(WASHINGTON) — Two questions loom massive as Paul Manafort prepares to stroll right into a federal courtroom Tuesday: Will Donald Trump’s former marketing campaign chairman spend what successfully may very well be the remainder of his life in jail? Or will particular counsel Robert Mueller be handed a defeat in his crew’s first trial since his appointment greater than a 12 months in the past?
Those questions might be answered by 12 jurors chosen this week as Manafort’s trial on tax evasion and financial institution fraud expenses will get underway on the courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia. The pool of jurors will face questions from each side and U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III as they attempt to weed out potential prejudice in what has turn into a extremely publicized and politically divisive investigation.
That job comes because the president and his lawyer-spokesman, Rudy Giuliani, have intensified their makes an attempt to undermine the Mueller investigation within the court docket of public opinion and because the president continues to waffle on whether or not he’ll sit for a non-public interview with prosecutors. The president criticized Mueller by title over the weekend and continues to discuss with the particular counsel investigation into Russian election interference as a “witch hunt” and “an illegal scam.”
While the principle areas of Mueller’s investigation are Russia’s actions in the course of the 2016 presidential election and any makes an attempt by Trump to hinder justice, none of these matters are anticipated to come back up in Manafort’s trial. In reality, prosecutors stated final week they don’t anticipate the phrase “Russia” to be talked about in any respect.
Instead, the trial will middle on Manafort’s Ukrainian consulting work and solely briefly contact on his involvement with the president’s marketing campaign.
Prosecutors have lined up 35 witnesses and greater than 500 items of proof they are saying will present how Manafort earned greater than $60 million from his Ukrainian work after which hid a “significant percentage” of that cash from the IRS. Prosecutors can even argue that Manafort fraudulently obtained thousands and thousands extra in financial institution loans, together with throughout his time on the marketing campaign.
In specific, prosecutors say they’ll introduce proof {that a} chairman of one of many banks allowed Manafort to file inaccurate mortgage data in alternate for a job on the Republican marketing campaign and the promise of a job within the Trump administration that by no means materialized.
At the middle of all this might be one other Trump marketing campaign aide, Rick Gates, who spent years working for Manafort in Ukraine and can be accused of serving to him falsify paperwork used to acquire the financial institution loans. Gates, who reduce a plea cope with Mueller earlier this 12 months, is anticipated to testify in opposition to his former mentor.
Gates can be anticipated to play a key function in Manafort’s second trial scheduled for September. That trial, set within the District of Columbia, entails allegations that the longtime political advisor acted as an unregistered international agent for Ukrainian pursuits and made false statements to the U.S. authorities.
Manafort is the one American charged by Mueller to go for a trial.
The different 31 folks charged have both pleaded responsible or are Russians seen as unlikely to enter an American courtroom. Three Russian corporations have additionally been charged. One of these corporations has pleaded not responsible and is combating the allegations in federal court docket in Washington.