Paul Manafort fraud trial: Former Trump campaign manager 'lied' and placed himself 'above law' amid lavish lifestyle, court hears

Paul Manafort has been branded a “shrewd” liar by prosecutors as they sought to build a picture of a multimillion dollar conspiracy to evade US tax laws by Donald Trump’s former campaign manager during the first day of his criminal trial.

Assistant US attorney Uzo Asonye painted a picture of Mr Manafort’s lavish lifestyle, alleging in a Virginia court that money funnelled through 30 offshore accounts was used to buy items including a $21,000 watch and a $15,000 ostrich jacket, telling the jury that Mr Manafort considered himself “above the law”.

“A man in this courtroom believed the law did not apply to him – not tax law, not banking law,” Mr Asonye said as he sketched out the evidence gathered by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team in Mr Manafort’s bank fraud and tax evasion trial which relates to political consultancy work undertaken in Ukraine.

Mr Manafort is the first of Mr Trump’s former aides to go on trial in the Russia probe, led by Mr Mueller and the FBI which is looking into Russian election meddling and possible collusion with Mr Trump’s presidential campaign aides. Mr Mueller has been given the scope to follow up any other potential crimes during the investigation, leading to Mr Manafort’s indictment.

The 69-year-old businessman and lobbyist could face significant jail time. He denies all the charges against him. Eighteen of the more than 30 charges Mr Manafort faces relate to the case led by Judge TS Ellis at the court in the suburb of Alexandria, Virginia.

In the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Mr Manafort faces not only the remaining financial charges but also witness tampering. That trial is set for later in the year.

Mr Manafort appeared in court yesterday in a suit and tie, smiling slightly after the jury of six women and six men was chosen relatively quickly. Mr Ellis then allowed opening statements to begin.

Mr Asonye said in court that Mr Manafort had more than 30 secret overseas accounts to “receive and hide” income he had gotten from working for the government of Ukraine.

He told the jury: “All of these charges boil down to one simple issue – that Paul Manafort lied.”

He pointed to Mr Manafort’s mansion in northern Virginia, just miles from the courthouse, and lavish items like a $15,000 jacket “made from an ostrich” to illustrate the prosecutor’s point that Mr Manafort used his “secret income” in the millions of dollars to fund an “extravagant lifestyle”.

Mr Manafort’s defence attorney, Thomas Zehnle, said in his opening statement that his client trusted others to keep track of the millions of dollars he was earning from his Ukrainian political work. He also sought to address Mr Manafort’s wealth and the images of a gaudy lifestyle that jurors are expected to see during the trial.

“Paul Manafort travelled in circles that most people will never know, and he’s gotten handsomely rewarded for it,” Mr Zehnle said. “We do not dispute that.”

He made clear that undermining the credibility of Rick Gates, his former business associate and the government’s star witness, is central to the defence strategy. Mr Zehnle said Mr Manafort, earning millions as a political consultant helping officials in other parts of the world, relied on Mr Gates and others – including a professional accounting firm – to keep watch over the money.

“Money’s coming in fast. It’s a lot, and Paul Manafort trusted that Rick Gates was keeping track of it,” Mr Zehnle said. “That’s what Rick Gates was being paid to do.”

Mr Gates, who spent years working for Manafort in Ukraine and is also accused of helping him falsify paperwork used to obtain the bank loans, cut a plea deal with Mr Mueller earlier this year. Mr Gates also worked as an aide on Mr Trump’s campaign.

Mr Gates pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge and lying to federal investigators in February. Mr Gates was charged with several crimes in the Virginia case, but after his plea those charges were dropped.

Mr Zehnle said his client “placed his trust in the wrong person … Rick Gates”.

“There are two sides to every story; it’s an old adage but it’s true,” Mr Zehnle said.

Mr Zehnle said in court Mr Manafort’s work in Ukraine was not partisan but a way to “bring the country closer to western democracies after decades of Soviet rule”, and all this legal trouble was actually Mr Gates’s fault.

None of the counts in either trial Mr Manafort faces have to do directly with the FBI investigation into alleged collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign team members and Russian officials, however politics may inevitably make its way into the case.

Judge Ellis has ordered both sides to stay away from referencing Russia as they present evidence over the next few weeks to jurors on the financial charges at hand.

Prosecutors have lined up 35 witnesses and more than 500 pieces of evidence they say will show how Mr Manafort earned more than $60m (£45m) from his work for the Ukraine government, and then allegedly concealed a “significant percentage” of that money from US tax inspectors.

It may prove difficult to navigate around the judge’s rules, however, as the name Viktor Yanukovych may come up. Mr Manafort’s work involved promoting the pro-Russian Ukrainian president with close ties to President Vladimir Putin, who then fled to Russia after Moscow’s 2014 annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine.

Mr Zehnle said a bookkeeper for Mr Manafort’s company would be a witness to show none of the offshore companies or accounts were actually secret, but that Mr Gates was the person handling much of the “complicated” finances so that he could “line his own pockets”.

Prosecutors said Mr Manafort created “bogus” loans, falsified documents and lied to his tax preparer and bookkeeper to conceal the money. But Mr Zehnle disputed prosecutors’ account that Mr Manafort was trying to conceal his earnings by storing money in bank accounts in Cyprus. He said that arrangement was not Mr Manafort’s doing but was instead the preferred method of payment of the supporters of the pro-Russia Ukrainian political party who were paying his consulting fees.

Opening statements lasted approximately 30 minutes each.

The bank fraud charges alone carry a maximum sentence of 270 years in total, filing false tax returns may result in a maximum of 15 years, and on the charges related to a failure to report foreign bank and financial accounts he faces up to 20 years.

Even the minimum sentences, to be determined at the discretion of Judge TS Ellis in the Virginia US District Court, are four to five years on the bank fraud charges and eight to 10 years on the tax-related counts.

For his part, President Trump has called Mr Manafort a “nice guy” who has been treated unfairly by Mr Trump’s opponents and the media. He has repeatedly denied any collusion and called the entire FBI investigation a “witch hunt” on numerous occasions.

However, this morning Mr Trump appeared to change his tune a bit when he tweeted “collusion is not a crime but that doesn’t matter because there was No Collusion”.

The trial, which continues, is expected to last three weeks.