Here’s what happens if Paul Manafort is not convicted

We’re now probably no more than two to three days, at most, away from a verdict in the Paul Manafort trial. All indictions are that Manafort will be convicted on most or all charges. Nonetheless, Palmer Report readers have asked me what will happen if Manafort isn’t convicted. I consider this a highly unlikely scenario, but for those who’ve asked, I’ll spell it out.

First we have to make sure we’re asking the right question. Paul Manafort is currently on trial for eighteen different felony charges. For him to be acquitted, all twelve jurors would need to find him “not guilty” on all eighteen charges. Simply put, that’s not going to happen. The relevant question here is what happens if one or more jurors ends up being uncomfortable voting “guilty” on one or more charges. The evidence against Manafort is a slam dunk on every count. However, some of the charges are more complicated and difficult to understand than others, so it’s possible that not every juror will get there on every charge.

Just to pick a hypothetical, let’s say that eleven jurors want to convict Manafort on all eighteen charges, and one juror is only willing to convict him on fourteen of the charges. Various legal experts have stated that in such case, the jury would end up agreeing to convict on the fourteen charges, while tossing out the other four. This would be considered a thorough victory for Robert Mueller, who really only needs Manafort to be convicted on any one charge in order to establish the precedent that his Trump-Russia investigation is legally valid. But there is another scenario.

Let’s say there’s one juror who ultimately refuses to convict Manafort on any charges. To be as clear as possible, we’ve seen absolutely no signs that this is the case. But if it did happen, the result would be a hung jury and a mistrial. Mueller would then need to decide whether to prioritize retrying Manafort on these charges in front of a new jury, or focus on Manafort’s second trial on a different batch of charges, which is set to begin next month.

Again, I can’t stress enough that there is absolutely no reason to believe that the jury will fail to convict Paul Manafort. I know cable news has done a fair amount of scaremongering over this, but keep in mind that the legal experts on television are playing for the cameras, which requires creating suspense – even when there is none. If you read the opinions of various legal experts who aren’t in front of a camera, it’s difficult to find anyone who thinks there’s any realistic chance Manafort won’t be convicted.