Jurors in Manafort trial send judge four questions

suggest they are quickly diving into the weeds of the sometimes complex tax laws at issue in the case.

First, jurors asked if someone was required to file a form called an FBAR – which is required of people with foreign bank accounts containing more than $10,000 – if they owned less than 50 percent of such an account and did not have signature authority but did have the ability to direct disbursement.

At trial, Manafort’s lawyers suggested their client might have believed he did not have to file such forms, because the companies in question were set up under his consulting firm. After 2011, he shared ownership of the firm equally with his wife. In response, the judge read to them again the legal instructions he had provided on that point Wednesday.

Second, jurors asked if the judge could define “shelf company” and the filing requirements related to income. Witnesses testified at Manafort’s trial that he used so-called shelf companies – companies previously created by a lawyer in Cyprus that could be used to control the bank accounts in question – in order to move Manafort’s money. To that question, the judge said the jury would have to rely on their memory of the evidence presented at trial.

Third, they asked if the judge could “redefine reasonable doubt.” Jurors sometimes struggle with what constitutes a reasonable doubt of someone’s guilt, versus an unreasonable doubt. The judge told them reasonable doubt “is a doubt based on reason,” but added: “The government is not required to prove guilt beyond all possible doubt.”

Defense attorneys emphasized in their closing argument that it’s not enough to believe a defendant is “likely” guilty or even “highly likely” guilty, using a thermometer chart to make the point.

Fourth, the jurors asked if they could have an updated exhibit list, connecting each piece of evidence to the corresponding charge in the indictment. The judge said they would have to rely on their collective memory to link exhibits to specific charges. Paul Manafort speaks during a Bloomberg Television interview at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio on July 18, 2016.