First, the move to acquit Monday by Paul Manafort's lawyers in his ongoing trial for bank and tax fraud is apparently a standard action taken by the defense once the prosecution rests its case, which it did Monday afternoon after calling 27 witnesses over the course of 10 days. "Typically the judge denies them or defers ruling on them until after the jury verdict," writes former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti. "The standard for granting them is extremely hard for the defense to meet."
But argue it, they will. According Buzzfeed's Zoe Tillman, the defense contends the prosecution failed to prove the banks made their lending decisions based on the false documentation Manafort allegedly provided to them (in other words, he didn’t defraud them). They also say prosecutors didn't demonstrate Manafort acted with the requisite "willfulness" when it came to evading his taxes and failing to report his accounts overseas.
The prosecution began closing its case by calling one more witness from First Savings Bank, Vice President James Brennan, to testify on the $16 million in loans Manafort secured from the Chicago-based institution. Though Manafort had claimed $2.4 million in income on his loan applications, Brennan testified they had trouble verifying it, writes Politico.
"Mr. Manafort had no revenue [and] just $638,000 in expenses" in 2016 before he applied for the $9.5 million loan, the bank executive said.
Brennan also called Manafort's failure to be transparent about other loans he had taken out "a red flag." Ultimately, Brennan said the $9.5 million loan went through because the bank's CEO, Stephen Calk, wanted it to go through even after the bank's president had declared it too risky.
"It closed because Mr. Calk wanted it to close," Brennan said of the CEO who we learned last week thought he might be up for an position in the Trump administration. Brennan said the bank has since lost some $12 million on the loans.
Finally, the prosecution asked a Treasury Department official to return to the stand in order to verify that she could find no evidence of Manafort's consulting firms disclosing their foreign bank accounts to the government. Paula Liss, a certified fraud examiner and money laundering specialist, had already testified that neither Manafort nor his wife had acknowledged the offshore bank accounts. But in five short questions, Liss verified that neither of Manafort's two latest firms, Davis Manafort Partners and Davis Manafort International LLC, had filed bank account reports for the overseas accounts.
On Tuesday, we will find out if the defense rests or decides to call witnesses. Stay tuned!