ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The jury had been dismissed for the day, but Judge T.S. Ellis III was not quite finished opining about what he saw as irrelevant and repetitive questioning of a witness in the financial fraud trial of Paul Manafort. He angrily confronted the prosecution, standing up at his desk and, at one point, slamming his hand onto the wooden ledge.

“Just listen to me,’’ he thundered over the objections of Greg D. Andres, the federal prosecutor at the lectern, who had been visibly frustrated with the judge’s repeated interruptions since the prosecution began presenting its case.

“Look at me,’’ the judge ordered during a combative exchange that lasted more than 10 minutes.

“Don’t look down. Don’t roll your eyes,’’ he told Andres, who had glanced down at his notes. Andres was showing a lack of respect, as if the judge was spouting “BS,’’ Ellis admonished.

Ellis, 78, is the formidable ringmaster of the greatest show in the US District Court in Alexandria, Va., demanding both precise questioning and a breakneck pace in the trial of Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman.

He has routinely broken in on questioning, limited admission of evidence, and exhorted lawyers to “expedite’’ — all the while entertaining spectators with humorous asides about his age, his wife, his Navy past, his lack of an e-mail address, the jury’s lunch menu, split infinitives, and the noise produced by a machine intended to keep bench conferences from being overheard (like “the sound of waves crashing’’).

An appointee of Ronald Reagan, he has pushed the customary limits of judicial intervention so far that Andres at one point seemed to suggest the prosecution had grounds to appeal. After the prosecutor complained Monday about the number of times “your honor stops us and asks us to move on,’’ the judge declared that he would stand by the record.

“I will stand by the record, as well,’’ Andres responded.

Manafort’s lawyers have stayed out of firing range so far, but their turn could come when the defense starts putting on its own witnesses.

To his admirers, Ellis’s bluntness and impatience are indicative of a razor-sharp mind. He has degrees from Princeton, Harvard, and Oxford.

But some lawyers question whether he is so controlling that he unfairly restricts how both defenders and prosecutors can operate. He loves the law, some lawyers who have been before him say sardonically, almost as much as he loves himself.

Whatever criticism he has faced does not seem to have fazed Ellis at all in his conduct of Manafort’s trial.

“I am a Caesar in my own Rome,’’ he said at one point, discussing why he refused to allow defendants to plead no contest instead of guilty. “It’s a pretty small Rome,’’ he added.