Manafort Trial Enters Second Day Amid Trump Tweets

a steady stream of witnesses. President Trump tried to distance himself from Manafort in tweets today, as he has for months. Here he is speaking at the White House in June like Manafort has nothing to do with our campaign. But I feel so. I tell you, I feel a little badly better. They went back twelve years to get things

that he did twelve years ago. Joining me in our New York studios is former federal prosecutor Eli Hoenicki's special counsel at Loewenstein Sandler and executive director of the Rutgers Institute on Secure Communities. Before we get to the trial itself, what's going on with the Manafort tweet storm references to al capone. It's hard to follow. The President has been all over the map in his relationship with Paul Manafort.

Of course, when Manafort was the campaign manager, they were close in The President vouched for him and supported him. When Manafort got remanded a month or so ago on witness tampering, the President said he got a raw deal. The last week or so, you saw the President doing what a lot of people do when someone's closing in on them, when someone's in trouble, and say, I don't I barely know this guy. He only worked for me

for some short time. Who is he? But then today he seems to the President seems to have bounced back to the original position of Oh, this poor guy's getting getting such a raw deal. So, uh, he's all over the map. That that is true about about these tweets and other tweets today too. So now let's talk about the Manafort trout. Now we know the defense. It's blame it on the witness who's cooperating with the government. Manafort claims his right hand man, Rick Gates, did the crime.

It's not a very original defense, but might it work. It's quite standard. Uh, you know, blame the cooperator. It's really the everyone did it but me defense, which is hard to swallow when the butt me is the boss, the top guy. And so I think I think they're gonna have an evidence problem and they're gonna have a common sense problem with the jury. Um, who's the guy who built the company it was manap Who's the guy who opened thirty bank accounts all around the world. You know,

who's the guy who had the relationships with oligarchs. Who's the guy, most importantly who made the most money. Who's wearing you know, the now infamous Ostrich jacket. The emphasis on that Ostrich jacket is amazing. I think a lot of people google the term Ostrich jacket yesterday for the first time. But it's a hard sell. Um. And and you know, to to say my number two did it all is gonna be tough, and the evidence looks like

it's just not going to support it. And obviously Gates will implicate Manipor, but it sounds like others will to take take the first witness from yesterday, who seems like a pretty down the middle witness. UM. He said, he said. The one quote that I took out of his testimony was he said Paul was in charge. Paul meaning Manafort was in charge. UM, and beyond that, you have financial documents showing the money going to Manafort, you have emails.

You know. One of the key allegations here is that Manafort knew he had these foreign bank accounts and light it light on it and his tax returns. Um, there's information the indictment saying we have communications from his accountant asking Paul do you have foreign bank accounts? And Manafort said no. So I don't know how they get around that. Now.

The judge is moving this very quickly. He today Apparently the prosecution had trouble getting the some uh photographs in or having the jury look at them that he they he said that he wants he doesn't want to term oligarchus. So their witness ended up saying a very wealthy person or a person of wealth. They seem to be taken aback a little bit. The prosecutors by the speed at which the judge is moving it. Yeah, so so two things.

Speed generally is the prosecutor's friend at a trial, you do, I don't want a jury there through trial that's getting dragged out over weeks months, you start to lose them. You know, memory is just inherently not that long. So when I was prosecuting cases. I wanted the case to move. Now this case is moving at lightning speed, and I think what we see the judge trying to do. By by all accounts, Judge Ellis is a very strong, hands on judge, and I think that by barring certain terms

that maybe would be inflammatory, oligarch that kind of thing. Um, it's frustrating as a prosecutor, But I think what the judge is trying to do is keep the focus as narrowly as possible on the bank fraud, on the tax fraud. He doesn't want any He wants as little as possible of the Russian peace, you know, elections Trump. He wants to keep all of that stuff out so we have a clean right down to mental trial. He also, of course, the prosecutors want to paint this lifestyle that Paul Manaford had,

