Updated at 8:53 p.m. ET
Prosecutors in Paul Manafort’s bank and tax fraud trial did not rest their case on Friday as had been expected earlier.
Instead, they called a witness to the stand who highlighted the sometimes murky line for Manafort between the personal and the political, and they said they expected to call one or two more witnesses on Monday before resting then.
The ninth day of Manafort’s fraud trial began with an unexplained five-hour delay. During much of that time, Judge T.S. Ellis III was in conferences with prosecutors and the defense.
White noise is played in the courtroom during such conferences so the public and reporters cannot hear what was being said.
Some 90 minutes after the expected start to the day’s testimony, the judge briefly called in the jury. Ellis issued a warning reminding jurors to keep an open mind and not discuss the case with anyone, including each other. He then announced a break for an early lunch.
The banker’s evidence
After another 45 minute delay to kick off the afternoon, Dennis Raico, a former vice president of Federal Savings Banks, finally took the witness stand for the prosecution.
Raico talked about the unusual and winding process that Manafort used in qualifying for two loans from the bank in 2016 and early 2017. Manafort ultimately borrowed $16 million. Raico discussed the role the bank’s CEO, Steve Calk, played in that process.
Manafort met with several of the bank’s executives, including Calk, for dinner in Manhattan in May of 2016. Calk wanted to meet Manafort, Raico said, after hearing he was involved in politics. Raico testified that Calk said that he’d be interested in serving in a Trump administration.
Raico said that a few days after Trump was elected, Calk called him to say he hadn’t spoken with Manafort in a few days. Calk asked Raico to speak with Manafort to see whether Calk was up for nomination to become secretary of the Treasury or secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the incoming Trump administration.
Jurors already have heard testimony that Manafort reached out to the Trump transition team to discuss choosing Calk for secretary of the Army. Ultimately, Army Secretary Mark Esper was nominated and confirmed for that position.
Raico also testified on Friday that in the fall of 2016, a loan-approval committee Calk led signed off on Manafort’s loan within a day. The committee did so, Raico said, even though there were questions about significant discrepancies between the income figure on his tax return and the figure in other financial documents.
“A plus B didn’t equal C all the time,” Raico said. He also said the political nature of Calk’s involvement in the loans made him “very uncomfortable.”
Andrew Chojnowski, also of Federal Savings Bank, was the final witness of the day on Friday. He testified that Manafort had signed loan papers confirming that he understood that it’s illegal to make false statements during the applications process.
Speed bump
As recently as Thursday, prosecutors had said they expected to rest their case on Friday after two weeks of detailed testimony from accountants, bookkeepers, luxury vendors and Manafort’s former business partner.
That timeline has now shifted.
Now prosecutors are expected to rest Monday, sometime after court resumes at 1 p.m. ET. They’ve spent the past two weeks working to illustrate how they say Manafort evaded taxes on millions of dollars by hiding money in shell companies and bank accounts based mainly in Cyprus.
They also allege that when Manafort’s income dried up — after his most important political consulting client in Ukraine was ousted from power — Manafort lied to banks to…
