US President Donald Trump’s former campaign chief, Paul Manafort, was yesterday to become the first member of Trump’s election team to face trial on charges stemming from a probe into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
Manafort, 69, has pleaded not guilty to 18 counts of bank and tax fraud related to his lobbying activities on behalf of the former Russian-backed government of Ukraine.
The indictment was filed by special counsel Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who is looking into Russian interference in the presidential election, but the charges are not connected to Manafort’s time as Trump’s campaign chairman.
Selection of a 12-member jury for “USA v Manafort” was to begin at 10am before US District Court Judge T.S. Ellis in Alexandria, Virginia. The trial is expected to last about three weeks.
Manafort, a veteran US Republican political consultant, served as chairman of Trump’s presidential election campaign for three months in 2016 before being forced to step down amid questions about his lobbying work in Ukraine.
He has been charged with five counts of filing false tax returns for not reporting bank accounts he held in Cyprus and other countries in a bid to hide millions of US dollars in income from activities on behalf of pro-Russian former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.
Manafort has been charged with failing to report the existence of foreign bank accounts to the US Internal Revenue Service and bank fraud related to several multimillion-dollar loans he obtained from various banks.
Prosecutors plan to produce nearly three dozen witnesses during the trial, including former Manafort associate Richard Gates, who is cooperating with the US government after pleading guilty to lesser charges in February.
Five witnesses have been granted immunity from prosecution to testify against Manafort.
Mueller has indicted a total of 32 people in connection with his probe into whether any members of Trump’s election campaign colluded with Russia to help get the New York real-estate tycoon into the White House.
Trump has repeatedly denounced the special counsel’s investigation as a politically motivated “witch hunt” and denied that there was any collusion with Moscow to defeat US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.
While Gates and others, including former US national security adviser Michael Flynn, have pleaded guilty, Manafort has refused to strike a deal and has insisted on having his day in court.
Legal experts said Manafort might be hoping to be found not guilty — or holding out hopes of a presidential pardon.
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said the odds are stacked heavily against the former heavyweight political operative.
“This is an exceptionally difficult case for the defense,” Turley told reporters. “To quote gamblers in Las Vegas, he has to run the table.”
“Mueller only has to secure one conviction on one count to put Manafort away for as much as a decade,” he said. “At 69, that must weigh heavily on his mind.”
Turley said that he believes “jurors are not likely to identify or empathize with Paul Manafort,” whose lavish spending and lifestyle is outlined in court documents.
“They’re going to be seeing a guy who spent half a million dollars just on landscaping,” Turley said.
“On top of that, the government will bring forth the coup de grace,” incriminating testimony by Gates, he said.
Manafort might be “playing a pardon strategy,” Turley said.
“Manafort has remained loyal,” he said. “He may feel that he doesn’t have much to lose in going to trial and preserving his chances for a pardon.”
“If he cooperates with Mueller, a pardon is going to be substantially reduced in likelihood,” he added.
Manafort has spent the past month in prison in Alexandria after having his house arrest and US$10 million bail revoked by a federal judge for allegedly tampering with witnesses in another pending case.
He is scheduled to go on trial in Washington next month on separate charges filed by Mueller of conspiracy, money laundering and failing to register as an agent of a foreign government.
Trump reacted to Manafort’s jailing in June by describing it as “very unfair.”
“Wow, what a tough sentence for Paul Manafort, who has represented [former US president] Ronald Reagan, [former US senator] Bob Dole and many other top political people and campaigns,” Trump said on Twitter on June 15. “Didn’t know Manafort was the head of the Mob.”
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