which was really over the top. They spent about a million and a half dollars on clothes and our antiques and the houses. But he he also said something about, um, you know, move this forward, he said, or when are you going to start telling us about you know, I wonder how you're going to time manifort to these moneys after they talked about all the money, money, money, But what's their point in talking about the money's more than just tying him to the money's what's the kind of

picture they want to paint of him for the jury. Yeah, so there's two things. When you come across a piece of evidence like that as a prosecutor that you know, of course the ostrich check at the watch your first reactions. You smile and you circle it and you make a little happy face because he goes, Wow, the jury's gonna hate this guy. It's obnoxious. It's offensive. They're all you know,

you assume your jurory or sort of working people. Um, but you can't overdo it because at a certain point it seems like you're just trying to slander the guy. There's no there's no crime to being rich. But I think there's a little more here to that argument. I think what what the prosecution is trying to establish is this is a guy who cared a lot about his money, right, A guy who spends like that cares about his money. There's some people who are sloppy with money or don't

really care, aren't focused on money. This guy was laser focused on money, and I think it makes it that much less likely that he had no idea what was going on and his number two, Rick Gates, was sort of stealing at all and he didn't follow the books that closely. How much so with all the other evidence of prosecutors have five pieces of evidence were listed, exhibits were listed. How much is going to depend on the

credibility of Rick Gates? I mean if the if the defense does a really good job on cross examination, how much will that hurt the case? Yeah, Rick Gates is going to be the most important witness in this case. There's no question. There are some cases where you will rise or fall on your cooperator. If the co operator is credited, you'll win, get a conviction. I'm talking from a prosecutor's perspective, and if the jury discredits him, you'll have an acquittal. I actually don't think this is one

of those cases. I think there's enough other evidence, enough documentary evidence, enough circumstantial evidence that even if the jury is a little if he on Gates um, they can still convict. Now, you want to make that argument in closing as a prosecutor, but it's tricky because you don't even want to raise the possibility they wouldn't fully credit Gates, But but I do think even if the jury doesn't

completely by Rick gates testimony, there's still room for conviction here. Now, the prosecution, as we know, has to get twelve out of twelve. The defense only has to get one to get a hung jury. What might the repercussions of a hung jury b for the Muller investigation as a whole. Yeah, hung jury would be devastating, It really would. Um, I've had hung. Jerry's right. Technically, hung jury's a tie and almost always you redo it, you retry the person. But

it would hurt here. Um, you know, you can see what would happen if it's eleven to one. Eleven want to convict and one doesn't. You know, the president and everyone else who believes this is a rigged witch hunt are going to declare victory and say shows what a sham the Muller team is. And they couldn't even convict and the jury rejected their theory. So uh, hung jury is not going to be a tie. It's going to be a win for Manaph and Trump and a loss

for Muller. Just to have about fifty seconds here, do you know the prosecutor I know some of the prosecutors, like some of them in action, But I don't know these these pros I don't I know Greg Andres, who I think is the lead in the case. Um, he was doing organized crime cases in Brooklyn when I was doing them in Manhattan. Look, he's the best there is. Um. He's tenacious, he's extremely talented. He's on the short list of guys i'd ever want prosecute me if I did

something wrong. It's great to have you here. It's always great to have you on. That's Ellie Hoenig of Lowenstein Sandler and executive director of the Rutgers Institute on Site a community. Andrew Wheeler has only been leading the e p A for three weeks, but in that time he's made it clear that he'll be adopting much of his predecessors Scott Pruitt's agenda, but not his headline grabbing habits.

During his first congressional testimony today, Wheeler said President Trump gave him three tasks when he was appointed Acting Administrator. Clean up the air, clean up the water, and provide regulatory relief to help the economy thrive and create more jobs for American workers. I believe we're accomplished all three at the time. In fact, we have already made progress on all three fronts in just the past few weeks. Joining us is Jennifer de Loie, Bloomberg News Environment and

