Here’s the thing about that wacky judge in the Paul Manafort trial

| 2:02 am EDT August 13, 2018
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With the prosecution preparing to wrap up its case today, and the defense planning to call few if any witnesses of its own, we’re already near the end of the Paul Manafort trial. Based on how the witnesses and evidence have played out, there’s roughly as much suspense about the outcome as there is when one football team heads into the fourth quarter with a 35-0 lead over the other: it could theoretically go the other way, but no one expects it to. That’s led the media and the public to focus on the one aspect of this mundane trial that has been surprising: the behavior of the judge.

At one point during the trial, Judge T.S. Ellis berated Robert Mueller’s prosecution team for allowing a witness to remain in the room while another witness was testifying, before the prosecution reminded the judge that he had in fact approved the move. The judge then had to apologize to the jury. In fact the judge has berated prosecutors at nearly every turn, even though he keeps siding with them. In another instance, the judge forgot to bring in the jury, and had to be reminded.

This has all been rather odd, and it’s caught the attention of the media, which frankly has had little else to talk about when it comes to this otherwise paint-by-numbers trial. Various doomsday scenarios have been floated. The thing is, none of them have made sense. If this judge were looking to harm the prosecution’s chances of winning, he wouldn’t have ruled in favor of the prosecution on every pre-trial motion. In fact that appears to be the giveaway about what’s really going on here.

During each of those pre-trial motions, this judge questioned the motives of Robert Mueller’s team, but ended up ruling in Mueller’s favor every time. Either the judge likes to play devil’s advocate, or he’s going out of his way to make the inevitable guilty verdict appeal-proof by demonstrating at every turn that he’s no friend of the prosecution.

Is the judge overselling it? Maybe. But that’s not grounds for mistrial or appeal, as Paul Manafort can’t argue that he’s the one being treated unfairly. We’ll see what the judge says and does today as the prosecution wraps up, and both sides gear up for closing arguments. But there has been nothing thus far to suggest that Manafort has any realistic chance of being left off the hook.