counts upon which the jury has been able to reach a decision. so for mueller and the special counsel s team, if there are convictions on those counts, that would be a victory. as chuck says, all of the conduct manafort has been engaging in will be relevant conduct that the judge will consider in fashioning the sentence when they reach the sentencing point in the case. and so the important thing for federal prosecutors will be to get some counts of conviction. it s not necessary to have conviction on all counts. in fact, in a complicated case like in, it s relatively rare to see a jury come back with a guilty verdict on every single count. i ve seen it happen. usually the jury splits the baby to some extent. jonathan, you have reported and discussed on this program the degree to which the president was driven mad by the manafort trial by the idea that we talked about him as the president s former campaign chairman, which he was. what is the white house saying now that we know we re go
the courts said, sorry, that s not a free speech violation because this is a national security decision. i want to get you weigh in on this revelation today from the manafort trial where the judge said he was the subject of threats and he would not release the jurors names. they were scared. he said he was surprised the trial had incited this much emotion. well, it goes back to what i said, the country is so polarized. one of the things i want to say quickly about this trial is pundits have puzzled me. they ve all said why is manafort not making a deal and cooperating. he now has an absolute right to contest it. and the jury are the only ones who decide, and they haven t decided yet.
increased optimism that he ll be clear, but experts are urging caution. shannon, the reason that the judge revealed that he s received threats is because he needed to explain why he was not comfortable releasing the names of the jurors before the end of the time to a handful of news organizations who wanted them released. so the judge said this about the jurors. he said, i have received criticisms and threats. i can imagine they would do. the judge heard them out ultimately decided that anything sealed won t be revealed until after the trial with one exception. and we do not know what that one exception is. the jury has now been deliberating for more than 14 hours over a two-day span.
much. it hasn t even energized the moderate middle that perhaps is concerned about the way president trump is acting and heading down that road towards actions that could very well warrant impeachment. i think this is the real issue, and democrats and nancy pelosi or whoever new props up to be their next leader, they need to talk about the issues. and nancy pelosi of all people, really exhibited this last week. she couldn t say what democrats stand for anymore. so this whole impeachment thing, i think even their understanding that this is a no-win for us come the mid terms, we need to talk about issues and what we stand for and what our real policy positions are. that s the only way they can make the blue wave happen they talk about. okay. reena and peter. thank you, good to see you both. in a moment why the judge in the manafort trial says the jury is scared. and next hour the lies of george papadopoulos and the price he may pay for them.
he definitely affected the early investigation by not talking about the professor that he met with, and who could have been interviewed because he was in america. he is now overseas and cannot be interviewed. it s a serious problem that he committed this crime and that he could go to jail for it. i m curious your read on the manafort trial. the fact that the jury deliberated for two days already. they ve headed into the weekend. they have it off. they come back monday 9:00 a.m. can it benefit the defense as paul manafort s attorney said he believes? no. i think in a case where there are 18 counts and a lot of documents, and a lot of things that they actually the jury wasn t allowed to see during trial but they now can have in the jury room to look at, jurors take their job seriously. i don t think it s very long. i would have been surprised if there was a verdict before thre