Energy Regulation reporter. Jennifer, you were at the hearings today and did he explain how he's going to deregulate at the same time as cleaning up the air and water. Well, he talked a lot about regulatory certainty, the idea that you can process permits more quickly um and and gives answers to the you know, businesses that are and the

developers that are seeking permits involving water or land. So that's really where I think the rubber meets the road, where you have this flash, and where he is hoping to bridge the divide. Any big headlines from him on any important issues that you're following, absolutely, So what was really interesting today is is, of course how heavily the hearing focused on policy, A little bit of a change from hearings we saw with his predecessor, Scott Krewett that

were dominated by concerns about ethics and spending. Today, uh Andrew Wheeler indicated that he wants to reach some kind of compromise with California, Fornia over vehicle emission standards. UH. The Administrations is on the verge of releasing its proposal UH to ease Obama era standards that aim to increase fuel economy requirements and UM and greenhop gas emission requirements for cars over the coming years, and they're going to

freeze those in the proposal. UH. The proposal also is going to take aim at California's unique ability to regulate emission in its own turf and UH. And what Wheeler said today is he'd like to see a fifty states solution, UM, some kind of compromise that that California can be on board with and that wouldn't require him to go after California's authority. So but jen In in the statement or the report that's going to be unveiled, is it going to still talk about trying to take back California's the

special power it has over emissions. Right. Our reporting indicates that indeed, this proposal tomorrow won't UH, We'll still have that very strong language and in it UM that it

will asserts that California's own emission rules are preempted. UM that California shouldn't have a wave or allowing them to regulate emissions uh in this special way, and that it will of course take this harder approach to freezing the Obama air standards that said wheel Are made UH pains today to say this is just a proposal, and of course it's the proposal that involves not just his agency, the e p A, but is also being written with

the Department of Transportation, where you have some uh political appointees that are pushing this harder stance, so that that we're going to see these tensions I think play out overcoming months. But he took pains today to stress that this is just an opening bid and his goal as a compromise. Is it fair to say that will Are is auditioning for the job full time? Is it his to lose? Oh? Absolutely, This is an audition and on

the job and on the job audition as it were. Uh. Senator Barosso the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee today so that he'd like to see Wheeler get the job full time. Uh, it doesn't. We don't have any indications that the President is prepared to nominate him any time before the November elections, and this issue will probably Linker for a while, but no question, everyone is watching his performance from the White House to the Senate.

Jen You've written about how you know, some people might read some of his actions as being backing off of prue It's agenda, but they would be wrong. Explain what his aim seems to be right. What we see with Wheeler is really a continuation of Prue's agenda. He still aims to ease many of the same regulations that Pruitt

targeted for revision or appeal. Uh. That includes Obama air regulations governing greenhouse gas emissions from oil wells and from power plants, and of course the car proposal we just talked about. Uh. What what is different is that even though the agenda is going to be continuing, and it is clearly continuing in similar fashion, Wheeler is taking a slower approach. He's a little bit more cautious. He might be a little less aggressive in leaning into some of

these um policy changes. Uh. Some folks think that will that he's more interested in doing a lot of the dotting of eyes and crossing of cheese that's necessary to ensure these rollbacks are supported and can withstand legal scrutiny. Uh. That's a question we'll see answered later on how well he does at that UM. But certainly he's taking a slower and more cautious approach in enacting some of the same reforms. Now, Willer is a former lobbyist, and he

did get a question about his ethics. What was that? Right at the very top of the hearing, he was asked about his willingness to recuse himself from past clients. He's he's indicated that he will not um interact with or be involved in decisions that directly involved past clients, including notably um uh the coal miner Bob Murray, the

head of Murray Energy Corporation. Uh. But that really was remarkably the only ethics question in this uh this hearing where Franklin Previous hearings involving Prue it were dominated by inquiries about ethics. So in general, Jen about thirty seconds here did it see less? Did it seem less confrontational than the hearings with Pruitt Night and Day? Absolutely less confrontational. He was given a warm welcome, relatively speaking, by both

Democrats and Republicans, including some of Prue expiercist critics. All right, thanks so much for that report. That's Jennifer de Loowe, Bloomberg News Environment and Energy regulation reporter. Will have more on those Is Wheeler hearings throughout the day. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg