an awkward pause in the courtroom today. the prosecution said they wanted to include something in a jury instructions that would tell the jury more explicitly that the judge s interjections and questioning of the witness shouldn t be considered. and the judge thought he already explained that and didn t understand why the prosecution needed to go farther. he said do you think that i interjected too much and there was a long pause and they said yes, there were times where he said obviously manafort didn t pay attention every dollar because you embezzled from him. the prosecution wants to be careful that the jury doesn t read too much into the judge who is supposed to be the independent voice. daniel and i were both outside
prosecution and gotten into it with some of the lawyers. tell me what these two stories are about. the second, i will take that first. an awkward pause in the courtroom today. the prosecution said they wanted to include something in a jury instructions that would tell the jury more explicitly that the judge s interjections and questioning of the witness shouldn t be considered. and the judge thought he already explained that and didn t understand why the prosecution needed to go farther. he said do you think that i interjected too much and there was a long pause and they said yes, there were times where he said obviously manafort didn t pay attention every dollar because you embezzled from him. the prosecution wants to be careful that the jury doesn t
you don t need to rely on him alone. look at all the other evidence. and that should carry the day here. dan, gene robinson has a question for you. yeah, dan, do we know anything yet about the instruction that judge ellis will give to the jury as they retire? i m especially curious about they heard days and days of him sort of hectoring prosecution lawyers. they didn t get to hear him hector defense lawyers, which i understand he also does. that potentially could weigh on the jurors, i don t know. but do we know about the instructions and will he instruct them to disregard that? you raise a good point and may have been a factor why manafort didn t call any witnesses because the judge put his finger on the scale particularly during rick gates testimony.
activities blamed on manafort were orchestrated by gates to fund his secret life and he s had the courage to come forward to testify, say prosecutors. i think it was interesting, the new york times laid this out nicely, that judge ellis at one point got involved and seemed to pick up the defense team s line of argument here because when gates asserted mr. manafort was very good at knowing where the money was and where it was going judge ellis jumps in. he points out okay mr. manafort didn t know about the money you were stealing from him so he didn t watch it that closely? yeah, when i try cases i hate it when the judge jumps in and starts doing his own questioning. they do this frequently in federal courts. but i think a judge s job is to call balls and strikes, in other words not get involved in trying one side s case or the other so i m surprised that ellis did that and i think it s a bad practice but i have to tell you, it happens all the time in federal trials. much more
we can twhy?y here! flat toilet paper! i ll never get clean! way ahead of you. charmin ultra strong. it cleans better. it s four times stronger and you can use less. enjoy the go with charmin. welcome back. we are minutes away from rick gates taking the witness stand again for a third straight day to resume what has been an explosive cross-examination of paul manafort s former right hand man and manafort s lawyers are expected to pick up where they left off, trying to smear gates credibility. let s go to the rouse in alexandria, virginia, joe johns with me outside. what are we expecting today? certainly more cross-examination, at least for a minimum of an hour, perhaps