Major television network and cable reporters have parachuted onto the scene outside the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, as jury deliberations continue for a third day in Paul Manafort’s trial https://t.co/QRwTF90hV1 pic.twitter.com/mSU6iOmSbj
— POLITICO (@politico) August 20, 2018
Nothing grabs headlines quite like white-collar crime. On what is now Day 4 of the high stakes tax fraud case of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, with no end of deliberation in sight, journalists, lawyers, and lookiloos awaiting a verdict are less fraught with anticipation than captivated by the body language of jurors out for a smoke break or boredly playing solitaire or crosswords in the courtroom.
Journalists, write Ben Schreckinger, Josh Gerstein and Darren Samuelsohn for POLITICO, are content with watching for the lights to go on and off in the jury room while the hours pass with little or no news. “About 50 members of the media camped out in the small plaza in front of the courthouse with dozens more in the lobby of the Westin across the street and in the hotel’s restaurant, where a cheeseburger ordered “rare” came back brown in the middle, just the way the president likes it.”
These intrepid writers are relegated to questioning the timing and the substance of certain lunch orders. Terrible diets abound for reporters and lawyers alike.
Manafort is facing 18 counts of tax and bank fraud in the first trail brought about by special counsel Robert Mueller. If convicted on all counts, Manafort would be sentenced to 305 years in prison. No easy task for the twelve jurors who will ultimately decide his fate.
Read the full story here.