Damn, that was fast! The legal prognosticators I’ve watched over the last 24 hours or so have all predicted it would take days to seat a jury.
The right to a speedy trial is on display in Virginia. Hopefully justice will be done.
Opening statements! That should be fun. Were you bad, Mr. Manafort? How bad were you? That bad? Oh dear!
Dam! That was fast. I hope they are ready to hang that crook.
About half of the comments at WaPo I read are some variation of yours.
ETA. A few trollies have latched onto the statement that the SC is not alleging that Manafort played a role in Russian interference in the 2016 election.
That’s okay. We can guess who did.
They don’t call this the rocket docket for nothing…
He is a judge with tight control of his courtroom. I have seen jury selection last longer than that for a slip and fall.
OMG, I could not agree more. I thought jury selection was going to take a couple of days. On the other hand, it’s federal court.
Jesus this was quick.
I’ll be interested to hear about the jury instructions. It’s clear that this judge doesn’t have much patience.
I’m afraid there will be Trumpies on the jury who will vote to acquit regardless of the evidence (“Fake News”). Kind of a practice run for when the Mangled Apricot Hellbeast is charged and tried.
I am interested in seeing how Fox News and the right-wing media deal with money laundering. It is a modern crime of concealing ill-gotten or illegal money, something a bit different from tax evasion (e.g. Al Capone got 11 years for income tax evasion). Some of the layering arrangements in concealing transactions or origins of money are also quite elaborate. Trump and Kushner seem to be going with the “it’s my money, so what do you care” defense, or treating the money as a “loan”.
That sounds more like examination of the witness (accused).
Watch Whiny pardon him after he’s convicted. Whiny loves pardoning common criminals almost as much as dead black guys.
Well there is a reason why he wanted the trial moved out of NoVa.
Objection, your honor! Badgering the defendant. But then, he deserves to be badgered. Objection withdrawn.
The Trumpies are ubiquitous. There are even many here in blue, blue St. Paul.
BTW, good to hear from you Eustace. Long time, no see.
Exactly. Federal court is a lot different than state court, if I recall correctly and the judge does the majority of the voir dire. I did a stint of jury duty in federal court during the summer between my first and second year of law school back in the 80s and was a juror and an alternate in two cases.
"Frederick Douglass is an example of someone who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I noticed.” Donald J. Trump