Because bank fraud does not require the loan be granted. Only that the application itself was fraudulent. The judges remarks could be interpreted by the jury as fraud occurs only when a loan is granted.
Then that’s a minor instruction he will need to make to the jury to ignore his statement, there will not be a mistrial and this judge will not need to recuse himself.
You are correct. But there is a good reason not to spend time on the Citizen’s Bank loan: It is not referenced in the indictment. Judge Ellis didn’t say it directly, but I think he was questioning why the prosecution is spending court time presenting evidence about a crime that is not in the indictment.
At the prosecution’s request, a Grand Jury indicted Manafort for loan fraud involving two specific loans that were consummated/funded. The prosecution claims to have evidence that Manafort made false representations to get the loans approved and spent the loan funds other than as agreed. Telling them to stick to evidence that relates to the case on trial seems reasonable.
In this case the bank was not defrauded, they have no monetary damages because they didn’t make the loan.
Suppose Manafort told the bank he made $10M when he really only made $5M. The IRS can’t tax him on $10M, only on what he actually made. If Manafort filed a tax return only reporting $2M Muller should show evidence of that. So far he has not shown any such evidence.
I disagree.
There has to be a harm caused for their to be a crime.
A disapproved loan caused no harm.