LEGAL/PAUL MANAFORT/ROBERT MUELLER/TREASURY/TRUMP PEOPLE: “Special counsel Robert Mueller’s prosecutors rested their case against Paul Manafort on Monday [8-13-18] afternoon after calling more than two dozen witnesses in their tax- and bank-fraud case against the former Trump campaign chairman. The final round of testimony from Treasury Department senior special agent Paula Liss lasted only five questions. It essentially boiled down to Liss stating that she had not found any evidence that Manafort’s international political consulting firms had filed reports with the U.S. government acknowledging they had foreign bank accounts. Failing to file those bank account reports are one prong of Mueller’s case against Manafort, which is set to shift to the defense on Tuesday [8-14-18] morning when the trial resumes in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. Mueller’s team brought the charges against Manafort as part of its wideranging investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III also ejected the public from the courtroom late Monday after Mueller’s team signaled they were finished and convened a closed-door hearing on an undisclosed, sealed motion by Manafort’s lawyers. Ellis, who has quarreled with the defense throughout the proceedings, said the substance of the request would become public once the trial is over.”
–Josh Gerstein, Darren Samuelsohn and Kyle Cheney, “Manafort trial Day 10: Prosecution rests, Manafort defense starts Tuesday,” Politico, August 13, 2018 5:59 pm