Jury considers Manafort’s fate

President Donald Trump on Friday defended Paul Manafort as a jury entered its second day of deliberations in the former Trump campaign chairman’s fraud trial. Manafort faces 18 felony counts of tax evasion and bank fraud stemming from payments he received for advising Russia-backed politicians in Ukraine. His trial is the first to arise from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, but the alleged crimes happened before Manafort served as Trump’s campaign chairman.

The jury in Alexandria, Va., ended seven hours of deliberation Thursday with questions for U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III. The judge told them to rely on their collective memory of the evidence to answer most questions and that “reasonable doubt” was “doubt based on reason” but not proof “beyond all doubt.” At the White House Friday, Trump told reporters that Manafort “worked for me for a very short period of time. But you know what, he happens to be a very good person and I think it’s very sad what they’ve done to Paul Manafort.”