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ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A federal jury in Virginia convicted Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, on eight felony counts on Tuesday, but the judge declared a mistrial on the 10 other charges he faced.
Manafort was convicted of five counts of tax fraud, one count of failing to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts and two counts of bank fraud. A mistrial was declared in three counts of failing to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts, and seven counts of bank fraud and bank fraud conspiracy.
The trial was the first public test of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, and while the special counsel was vindicated, the victory wasn’t total.
While the jury was in the court room and the verdict was being read, Manafort showed no reaction and stared straight ahead, not looking at the jury. Members of his defense team often turned their heads to look at the jury.
Manafort was asked to step to the podium after the jury left the room. Judge T.S. Ellis told Manafort that he has been found guilty on a variety of counts, and that Manafort would have a role to play in the pre-sentence investigation report that the judge relies on to help determined sentencing.
As Manafort was led out of the room, he whispered into defense attorney Thomas Zehnle’s ear and nodded at his wife, Kathleen Manafort, sitting in the front row of the courtroom.
His lead attorney, Kevin Downing, said Manafort is now “evaluating all of his options.”
“Mr. Manafort is disappointed of not getting acquittals all the way through or a complete hung jury on all counts,” Downing told reporters outside the courthouse. “However, he would like to thank Judge Ellis for granting him a fair trial, thank the jury for their very long and hard-fought deliberations. He is evaluating all of his options at this point.”
Manafort faces an estimated seven to nine years in prison.
Prosecutors have until August 29 to decide what they will do about the 10 mistrial charges.
The jury deliberated for four days after hearing 12 days of arguments, evidence and witnesses.
Mueller’s team buried the defendant in an avalanche of emails, tax returns, bank documents and the damning testimony of bankers, accountants and Manafort’s onetime protégé, Rick Gates. The defense sought to raise doubts about Gates’ credibility and about other aspects of the evidence, and was partially successful.
Manafort, 69, also faces another trial on related charges next month in Washington.
He came to the Trump campaign with deep ties to Russian figures, and was the only non-Trump-family member from the campaign team to participate in the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer, which was set up on the promise of obtaining incriminating information about Hillary Clinton.
Manafort also played a role in an effort to soften a plank in the Republican Party platform calling for lethal aid to Ukrainians fighting the Russian invasion of their country.
The charges at issue in the trial, which began July 31, weren’t directly related to Russian interference in the 2016 election, the primary aim of Mueller’s investigation, but painted a startling picture of a senior campaign figure who appears to have had the motive, means and opportunity to help the Russians.
By the time he went to work for the Trump campaign for free in the summer of 2016, Manafort had no income and was in a precarious financial position, prosecutors showed. He was so desperate for cash that he felt compelled to defraud banks, lying about his income and debts, prosecutors said, offering pages of documents and a parade of witnesses who testified to inconsistencies with his loan paperwork.
“Mr. Manafort lied when he had money and lied to get more money when he didn’t,” prosecutor Greg Andres told the jury in his closing argument. “This is a case about lies.”
For Manafort, a graduate of Georgetown Law School and an adviser to five Republican presidential campaigns, it’s been a stunning collapse — first financial, and now, a life-altering criminal conviction.
He was paid some $60 million over 10 years by a Russian-backed political party in Ukraine, the prosecution showed, and evaded taxes on about half that income by parking it in overseas accounts and disguising it as loans.
But after his Ukrainian client, former president Viktor Yanukovych, fled to exile in Russia in 2014, the spigot of cash turned off, and Manafort began defrauding banks to raise cash to pay for his lavish lifestyle.
Somehow, much of the cash was gone — spent on bespoke suits, homes all over the world and the upkeep that such a lifestyle demands.
His defense team said in closing arguments that the government failed to meet its burden of proof that Manafort was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, one of the reasons it called no witnesses to testify.
Downing also argued that Gates was the real criminal, responsible for filing foreign bank account forms and for the false information provided to accountants.
“He is the one who had the signing authority,” Downing said, adding that Manafort trusted Gates so much that he gave him the keys to his financials. “What a mistake that was.”
But for the jury, the evidence was sufficient to convict Manafort of at least some financial felonies.