The trial, being held in Alexandria, Virginia, is presided over by the sharp-tongued Judge TS Ellis III, who has repeatedly admonished the prosecution to stick to the facts. "I'm not in the theater business," he told attorneys last week after saying he wanted the entire trial done in three weeks' time, Politico reported.
The judge has also accommodated Manafort's legal team, giving them an extra week to review evidence and promising to ensure the details of Manafort's work as a lobbyist in Ukraine don't make their way to the jury, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
"He's not afraid to use his discretion to help defendants when he believes it's the right thing to do," defense lawyer Cary Citronberg told the Post. "So, if Judge Ellis thinks Mueller is acting improperly or Manafort is being treated unfairly, it's certainly possible he'll use the full weight of his power in potentially unpredictable ways to achieve a just outcome."
US President Donald Trump, who according to Politico had previously raged against Manafort when he said in August 2016, "I've got a crook running my campaign," took to Twitter Wednesday to call the prosecution "a hoax" and call upon Attorney General Jeff Sessions to "stop this rigged witch hunt right now."
Commenting on the prosecution's use of terms like "oligarch" to describe Manafort and making comments about his profligate lifestyle, journalist and author Daniel Lazare told Radio Sputnik's Loud & Clear Wednesday that Ellis was "quite right in slapping it down."
"So, maybe Manafort will get a fair trial, but it doesn't mean this whole prosecution isn't politically tainted, like anything," he told hosts John Kiriakou and Brian Becker.
The prosecution indicated Wednesday that it may not call it star witness, Richard Gates, to testify against Manafort. Gates was indicted alongside Manafort last October, although Gates subsequently pleaded guilty and made a plea bargain after more charges were brought against him in February 2018.
"Mueller has handed down three major indictments. He's handed down an indictment against Manafort, against the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg and against 12 members of the Russian intelligence service, the GRU," Lazare noted.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has denied that the individuals named in the indictment were part of the GRU.
"He [Mueller] did not intend the latter two to ever come to trial. To his surprise, one of the indictees in the first case, in the Internet Research Agency, actually showed up in Washington and demanded a trial. Mueller apparently panicked and pleaded for more time to assemble his own facts. And it's very, very funny, because the St. Petersburg company, which is known as Concord Consulting, I believe, has hired a very aggressive attorney, who is going after Mueller, hammer and tong, very aggressive, and demanding information from the US government, showing the political nature of the whole prosecution."
But Manafort is not accused of collusion, Lazare noted: he's being charged for tax and bank fraud. He is accused of wrongdoing during his time as Trump's campaign chairman, but an investigation into that "would never have arisen if this whole hysteria had not cropped up. This is the political nature of this whole prosecution."
"There is no doubt there is a hysterical campaign, an anti-Russian campaign, that is going on now, which has totally taken leave of the facts," Lazare noted. "It's not a criminal investigation; it's a political campaign."
Prosecutors indicated Wednesday they expect to rest their case against Manafort next week.