The biggest test of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election begins Tuesday with the trial of Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.
One year ago to the month, federal agents barged into Manafort’s Alexandria, Virginia, apartment under a search warrant. They took dozens of hanging file folders, bank statements, discs, memory cards and computer hard drives, and a watch worth several thousand dollars from the design house Bijan — much of that evidence will be on display for the jury.
The trial in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, is expected to last three weeks. Jury selection will begin Tuesday, with opening arguments likely later this week. Manafort is also scheduled to face trial in Washington, DC, on related charges in September.
The case against Manafort doesn’t focus on his time as chairman of the Trump campaign in 2016. Manafort is charged with 18 violations of tax and banking laws. Prosecutors claim he hid millions of dollars in income from lobbying for Ukrainian politicians, all while failing to pay taxes and spending the money on US real estate and personal luxury purchases.
When his Ukrainian political work dried up in 2015, prosecutors say Manafort lied to banks to take out more than $20 million in loans. They accuse him of hiding his foreign bank accounts from federal authorities. Manafort also allegedly received loans from the Federal Savings Bank after one of its executives sought a position in the Trump campaign and administration, prosecutors say.
If found guilty, Manafort could face a maximum sentence of 305 years in prison.
Prosecutors have said publicly that possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign won’t come up at trial. “I don’t anticipate that a government witness will utter the word ‘Russia,'” one prosecutor said earlier this month.
That hasn’t kept the collusion question from seeping into the proceedings so far.
When the judge who will oversee the trial, Judge T.S. Ellis, first had a chance to meet with prosecutors and the defense in the case, he railed at the possibility that Mueller had skewered Manafort as a way to get to Trump.
“The vernacular is to sing,” Ellis commented in May on one of Mueller’s possible that perhaps investigators wanted Manafort to change his plea to guilty and agree to cooperate.
Prosecutors plan to call about 30 witnesses to testify against Manafort and show the jury hundreds of financial records, emails and photos. Five witnesses who wanted to avoid testifying have been given limited immunity in the case.
Manafort himself is unlikely to testify, lawyers who’ve watched the case say.
His attorneys are under a court order not to speak publicly about Manafort’s legal issues and declined to comment for this story.