The persistent claim by President Trump and his legal team that special counsel Robert Mueller is wasting time and taxpayer dollars investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia could lose its impact if Paul Manafort is soon convicted on bank and tax fraud charges, according to legal experts who have followed the former Trump campaign chairman’s three-week trial.
White House allies have been eager to note that Manafort’s criminal trial in Alexandria, Va., is unrelated to his involvement with the president’s 2016 campaign and potential ties between Trump associates and Kremlin officials. Instead, the 18-count indictment prosecutors filed against Manafort focus on financial crimes and tax evasion he allegedly committed prior to joining efforts to elect Trump.
[Related: Jury deliberations in Manafort trial continue to next week]
“Today’s announcement has nothing to do with the president, has nothing to do with the president’s campaign or campaign activity,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters last October, after the first charges against Manafort were handed down.
But some legal experts said a direct connection to the president wouldn’t be necessary for a guilty verdict to undermine his months-long effort to characterize the special counsel probe as a “hoax.”
“It doesn’t affect the argument that this has nothing to do with Russia collusion because the trial, if anything, has verified that at least with Manafort, the case was not connected to allegations of Trump campaign collusion with Russia,” former U.S. Attorney Kendall Coffey told the Washington Examiner. “But what it does do in a very broad sense is provide vindication for Mueller’s team.”
“Even without the lack of any real connection with ‘Russia collusion,’ and the Trump campaign, a victory here would put a lot of momentum behind the special counsel’s office and would make them feel more confident in moving forward and not rushing this investigation to a quick conclusion,” Coffey said.
A Washington-based attorney, who requested anonymity to avoid agitating certain clients, said the verdict in Manafort’s first trial “is going to have an impact either way, but particularly if the jury finds him guilty on some counts.”
“The president’s dismissiveness becomes less defensible when you have an actual criminal caught, charged, and convicted because of the work of Bob Mueller and his team,” this person said.
Jurors in the Manafort trial began deliberations Thursday morning to determine whether the former lobbyist is guilty of a litany of financial crimes beyond a reasonable doubt. Shortly before close of business Thursday, the presiding judge, Judge T.S. Ellis, received a note from the jury asking him to redefine “reasonable doubt” and provide them with the initial indictment. Ellis told the courtroom Friday morning he was “optimistic that the case might end soon.”
When it does, Manafort is slated to face a second trial in the D.C. District Court on charges of conspiracy, money laundering, and failure to properly register as an agent of a foreign government.
But that, too, could be impacted by the outcome of his first trial, Coffey said.
“If he gets a number of guilty counts, he may plea out the second trial because it’s possible the prison time already prompts him to seriously reconsider whether it’s worth going through the expense of another trial,” Coffey explained, noting that Mueller’s team, for example, might agree “to just add another five years to a 10-year sentence.”
A spokesperson for Manafort declined to say whether his defense lawyers, who have received “well over 1,000” pieces of evidence ahead of his next trial, had discussed a plea bargain with their client.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is presiding over the second trial, has already received a request from Manafort’s team to receive an extra week to prepare and submit their pre-trial statement, a list that details the evidence and witnesses planned for presentation, and time his attorneys will need to present their case to the jury. Coffey said federal prosecutors would be more inclined to “push forward” to a second trial if they score a victory with the first.
Both trials are occurring just months before the November midterm elections, in which Democrats expect the president’s routine criticism of Mueller to drive their supporters to the polls in droves.
Of course, Mueller could wrap up his investigation by then and deliver a report that clears the president of any wrongdoing.
But if Manafort, who spent five months on the Trump campaign, was present for the Trump Tower meeting with the president’s son Don Jr., son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, and worked for years with other curious figures in Trump world like Roger Stone, cuts a deal with federal prosecutors ahead of his second trial and agrees to provide Mueller’s team with information pertinent to other aspects of their probe, the entire investigation could be prolonged.
Trump, who spent much of the week angrily tweeting about the Mueller probe and those involved, sought to distance himself on Friday from questions about a possible pardon for Manafort when all is said and done.
“I don’t talk about that,” he told reporters at the White House, remarking only that what has happened to his ex-campaign chairman is “very sad.”
