Manafort on trial: A prosecutor of the scorched earth and not a mention of Trump

Nobody mentioned Donald Trump. Robert Mueller, that is. The word "Russia" has not been pronounced.

On the first day of the first trial resulting from the Special Council's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, President Trump did not tweet about a "Fake witch hunt". 19659002] He says nothing about "13 Angry Democrats", his bitter shortcut for prosecutors who examine the potential links between his campaign and Russian agents.

Instead, on the ninth floor of the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, the former Trump campaign director, Paul Manafort, looked pale while there. tried to make eye contact with the jury of six men and six women

He smiled weakly. The jurors did not smile.

The nation's inaugural look at the Mueller team in action began with a bang

Deputy Attorney Uzo Asonye, ​​brought in by the Alexandria Federal Attorney's Office for this case, The jury said: "A man in this audience room believed that the law did not apply to him."

But Asonye's effort to deliver a zinger classic of an opening has been decided as a district judge US. Ellis interrupted Asonye twice in her first minute, urging her to move away from bold assertions and just telling the jury what the evidence would show, and then stopping the prosecutor's description of the style. sumptuous life of Manafort

. With more than a dozen of his colleagues in the federal investigation alongside and behind him, Asonye is recovering quickly, keeping the jurors riveted in a 26-minute opening statement that portrayed Manafort as someone who One who lied about his taxes, his income, his business, and a litany of other subjects.

Mueller's attorneys, almost all in navy blue suits, entered the courtroom with determined determination. They rolled in 10 boxes of documents on two carts. They sat down before the debates began, exchanging stories about scary judges and their first year of law.

They compared with Manafort's defense team, such as Alexandria, the diverse suburb of Potomac where the trial is held because Manafort lives nearby. The prosecution table included Asonye, ​​who is African-American; two younger white men, and a female FBI agent.

Asonye's synopsis of the government case kept most jurors noting his points in their notebooks. The prosecutor, reading for the most part his opening of a written text, nevertheless maintained the jury's interest in keeping the story simple and promising that the three-week trial will prove that Manafort directed his staff to medical records and filed false tax returns. As Asonye took over the alleged misdeeds of Manafort, the accused set his reading glasses and took notes

Manafort underestimated his income and used the money he had fact. He paid taxes to buy "a $ 21,000 watch and a $ 15,000 jacket made from an ostrich," said the prosecutor, savoring every syllable stating the alleged excesses of the defendant.

Manafort looked at his notebook, the pursed lips

The prosecutors had waited a long time for this moment and the subtlety was not their tool of predilection. "If you lie to your accountant," Asonye said, "your tax return is going to be wrong. Dustbins in trash cans."

At one point, the prosecutor began five consecutive sentences with "He lied", ultimately concluding that Manafort had done this by lying "everything in order to obtain and keep money".

When defense lawyer Thomas Zehnle had the opportunity to present the sides of Manafort, some jurors were visibly deflated. Four jurors who had taken notes during the government's argument did not do so once the defense began to speak.

Nobody in the jury box had nodded during the opening of Asonye; two jurors seemed to take occasional rest while Zehnle spoke.

Zehnle argued that "this case is about taxes and trust." Manafort had basically "failed to check a box" on some government forms and he had placed "his trust in the wrong person," his longtime business partner, Rick Gates.

Zehnle also spoke for about half an hour. But where Asonye had enumerated a list of witnesses who, he said, spelled out the misdeeds of Manafort, Zehnle focused primarily on how it was Gates, not his client, who had done bad things.

Trial himself pleading guilty to conspiracy and lying to the FBI.

Manafort's lawyers will seek to drive a truck through the credibility of Gates, arguing that he is the real liar, and not Manafort

. use a scorched earth hall strategy against Manafort, in the hope of outraging the jurors with detailed recitations of the defendant's conspicuous consumption, the defense also takes a traditional path, portraying Manafort not like the consummate K Street walker but as a great America n success story, "a second-generation immigrant, the first in his family to go to college," as Zehnle said.

"There are two sides to every story," said the defense attorney. taking place in the Alexandria hearing room was one that looked terribly similar to those taking place every day in the courts of the courts

Prosecutors have painted a picture of venal behavior driven by greed and malice. The defense attorneys have shadowed this same set of facts as the actions of an innocent, perhaps misled by people who have wronged him.

But this case is not an ordinary drama in an audience room. It is a centerpiece of a national political confrontation where the remaining acts are not written.

Once, towards the end of the first day, someone mentioned the words "special advisor". Zehnle said, casually, by the way, without any reference to Trump or Russia or to any of the political storms that dominated the news for all of this presidency.

Yet the reason the audience room was packed the stories below was also full, the reason the lawn in front of the building was being delivered to television crews in their ritual encampment waiting for news, the Because of all this was the cases yet to come, the deepest layers of the onion. On this day, the prosecutors simply removed part of his skin, satisfying no one.