campaign manager of donald trump. now maybe there would have been an audit, but you wouldn t have had the weight of a special independent counsel, 17 other lawyers and what was done here and a 6:00 a.m. raids really to intimidate him to the limit. and that s what was done. shannon: charlie, the judge talked about the fact that these issues came up before. he said they ve probed him before and let it go and much of this is the same as what s making up the case now. while will come to washington. welcome to politics. all of this is manageable until you get into politics. certainly i think that clearly the prosecution is struggling to, i think, if you read between the lines and what the judge is saying, trying to train their noises back to the original intent of their mission. but i also think that beyond
which may explain that the president s legal team suggested it may not be wise for him to sit down with mueller, a decision that could come any day now. shannon: we are standing by. henry, thank you very much. the judge and the only case brought to trial by the special counsel continuing to express skepticism daily at the mueller team. let s talk about it tonight. former pollster mark penn and fox news contributor and opinion editor charlie hearn. we ve heard a lot about judge ellis and he has been described as a equal opportunity smack down artists. those are the words. but he keeps getting after the mueller folks. doesn t mean anything as to the substance of the case or how they are going about it? he has let the kids continue more or less as a prosecution set it out to about the real question here that s raised by this, and the judge has raised quite eloquently, after all, paul manafort would not be prosecuted if he hadn t spent two months for no pay as
lashed out in may, and the judge declared that all the special counsel wanted was to get president trump, trying to get dirt from manafort that might be able to provide information that would lead to the president either being prosecuted or impeached. ellis was at it again late today lashing out at greg endres for going on and on about made a fort s to ukrainian politicians more than a decade to ago. judge ellis, growing furious when the prosecutor would not look up, and the judge while he was speaking. i want, one point he said to come look at me. he looked down as to say, that s b.s. i m up here. ellis warned back in may that while prosecutors want to get manafort to think about it, they had to make sure they didn t compose, create songs that may or may not be true. today the star witness rick gage testified that he and manafort
business partner for years and deputy, this man, rick gates. will he take the stand today? we know that today s session will kick off with a cross-examination of manafort s former accountant, who testified last week that she helped him prepare fraudulent tax records. let s go to joe johns. he s outside the courthouse in alexandria. so we will see her cross-examination today by the defense. but then do we have an indication about whether the prosecution s star witness, rick gates, is going to take the stand? reporter: poppy, that s a good question. and obviously, it s hard to predict what happens here. because the trial judge, ts ellis, is trying to move this thing along very quickly. one example of that is prosecutors just today, or over the weekend have now formally asked the judge to allow fbi forensic accountants to read e-mails written by paul manafort to the jury. there s been a lot of back and forth about this.
ken, coming out of the courtroom when this has been a drama series of events, this is still our lead story because it s so important, i wonder if you could tell us a little bit more from your reporting about the tensions with the judge. it s not all good news for mueller, although they say they are methodically moving through this case, walk us through the case and what you glean from that. reporter: judge ts ellis is a judge who likes to impose his will on the courtroom. our commentator says some are happy to be umpire and others interjekts himself as shortstop. he stops prosecutors about being leading or compound. the judge tried to rush the prosecutor, greg, and said, let s get to the heart of the matter.