Manafort Virginia trial begins today

Paul Manafort faces a litany of charges related to financial crimes and money laundering in Virginia.

These alleged financial crimes are quite spectacular and could end up sending Manafort to prison for the rest of his life. But in a sense, they’re a sideshow. What’s really looming over all this is Mueller’s larger investigation into the Trump campaign and Russia.

The first set of charges, which Mueller calls “the tax scheme,” relate to Manafort’s flush years, when the Ukrainian money was pouring in to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. Mueller says Manafort set up a complex web of offshore shell companies.

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All this violated the law in two ways, Mueller says: [...] False income tax returns (5 counts) [and] [f]ailure to report foreign bank or financial assets (four counts).

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Next, there’s a second set of charges that Mueller calls “the financial institution scheme.” Mueller says that after Yanukovych was deposed and the Ukrainian money stopped pouring in, Manafort was desperate for cash, and made a series of fraudulent declarations to banks to try to get hefty mortgage loans.

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All the charges here are either bank fraud (four counts) or bank fraud conspiracy (five counts).

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Manafort is something of a legendary figure in Republican operative circles; you can think of his career in three major phases:

1) Decades of Republican campaign and lobbying work: Manafort rose to fame in the party through his work for Ford’s 1976 and Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaigns. After Reagan won, Manafort decided to cash in by starting a lobbying, consulting, and PR firm (alongside his campaign colleague Roger Stone).

The firm became infamous for representing controversial authoritarian regimes or opposition leaders abroad — clients like President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines and guerrilla leader Jonas Savimbi of Angola. Manafort also occasionally jumped back into US politics, such as to manage the Republican convention in 1996.

2) The Ukraine period: By around 2004, Manafort sought even grander paydays abroad, by advising fantastically rich oligarchs in the former Soviet Union on how to master tumultuous democratic politics. He advised a Russian billionaire, Oleg Deripaska, but eventually his efforts focused on Ukraine — where he landed a hefty contract to advise the country’s pro-Russian political party [and its leader Viktor Yanukovych].

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Once Yanukovych was in office, Manafort became an enormously influential adviser to the regime [...] (Mueller claims Manafort earned more than $60 million in these years.)

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3) The Trump campaign and afterward: [...] Trump needed someone with the expertise on party and convention rules who could lock down delegates for him. And two longtime Manafort associates who had Trump’s ear — Roger Stone, and wealthy real estate investor Tom Barrack — pitched Manafort for the job.

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The Virginia trial is expected to last about two to three weeks.

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Mueller has indicted him on another seven charges in Washington, DC, for a trial scheduled to start after this one concludes, in September. In general, the DC trial will focus more on Manafort’s actual work for Ukraine, rather than his finances. The charges include conspiracy to defraud the United States and making false Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) statements.

Additionally, just last month, Mueller brought two new charges related to attempted witness tampering. He said that earlier this year, Manafort and a Russian associate contacted witnesses and urged them to give a false story.

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By February of this year, Mueller was ready to file those tax and bank fraud charges. But there was a catch. The law required some of those counts to be charged where Manafort actually lived (Alexandria, Virginia) — unless Manafort specifically gave Mueller permission to charge him in DC.

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On the one hand, it’s easier and less expensive for the defendant to just prepare for one trial rather than two. Also, two separate trials would give the prosecution two separate opportunities, before different judges and different juries, to convict [Manafort] — making it less likely a lucky break would get him off the hook entirely.

On the other hand, DC’s population is far more liberal and far more nonwhite than that of the Eastern District of Virginia — meaning Manafort likely thought he had a better chance of an acquittal in the latter venue. Furthermore, the specific charges that would be brought against him in Virginia likely played into his thinking. As compared to the DC charges, there are more of them, they’re generally viewed as tougher to beat, and they would mean a longer prison sentence — so why not get them before a Virginia jury rather than a DC one?

  Vox

And, why two trials?

Mueller originally indicted Manafort in Washington last October. But for unclear reasons, he wasn’t ready to bring the tax and bank fraud charges against Manafort at that time.

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His team hoped that of the two trials, the Washington one would be first, since those charges were filed months earlier. But as Josh Gerstein has written, this Virginia district is known as a “rocket docket” for its speed in bringing cases to trial. So here we are.

None of these many, many charges against Manafort have anything to do with the Russian government interfering in the 2016 election, the main thing Mueller is investigating.

My guess would be that Mueller will bring charges against Manafort relating to the Russian collusion investigation after his already scheduled trials - or at some point in the future.  On the other hand, we don't know that Manafort hasn't already flipped regarding those dealings in exchange for not being charged. People keep saying that the fact Manafort is going to trial is proof he hasn't flipped. I don't think that's necessarily true.

The most common proposed explanation is that Mueller believes Manafort has important information for the collusion probe — and that he’s brought so many other charges against Manafort to put pressure on him, in hopes he’ll “flip” and spill what he knows.

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First, he attended Donald Trump Jr.’s infamous Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer and other Russia-tied figures in June 2016. Attendees have claimed that even though the meeting was set up with the promise of dirt on Hillary Clinton from the Russian government, nothing much of importance happened there.

Second, there’s a set of surreptitious contacts Manafort had with two Russian nationals during the campaign. There’s the aforementioned oligarch and former client he was indebted to, Oleg Deripaska. Then there’s Konstantin Kilimnik, a former employee of Manafort’s who worked with him in Ukraine, and who Mueller has said is tied to Russian intelligence. (Kilimnik was indicted alongside Manafort for alleged witness tampering in June, but he remains in Russia and likely won’t face trial.)

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Mueller has made clear that he was specifically investigating Manafort for collusion-related crimes, as he revealed in a court filing.

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[G]iven how Mueller charged Rick Gates with past Ukraine-related crimes and withdrew nearly all of those charges as soon as he agreed to cooperate, it would make sense if he’s pursuing a similar strategy with Manafort. If he is, though, it hasn’t worked.

We don't know that. The money laundering and bank fraud charges may not have been a part of the deal if he flipped. Or maybe they were back at the beginning, and like the revocation of his privilege to remain out of jail, they were withdrawn when he failed to cooperate. Doesn't mean he hasn't chosen to cooperate on the Russia investigation since then.

On the other hand, he's got the Russian mob to worry about. A death sentence may well look worse to him than a life in prison one.  So maybe he'll never admit guilt to anything he gets charged with. And, Manafort may well be expecting a pardon, but knowing Trump, I'd say if things get any hairier (and maybe they're already there), instead of a pardon, they'll scapegoat Manafort and try to blame everything on him.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.