The ongoing bank and tax fraud trial of former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort finished out the week Friday with a bit of an anti-climactic thud. While the prosecution anticipated finishing up its witness list and resting its case by the end of the week, an unexplained 5-hour delay in action ate up most of the day. People have speculated that the issue may have involved one of the jurors since Judge T.S. Ellis underscored for jurors the importance and not discussing the trial and keeping "an open mind." But beyond that, everything is speculative.
When the trial resumed a little after 2 p.m., prosecutors called two witnesses from Chicago-based Federal Savings Bank to testify about a $16 million loan Manafort secured there. The bank's CEO, Stephen Calk, expressed interest in working in the Trump administration and one employee, loan officer Dennis Raico, testified that Calk took an unusual interest in Manafort's loan. That interest ranged from dining with Manafort to sitting in by video conference on the application process—involvement Raico had never seen on any other loan application he handled. Buzzfeed's Zoe Tillman writes:
On July 27, 2016, Raico said he had a meeting with Manafort and Manafort's then-son-in-law Jeffrey Yohai, who was originally part of the loan application. (Yohai is now divorced from Manafort's daughter). Calk joined the meeting via video, Raico said, and at the end of the call Calk said he was interested in helping Trump. Manafort's loan application was submitted for approval the same day as the call, and was approved the next day, Raico said — he wasn't aware of another loan approved in such a short time frame, he said.
Prosecutors showed the jury an Aug. 3, 2016, email from Manafort, then Trump's campaign manager, requesting Calk's résumé. Raico also said he received a call from Calk several days after the election in which Calk suggested he might get a job in the new administration. Calk wanted Raico to call Manafort and inquire about his chances for becoming Treasury Secretary or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (remember, this is same guy Manafort emailed Rick Gates about later that month becoming Sec. of the Army). Raico declined to make the call, telling the jury, "It made me very uncomfortable."
Manafort got two loans from First Savings on two different properties, one for $9.5 million and another for $6.5 million. The fraud charge here came with Manafort not truthfully representing his income to the bank. At one point, Manafort told a loan underwriter his business had been "on the up-swing" in recent years. But as Raico put it: "A plus B didn't always equal C all the time."
He testified about an email he received from the underwriter who said the income listed on Manafort's 2015 tax return, about $344,000, was different from the $4.4 million represented as income elsewhere.
Manafort's also charged with lying for telling First Savings that the New York Yankees season tickets he bought for several hundred thousand dollars were actually a purchase he simply allowed his deputy Rick Gates to put on his credit card.
Later on Friday, the jury heard from Irfan Kirimca, the senior director of ticket operations for the Yankees. Via Kirimca's testimony, the jury saw emails showing Manafort signed a five-year season ticket agreement in 2012, and that Manafort told a Yankees employee that he and his wife planned to attend opening day in 2016.
The prosecution is expected to wind down its case Monday with two final witnesses. Manafort's defense team will then have an opportunity to call witnesses, though they haven't indicated yet whether they plan to do that. Following the conclusion of the defense case comes closing arguments, jury instructions and jury deliberation on the 18 counts Manafort faces in Virginia.
One thing that is interesting about this week was the prosecution’s decision to present evidence that specifically involved Manafort’s work on the Trump campaign. The prosecution had originally sought to avoid any Trump talk, but government lawyers appear to have made the calculation that injecting Trump into the trial was a risk worth taking in order to demonstrate how Manafort leveraged his position to secure loans.