The ongoing trial of Paul Manafort in federal court in Virginia for bank fraud and tax evasion is providing a stark example of a federal judge abusing his courtroom authority to the extent he may be jeopardizing the prosecution’s ability to get a conviction, which the evidence suggests it should win. U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis has been described in press coverage of the trial as presiding as an “activist judge”; in this case that is a euphemism for a bully in a black robe.

He has described himself as “Caesar in my own Rome,” and his bizarre behavior, thus far directed almost exclusively at the federal prosecutors, suggests he truly believes that self-description.