Manafort Trial, Day 13: And now we wait. Jury deliberations are expected to begin this morning. On the parting words yesterday from prosecutors and the defense: buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…
Jury deliberations are now underway in Paul Manafort's trial in federal court in Alexandria, Va. The judge briefly called the jurors in this morning and gave them a brief overview of the process, and then they went out at 9:55am. They can take as long or as short as they want
The jury will get all of the hundreds of exhibits entered into the record. They asked to use a larger room to deliberate, and the judge agreed. He reminded them that they can only deliberate while all 12 are in the room — if someone goes to the bathroom, they must stop, he said
The judge noted that the jury room was on the small side — he said he was involved in planning the construction of the courthouse, and didn't recall paying attention to the jury rooms. "I paid a lot of attention to my space. I regret that now."
At the very end, the judge got ready to call the next case. He asked if "Mr. Trump" was in the room. There was what I would call a momentary ripple of confusion/anxiety/excitement as everyone looked around. The judge appeared to be referring to a lawyer. It was not the president.
No verdict today. The judge recessed for the day at around 5:20pm. Near the end of the day, the jury handed a note to the court security officer. Reporters streamed in, anticipation grew. It turned out to contain four questions for the judge. He answered them as follows:
1. The jury asked if a person had to file a foreign bank report if they owned less than 50% of the account, didn't have signatory authority, but did have authority to disburse funds. The judge reread an earlier instruction on this, which said ownership had to be more than 50%
Why does this matter? Manafort's lawyers argued govt failed to show Manafort owned/controlled accounts to the extent he needed to file an FBAR. The accounts were under the names of corporate entities in Cyprus, some of which had Manafort's name on them, per govt evidence
2. The jury asked the judge to define a "shelf" company and the filing requirements as to income. The judge said they'd have to rely on their recollection.
This "shelf" company issue came up during Gates' testimony, he characterized some overseas entities as "shelf" companies —that is, corporate entities that were already set up for someone to take over and use
3. The jury asked the judge to redefine "reasonable doubt." The judge said the govt was not required to prove its case beyond "all possible doubt." The term meant doubt "based on reason," he said
4. The jury asked if they could get an amended copy of the exhibit list reflecting which indictment counts a particular piece of evidence related to. The judge said no, they had to rely on their collective recollection of the evidence
What does this mean? They are digging into the evidence — the FBAR filing requirements are complicated, as is understanding the corporate ownership structures at play in this case. The jury deliberated all day and will pick it up tomorrow morning
Circling back on FBAR, because I don't think I did it justice above. As Ellis read in the instruction, a person must file a report if they have an "interest" or "signature or other authority" over an account. Here's how the IRS defines those terms: irs.gov/irm/part4/irm_… 
The IRS' definition largely tracks what the judge said in his instruction. The jury will have a recording of Ellis reading the instructions, and their own notes, but they don't get a written version. It took nearly two hours for the judge to read all the instructions yesterday.
