“Follow the money” is often the winning strategy.
TFW when the jury realizes your bank frauds have to be sorted by year, often subsetted by month.
Juror #5: Which one is this again?
Juror #2: I think it’s April 2015.
Juror #7: I thought it was March 2016.
Juror #1: I think maybe would should have the bailiff fetch the directory.
…loan application from Manafort she helped process in late 2016 and early 2016. The $3.4 million loan…was ultimately approved on March 4, 2016…
So, late 2015 and early 2016? Or late 2016 and early 2017 and the March date is also 2017? Not to be picky, but these dates actually matter when there are multiple fraudulent loans over a number of years to try to sort out.
Caitlin MacNeal is just winded after running the two blocks to the hotel room and then having to read her notes and get the story out while Sneed watches the courtroom for the cross-examination.
…a loan application from Manafort she helped process in late 2016 and early 2016.
Or, as it is known to those of you commoners not in the journalism profession… 2016.
White boards and colored string…just saying.
Not that it matters so much any more, but I’m beginning to wonder about the endgame that manafort was planning. He took out all these loans to maintain the cash flow from the days when he was getting piles of oligarch money, but those loans would have required payments, at the same time that he was working for free. So he must have expected to be able to latch onto some source of a few million bucks a year by, say, late 2017 at the outside.
Or he was just crazy scrambling.
Manafort’s Virginia trial resumed Thursday with testimony […]
Devastating.
Thanks for the report, Ms. MacNeal and Ms. Tierney.
Well …
Yeah and I’ve read over and over that the money trail leads through Manafort to Kushner straight to Trumpy.
Yes.
But… Paulie was just an innocent and trusting little lammie who was deceived by that adulterous liar and thug Trump…err Gates…err Papadoupolis… err Giuliani… err
He showed an email in which Manafort prepared his son-in-law for a visit from an appraiser, saying, “Remember, he believes that you and Jessica are living there.”
Gonna be hard to pin this little gem on Gates.
I’m impressed with the speed with which the prosecutors are presenting their case, and I think using the mortgage fraud at this point is wise. Tax returns can be confusing when you get up into those high brackets with all the breaks they get, but a mortgage? I imagine all of those jurors have had to complete mortgage applications, and it isn’t hard to envision them comparing that soul-baring experience with what Manafort did.
Still, figuring out a way to create a visual for all this would be helpful, if not for the jury, then certainly for me!
It is so easy for the very rich to get away with fraud! The bank(s) didn’t bother to check into Manafort’s claims, or even read the date on his paperwork for god’s sake, they just took his word. Nice.
I hope that Manafort’s ultimate goal of selling access (domestic & foreign) to Trump is clearly proven by the prosecution.
If not in this trial, then in one of the other trials he faces.
My thoughts exactly.
I hope that the banks file civil or criminal charges of their own in state court from Manafort.