast country. One of his deputies, Rick Gates, once boasted to a group of Washington lobbyists, “You have to understand, we’ve been working in Ukraine a long time, and Paul has a whole separate shadow government structure … In every ministry, he has a guy.” Only a small handful of Americans—oil executives, Cold War spymasters—could claim to have ever amassed such influence in a foreign regime. The power had helped fill Manafort’s bank accounts; according to his recent indictment, he had tens of millions of dollars stashed in havens like Cyprus and the Grenadines.

[...]

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/paul-manafort-american-hustler/550925/

It is almost noon and the jury is sending out notes to the judge.....I am afraid that the longer this goes after this evening, it will not be good for the prosecution this time around. They will 100% convict this guy, but I really am thinking only a paranoid person would think the mob or russians could get to an American jury......and then I just thought about Chicago......nope, this whole Trump Presidency is challenging folk's sanity, and being concerned that this nation is barreling down the road to a constitutional crisis now has brought into the chaos our courts and the integrity of the same. If this guy gets a hung jury, this nation is in deep trouble. I would say crisis is an understatement. The fricking nazis and fascist are winning world wide. This POS should be in jail.

Where have you been Oatie? Our nation has been in deep trouble since Trump got elected. There is no longer any truth w/ a good portion of Americans. Corruption and lies are justified and fantasy has taken over.

I interact with people who are oblivious of the government in Washington. I quit watching Fox and MSNBC because of the sky is falling hysteria. President Trump is a crook and liar, but truth will prevail. I just think America has become wussified. There is a lack of courage among my Republicans to challenge this moral quagmire. Do not be surprised if this big wave promised in November will not be what the hysteria thinks.....most Americans lives are improving, despite Trump.

Please tell us how they are improving? I know the usual economy retort but that's a steady result of Obama's policies that are continuing. The tax cuts that will end in 5 yrs? The cleaner environment? The loss of life saving regulations? The rising costs of healthcare and final dissemination? The inflation and loss of businesses due to the tariffs? What?

I hang around with a bunch of 1%, I have had one explain to me he will save 50k next year. I also know a kid who was worthless who has been hired without a GED or high school degree, and he is actually doing pretty good and the people are happy with him. This would not have happened if wages had not gone up for fast food folk in Illinois because they cannot get enough peoplem and this restaurant was desperate.

No, I am no fan of Trump, but our economy is still humming. The tariffs will be his downfall.

Not good. The Jury will be back at it Tuesday. Concern.

2seaoat wrote:The tariffs will be his downfall.

The tariffs, and the deficit. But he'll still find a way to blame it all on Obama.

2seaoat wrote:I hang around with a bunch of 1%, I have had one explain to me he will save 50k next year.  I also know a kid who was worthless who has been hired without a GED or high school degree, and he is actually doing pretty good and the people are happy with him.   This would not have happened if wages had not gone up for fast food folk in Illinois because they cannot get enough peoplem and this restaurant was desperate.

No, I am no fan of Trump, but our economy is still humming.  The tariffs will be his downfall.

Of course, the 1 percenters will benefit greatly. We already knew that but one kid getting a job is not people doing better. The economy was humming when Obama left and he actually created more jobs than Trump.

2seaoat wrote:Not good.  The Jury will be back at it Tuesday.  Concern.

Nah- the jury has like 18 charges to go over.

Nah- the jury has like 18 charges to go over.

This really was not that complex of a case and I gave a link to the indictment. There was zero evidence submitted by the defense, so the jury does not even have to review the defense side of evidence which usually is extensive and detailed. No, Manafort is guilty as hell and taking three full days of deliberation on a two week trial most certainly is giving Manafort's defense team hope with each hour they fail to go to verdict. Also, with Microsoft reporting that the Russians are attacking conservative groups critical of Russia and Trump makes me think that these same people could penetrate a jury as easily as the Chicago mob.

Jury's note suggest that the Jury has agreed on 17 of the 18 counts. It appears like guilty on 17. Damn....I have to go cut the grass.

2seaoat wrote:Jury's note suggest that the Jury has agreed on 17 of the 18 counts.  It appears like guilty on 17.  Damn....I have to go cut the grass.

Paul Manafort Trial Jury Suggests It Is Divided on One of 18 Counts

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/21/us/politics/paul-manafort-trial.html?action=click&module=Top+Stories&pgtype=Homepage

GUILTY 8 counts, mistrial 10.

80 years exposure in sentencing as Putin's man stood and stared into space.....He knows if he talks he will be a dead man in prison or out on bond. Expect a gun to the head.

JF
"I told you people that I barely know Paul Manafort. Barely know him. He did nothing for my campaign. Changed the toner in the printer a couple of times. He means nothing to me. That said, I will now try to give him a full pardon for this and any & all future convictions."

In other huge news, Republican congressman Duncan Hunter and his wife have been indicted by DOJ for allegedly using $250,000 in campaign money for their own personal expenses, including trips to Italy and Hawaii, and dental work.