Closing Arguments in Manafort Trial; Jury to get Manafort Case
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: 69-year-old Manafort is charged with a slew of financial crimes. Among them, orchestrating an elaborate worldwide scheme involving dozens of offshore bank accounts to avoid paying taxes on millions of dollars earned while lobbying pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine. Earlier today, during his closing argument, Federal Prosecutor Greg Andres said this case is simply about one thing, lies. Meanwhile, in their close, Manafort's defense team attacked Mueller's case saying he's, quote, a victim of overzealous prosecutors. CNN justice correspondent Jessica Schneider is outside federal court in northern Virginia. Jessica, the prosecution raised concerns with the judge that the jurors were told by the defense that Manafort was selectively prosecuted?</s>JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. After the defense team called Paul Manafort a victim, the prosecution really called them out on it and they said that these were against the pretrial rules. They said that those rules ban any mention of selective prosecution or really the broader Russia probe here. So now the judge is instructing the jury in a sense to just disregard those comments from the defense. But all in all today, there were a lot of strong words on both sides as they made their final push to the jury.</s>SCHNEIDER (voice over): Prosecutors made their final pitch to the jury, focusing on two main themes, Paul Manafort is not above the law and he lied to the government, his bookkeepers and the banks. Lead prosecutor Greg Andres told the jury, Mr. Manafort lied to keep more money when he had it and he lied to get more money when he didn't. This is a case about lies. Andres reminded the jury about the more than $60 million Manafort made from his lobbying work in Ukraine, that he allegedly hit in 31 foreign bank accounts. Andres briefly alluded to Manafort's extravagant purchases, which the jury will get to see pictures of for the first time when they deliberate, including that $15,000 ostrich coat and $10,000 karaoke machine, but pointed out, we're not in the courtroom today because Mr. Manafort is wealthy. It is because Mr. Manafort filed false tax returns. It is not a crime in this country to be wealthy. Andres laid out the evidence to the jury that he says proves Manafort directed all aspects of this financial scheme and knew he was breaking the law. Andres focused on the black and white proof rather than the two and a half day testimony of Rick Gales saying, the star witness in this case is the documents. But the prosecution did mention Gates' name several times, arguing that while he was involved in Manafort's scheme, Gates' testimony backs up the testimony from Manafort's accountants and bookkeepers. See if it's consistent, they urged. But the defense dug in on Gates, making him a part of the focus of their closing for a case in which they presented no evidence and no witnesses, including Manafort, who opted not to testify. The defense told the jury, sitting here today, Mr. Manafort is innocent.</s>PAUL MANAFORT, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN CHAIRMAN: Today at around 7:30, Mr. Trump will be officially the nominee of the Republican Party. So we're excited about that.</s>SCHNEIDER: And telling jurors about Manafort's work on the Trump campaign, as well as other campaigns, noting how Manafort earned great respect for his work. The defense attorney also accused Robert Mueller of selectively picking Manafort's financial records in order to concoct an elaborate fraud scheme saying, clearly their goal was to stack up the counts and, in the end, urging jurors to hold the government to its burden of proving Manafort is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.</s>SCHNEIDER: A very aggressive closing by the defense where they even told the jury at one point that Rick Gates lied to you. Well, now, the judge is giving the jury their instructions. That should last about another hour. And then the case goes to the jury for deliberations in this very high-stakes case. Jake.</s>TAPPER: All right, Jessica Schneider, thank you so much. Let's discuss. Kim, you're a former federal prosecutor. Based on what you've seen of the evidence and the presentations by the prosecution and the defense, what do you think? Do you think this is an open and shut case?</s>KIM WEHLE, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Well, it's never an open and shut case, in particular given the political implications here, but it's a case that is proven based on documents. Jurors file tax returns. Jurors sometimes take out bank loans. They know what they have to do when they fill out these loans. And the government's theory is that they were -- you know, he lied on these documents. So we don't really need necessarily Rick Gates' testimony to undermine or make clear or unclear what is in the plain language of the documents.</s>TAPPER: And, Symone, the prosecution acknowledged that its star witness, Rick Gates, the former deputy campaign chair of the Trump campaign who took a plea deal was not a Boy Scout. They admitted that he'd had an extramarital affair and that he was involved in the crimes. But, as you heard Kim say, the prosecution says this is really -- has to do with just the documentation and Rick Gates' story of events, you know, co-exists and co-aligns with that.