Robert S. Mueller III’s prosecutors have taken pains not to make Paul Manafort’s trial about President Trump.
When prosecutor Greg Andres on Tuesday asked Rick Gates, his star witness and Manafort’s former business partner, where Manafort stayed in New York, Gates said “he had an apartment on Fifth Avenue.” Neither mentioned that it was in Trump Tower.
When Andres flashed an exhibit on the screen that had a line about Manafort’s Yankees tickets “going to Trump next week,” neither man said the future president’s name aloud.
And when Andres asked Gates what he did in March 2016, the two men performed some elliptical choreography.
“I went to work on one of the presidential campaigns,” Gates said.
Andres asked if Manafort was “also working on one of the presidential campaigns.”
“He was.”
Perhaps the jurors thought they were talking about the George Pataki campaign?
Ultimately, however, there is no getting around it: This is Manafort’s trial, but it reflects on Trump’s style and judgment. Trump has described Manafort as a fleeting figure in his campaign, and it’s true he couldn’t have known the extent of the alleged wrongdoing. Yet the pair’s history with unsavory characters was well known, and some of the misbehavior alleged in court occurred during their time working for Trump.
