A lone holdout on the Paul Manafort jury prevented it from returning convictions on 10 of the 18 counts of bank and tax fraud he faced—and it wasn’t the woman who called the Russia investigation a “witch hunt” and literally drove to court each day with a Make America Great Again hat in her backseat.
That juror, Paula Duncan, told Fox News that “one person…kept the verdict from being guilty on all 18 counts.” Duncan, a self-described Trump supporter, described the case as a “witch hunt to try to find Russian collusion,” and that Manafort “wouldn’t have gotten caught if they weren’t after President Trump.”
She, however, was convinced by the overwhelming evidence against him. “I did not want Paul Manafort to be guilty, but he was, and no one is above the law,” she told Fox.
Duncan said that the holdout juror was a woman and she wouldn’t be convinced Manafort was guilty beyond reasonable doubt on the remaining 10 counts after four days of deliberation.
Duncan said fellow jurors had laid out the case against Manafort “again and again.” Duncan added that the holdout juror was the one who had sent a note asking the judge to define reasonable doubt. “We felt a little foolish, actually, sending it,” Duncan said, “but that’s the way the jury works.”
Manafort could face a retrial on the remaining 10 counts, which may be more likely in light of how close prosecutors were to getting convictions on all 18. Manafort is also facing another trial next month in Washington, D.C., on charges that he obstructed justice, conspired to launder money, and failed to register as a foreign agent.