</s>SYMONE SANDERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, which is, I'm sure, why we saw him being brought as a witness in the trial in the first place. Look, I think the fact of the matter is, while everyday regular American folks that are going out there and potentially casting their ballots in the midterm -- not potentially, we want everyone to vote in the midterm elections in November, they are not necessarily keyed in on the intricacies of Paul Manafort versus Rick Gates and everything else. But they will see that if Paul Manafort is in fact convicted, they will see that, well, if the president's campaign manager and all these other folks are -- his campaign manager's been convicted and all these other folks are wrapped up in investigations, what is really going on with Donald Trump? Why are Republicans in the House and maybe some in the Senate not making sure that we are thoroughly investigating this? Is the president obstructing justice? These are questions that, again, I don't think your everyday, regular voter current has on their mind. But as this trial goes on, as facts come out, as convictions may or may not come down, these are questions folks might have.</s>MARY KATHARINE HAM, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I think Symone's right about how much people are tuned in and there's a difference of skeezy (ph) and provable in a court of law as illegal, right? But there is a general skeezyness (ph) surrounding the Trump campaign and the Trump administration and people will feel that as they're sort of headed to the ballot boxes later and that's what I think will make the difference over the intricacies of this particular trial. They do have to hit the burden of proof here though.</s>TAPPER: Yes.</s>HAM: And I also think it's interesting that Judge Ellis, who was -- the judge in this case was fairly outspoken about, hey, are you going -- are you going past your mandate here, Mueller, nonetheless has let this let this, you know, of course, this process run through and that's sort of how we do business. And the fact that it's going in this way I think is sort of encouraging.</s>WEHLE: I think --</s>TAPPER: Although one thing that is unusual, Amanda, is that President Trump has been weighing in on this case. He said --</s>SANDERS: Regularly.</s>AMANDA CARPENTER, CN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And that's unusual.</s>TAPPER: I mean for any other president.</s>CARPENTER: Yes.</s>SANDERS: Yes.</s>TAPPER: And what he said he thinks Manafort's getting a raw deal and he's continually compared him to, quote, Alfonz Capone and, I mean, so that could theoretically play a factor here, both in terms of whether the jury's seeing any of these tweets, but also whether or not Manafort gets pardoned if he's convicted.</s>CARPENTER: Yes. Well, I think the broader question for most people is, what does this have to do with collusion or Donald Trump? All of Trump's allies say this happened years ago. Here is how I think it relates and how critical I think it is for the prosecution to win this case. At its core, this case is about how Paul Manafort hid his relationships with foreign financiers and secretly routed their money into the United States for the purpose of gaining influence. That sounds like someone who may be skilled in Russian collusion, as well. And there's a lot of attention on this Trump Tower meeting for Don Junior and the lies he probably told to cover that up. But we forget that Paul Manafort was in this meeting. This is a guy who pretty much was the king of K Street. He knows how to make secret deals. He knows how to do lobbying. He knows how to trade favors. He knew what he's doing in that meeting, even if nobody else did.</s>TAPPER: Did you think it was unusual that the Manafort defense team, Kim, didn't call any witness? They just rested. And also, that they cited his work for President Trump when closing, talking about, you know, in terms of him having a good reputation and being a reputable man?</s>WEHLE: Well, they don't have a lot that they can do in this instance. I mean we've got -- it's either the jury's going to believe it was a fat cat that tried to basically, you know, defraud the government and defraud banks, or someone who is a Trump ally that is being attacked here. I think the reason they didn't call any witnesses is because the defense that really Rick Gates is making all of this up and is really the bad guy here is belied by the documents as well as ten witnesses corroborating some of what he said. And beyond that, the bigger picture has to do with whether the president, as was said, is going to, a, pardon him, or -- and if he does pardon him, what's going to happen after that pardon, because the -- because Mr. Mueller could still subpoena him, even after the pardon, and then he would potentially either have to plead the Fifth or he'd have to testify anyway.</s>TAPPER: Evan Perez reported back in March that Mueller told Rick Gates that they didn't really need him for Manafort. They wanted information on collusion, whether there was any conspiracy with the Russians in the Trump campaign. And he got a very, very light sentence. We don't know if his cooperation was just on the Manafort issue, but he really isn't paying much of a penalty.</s>HAM: Right. And that's -- I mean that's, frankly, what makes people who are Trump allies like a little bit suspicious of the process is when certain people get off almost scot free and other people don't. Like, what exactly is the transaction there? Which is the question behind all of this. I'm not saying that I agree with them. But like --</s>HAM: But this is -- right.</s>HAM: But this -- this is what people sort of have issues with when they're -- when they're taking</s>TAPPER: Yes. And we'll see when Mueller concludes what it all is. Coming up next, silencing his latest nemesis, did the president's legal threat against Omarosa do enough to keep the reality TV villain quiet, at least for now? Stay with us.