Fox News
Paul Manafort would have been found guilty on all 18 criminal counts were it not for single holdout on the jury, a fellow juror at the trial told Fox News Wednesday.Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman was found guilty Tuesday on eight of 18 criminal counts for tax and bank fraud, in a case brought by special counsel Robert Mueller.“There was one holdout,” Paula Duncan, a member of the jury and a Trump supporter, said of the remaining 10 counts. “We all tried to convince her to look at the paper trail. We laid it out in front of her again and again, and she still said that she had a reasonable doubt.”Duncan said she "did not want Paul Manafort to be guilty," but the evidence against him laid out by the prosecutors was "overwhelming.""I thought that the public, America, needed to know how close this was, and that the evidence was overwhelming," she said. "I did not want Paul Manafort to be guilty, but he was, and no one's above the law. So it was our obligation to look through all the evidence.”
Cover image: A screengrab of Paul Manafort juror Paula Duncan appearing on Fox News.
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Following the verdict, Trump has voiced his support for Manafort, calling him a “good man” and the trial “a very sad thing that happened.”READ: Manafort found guilty on 8 criminal countsIn a tweet Wednesday, Trump praised Manafort’s unwillingness to break under pressure from the Mueller investigation. “Such respect for a brave man,” he posted.
Trump was asked during a “Fox & Friends” interview broadcast Thursday if he was considering pardoning Manafort. The president dodged the question, reiterating his sympathy for the man and his family, claiming the financier’s crimes were the same as what “every consultant, every lobbyist in Washington probably does.”
Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, told the New York Times Thursday that he had discussed with Trump the potential political fallout from such a move and they were not considering granting a pardon.