Difficult times for former Trump allies
Jury convicts Manafort on eight counts of tax evasion and bank fraud; deadlocks on 10 charges
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A federal jury convicted Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, of eight counts of tax evasion and bank fraud on Tuesday, a victory for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III in the first criminal trial brought by his office.
The jury said it was deadlocked on 10 related charges and the judge declared a mistrial on them after four days of deliberations and a dramatic 12-day trial that focused in part on Manafort’s gilded lifestyle, making him a symbol of gaudy excess and greed in the Trump era.
Manafort, 69, showed a glimmer of a smile when he learned the jurors could not reach a unanimous decision on the 10 charges. But it quickly disappeared behind an expressionless mask and heavy eyes as a clerk read the eight guilty verdicts.
He was convicted on five counts of filing false tax returns, one count of not filing a report on a foreign bank account, and two counts of bank fraud. He could be sentenced to up to 80 years in prison.
Once an influential Republican operative, wealthy Washington lobbyist and globe-trotting adviser to foreign leaders, Manafort stood motionless as the judge explained the sentencing process to him.
His wife, Kathleen, her eyes vacant, sat directly behind him in the first row of the ninth-floor courtroom. Once the proceedings were over, Manafort appeared to walk toward her, briefly making eye contact before deputies escorted him out the side door he’s used throughout the trial.
The case focused chiefly on Manafort’s efforts to hide tens of millions of dollars from his work as a political consultant in Ukraine before he joined Trump’s presidential campaign in March 2016. But evidence introduced at trial indicated some of the actions occurred as Manafort steered the candidate through the contentious Republican National Convention in Cleveland that summer.
Evidence also showed that after the election, Manafort tried to secure a job in the Trump administration for a Chicago bank executive who helped him get $16 million in loans in 2016 that prosecutors said were based on fraudulent documents. No job ultimately was arranged, although the executive was given an advisory position on Trump’s campaign.
None of the charges cited Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, the initial focus of the special counsel’s wide-ranging inquiry. But the verdict could strengthen Mueller’s hand as he spars with Trump’s lawyers over whether the president will agree to an interview — or face a potential subpoena — in coming months.
The guilty verdict is also politically awkward for Trump, and he appeared to question it after he arrived in Charleston, W.Va., for a campaign rally.
“This is a witch hunt, and it’s a disgrace,” Trump told reporters.
The question of a presidential pardon has hung over Manafort’s case ever since he decided to risk a trial — and the stiffer prison sentence that could result — rather than cut a deal with the special counsel’s office, as other defendants have done.
Trump didn’t mention a pardon on Tuesday, but he said Manafort was treated unfairly by prosecutors, a description he’s deployed when issuing previous pardons.
“I feel very badly for Paul Manafort,” the president said, adding that the case against him had “nothing to do with Russian collusion” and that the special counsel’s office had strayed from its “original mission.”
It wasn’t clear whether Manafort would try to appeal. Kevin Downing, a lawyer for Manafort, told reporters outside the Alexandria courthouse that he was “evaluating his options at this point.”
“Mr. Manafort is disappointed at not getting an acquittal or a complete hung jury on all counts,” Downing said.
During the trial, Manafort’s defense lawyers chose not to present any witnesses or evidence, gambling instead that the jury would simply reject the government’s case as unreliable or insufficient. Manafort did not take the stand.
He faces another federal trial on related charges on Sept. 17 in Washington, D.C., and the judge in that case ordered him incarcerated in June after he was accused of attempted witness tampering.
Manafort was the latest reminder of the scandals that have swirled around Trump’s senior staff from the beginning.
The secretary of Health and Human Services and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency were forced out over ethical controversies, and other senior aides have faced harsh scrutiny. Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty last year to lying to federal investigators.
Even as Manafort’s verdict was read in Virginia, Trump’s former personal lawyer and longtime “fixer” in New York, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to eight charges in a separate case, including campaign finance law violations.
In a plea deal, Cohen said he had sought to influence the 2016 election when he arranged to pay hush money to two women who said they had sex with Trump years ago. Cohen said he made the payments in coordination with the president.
Prosecutors prevailed in the Manafort case despite frequent criticism from U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III, a stern jurist who repeatedly questioned prosecution tactics in front of the jury. Ellis sought to limit testimony about Manafort’s work in Ukraine and his opulent tastes, saying the details were not relevant to the legal question of whether he had evaded U.S. taxes.