It appears things are not going so well for Mueller's Team of Clinton Cronies. If Mueller loses this case, not only will he be the joke of the neighborhood.....but the Joke of the Country. What say ye? A seeming slam-dunk case runs up against 'improper statements' and other obstacles as the prosecution prepares to wrap up. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team of prosecutors have spent several days building what many legal experts consider a slam-dunk case against President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort. But it has been surprisingly hard going at times, and as they prepare to rest their case as early as Thursday, they bear battle wounds that Manafort’s lawyers are sure to exploit as they mount their defense. Even as Mueller’s team methodically piled up evidence of Manafort’s alleged tax and bank fraud, jurors have seen the special counsel’s case hit some potholes. Most notably, Manafort’s attorneys have painted the prosecution’s star witness, Rick Gates, as a serial liar, embezzler and philanderer who — as a defense lawyer asserted in court on Wednesday — engaged in four extramarital affairs. Several other setbacks have come courtesy of the cantankerous presiding federal judge, T.S. Ellis III. The 78-year-old Ronald Reagan appointee has repeatedly tweaked Mueller’s team, on everything from the logic of their assertions to a prosecutor’s informality in answering a question with a “yeah” instead of “yes.” He has hurried along their case and blocked them from introducing some evidence of Manafort’s lavish lifestyle. Taken on their own, the individual rebukes are relatively minor. But some legal experts say that, cumulatively, they could plant doubt in the mind of jurors about the strength of the prosecution’s case. Renato Mariotti, a prominent former federal prosecutor, tweeted Wednesday that Ellis has made “improper statements that have hurt the prosecution.”.....snip~ https://www.politico.com/story/2018/...s-ellis-768715
