Prosecutors shift focus in Manafort trial

ALEXANDRIA, VA.» After three days of dramatic and even salacious testimony in the trial of Paul Manafort, prosecutors on Thursday returned to the nuts and bolts of their case against the former Trump campaign chairman as they sought to show he obtained millions of dollars in bank loans under false pretenses.

Attorneys for special counsel Robert Mueller also got a rare — and narrow — acknowledgment from U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III that he likely erred when he angrily confronted them a day earlier over whether he had allowed a witness to watch the trial.

The judge’s comments and detailed testimony about Manafort’s loans came during the eighth day of his trial as prosecutors began presenting the bulk of their bank fraud case against him after spending days largely on tax-evasion allegations. On Thursday, a series of bank employees told jurors about discrepancies and outright falsehoods contained on Manafort’s applications for millions of dollars in loans.