U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis, who will oversee the July criminal trial of President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, is known for sternly lecturing both sides in cases before him, The Wall Street Journal is reporting.
Manafort is charged with tax and bank fraud. The upcoming trial is the first to come out of special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing probe.
And lawyers expect Ellis will be a colorful presence and spin tales that go beyond the issues in front of him, the newspaper said. But in the end, he usually issues rulings likely to withstand appeals.
"For all his apparent seriousness and reprimanding and correcting and berating of attorneys, he has a heart of gold," noted Gene Rossie, a former prosecutor, who has argued cases before Ellis.
Ellis recently gained national attention when he scolded Mueller’s team of prosecutors for squeezing Manafort to get information that would help impeach Trump.
"You don't really care about Mr. Manafort's bank fraud," Ellis said during the hearing. "You really care about getting information Mr. Manafort can give you that would reflect on Mr. Trump and lead to his prosecution or impeachment."
Blunt commentaries are a trademark of the judge, the newspaper noted. He is known to be tough on attorneys who show up in his court unprepared or have typos in their filings, the Journal reported.
"Many times, he makes remarks from the bench, but you cannot take it to heart as to that is the correct reading of him and is the way in which he is thinking," said Michael Rodriquez, who worked as a court reporter in Judge Ellis’s courtroom. "You might think that he is very hard on you, (but) next thing you know, he ended up ruling on your motion in your favor."
Ellis was appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1987. His office declined a request for an interview.
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