No verdict in Manafort trial as Trump supports former aide

Judge reports receiving threats

Alexandria, Va. — President Donald Trump weighed in with a public defense of Paul Manafort on Friday, as a jury concluded its second day of deliberations to decide if the president’s former campaign chairman is guilty of tax and bank fraud.

Jurors signaled Friday afternoon that they were unlikely to reach a verdict before the day ended and asked if they could leave the courthouse at 5 p.m. U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III agreed, and the panel is scheduled to resume deliberations Monday morning.

At the White House, Trump declined to answer a question about a possible pardon for Manafort, but spoke out against special counsel Robert Mueller III, whose office brought the charges against the 69-year-old Manafort.

“I think the whole Manafort trial is very sad. When you look at what’s going on, I think it’s a very sad day for our country,” Trump said, adding that Manafort “happens to be a very good person, I think it’s very sad what they’ve done to Paul Manafort.”

Trump spoke shortly after the jury in nearby Alexandria, Va., had begun its second day of deliberations. Manafort faces 18 charges of tax and bank fraud. Prosecutors say he hid millions of dollars from the IRS in overseas bank accounts and then lied to banks to obtain multimillion-dollar loans.

As the panel deliberated, Ellis disclosed at a hearing that he had received threats and is being guarded by deputy U.S. marshals.

“They go where I go,” he said. “I don’t even go to the hotel alone; I don’t give the name of the hotel.” The judge lives in Charlottesville but stays at a hotel on the weekdays when he works out of the Alexandria courthouse.

He made the surprising statement during a hearing at which a consortium of news organizations pressed for the release of jurors’ names, along with other documents sealed during the trial.