Manafort heads to trial

Risks pile up for Trump as Manafort heads to trial

The president's former campaign chairman is set to be the first to go before a jury in the Mueller investigation.

By DARREN SAMUELSOHN and JOSH GERSTEIN

The first trial prosecuted by special counsel Robert Mueller will offer the clearest public view yet of what his investigators have on President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, with a catalogue of evidence and testimony undercutting the president’s repeated claims that the Russia investigation is a “witch hunt.”

Trump, his lawyers and some of his closest associates have spent months publicly dismissing the Manafort case, scheduled to begin this week in an Alexandria, Virginia, federal court. They argue it’s all about the personal legal woes of someone who has lobbied for some of the world’s most controversial leaders but has nothing to do with the president or his 2016 campaign.

“We have no concern about it,” Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump’s personal attorneys, told POLITICO. “The whole case will be like everything else. They chase it down an alley until they think they’ve got something legitimate, and it will not connect to the original investigation.”

But the Manafort trial will create daily reminders of the Mueller investigation, as commentators pile onto cable networks to discuss what the case could indicate about the president’s own exposure — and, potentially, as the president himself offers his own analysis on Twitter.

Whether he addresses it publicly or not, Trump will have to pay close attention given the array of legal investigations involving various former associates, said Alan Dershowitz, the retired Harvard law professor who is close to Trump. “Of course the president has to watch. He has to watch everything Mueller is doing,” he said. Dershowitz specifically mentioned the Southern District of New York, the federal jurisdiction that’s investigating Michael Cohen, the longtime Trump Organization personal lawyer, who has dropped hints he may cooperate with the government.

Mueller’s office has said it does not intend to raise Russian collusion allegations, but it has signaled plans to showcase aspects of Manafort’s work during the Trump campaign: namely a claim that he succeeded in getting $16 million in loans from Chicago’s Federal Savings Bank in late 2016 and early 2017 in part because the bank’s chairman and CEO, Stephen Calk, was named to the Trump campaign’s economic advisory board and was seeking a top post at the Pentagon.

Through a spokeswoman, the bank has denied any wrongdoing and pledged to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation. Calk has not responded to requests for comment.

Mueller’s prosecutors in June also unsealed search warrant applications in the Virginia case showing Manafort and his wife received a $10 million loan in 2010 from Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin. In July 2016, Manafort used a longtime associate who has also since been indicted by Mueller as an intermediary to reportedly offer “private briefings” for Deripaska about the Trump campaign.

U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III, a Ronald Reagan appointee, has yet to rule on what, if any, mention of the campaign will be allowed in front of jurors. The issue is among those on the agenda for a hearing set for Monday morning, about 48 hours before jury selection is set to begin in the trial.

Manafort’s defense team has asked Ellis to forbid any mention of Manafort’s connection to Trump and his campaign. They argue that discussion of that work and of Mueller’s core assignment to investigate alleged collusion between the campaign and Russia is “wholly irrelevant” to the bank fraud and tax evasion charges. They also fear that references to Manafort’s Trump campaign role could prompt jurors who dislike the president to take that out on Manafort, regardless of what the evidence shows.

“There is a very real risk that the jurors in this case — most of whom likely have strong views about President Trump, or have likely formed strong opinions as to the well-publicized allegations that the campaign colluded with Russian officials — will be unable to separate their opinions and beliefs about those matters from the tax and bank fraud matters to be tried before them in this case,” the defense wrote in a pretrial motion filed last month.

The president himself has made little effort to conceal his close attention to the case, repeatedly mentioning it since Manafort was indicted last October.

Less than two hours after Manafort lost his release on bail amid allegations of witness tampering in June, Trump tweeted: “Wow, what a tough sentence for Paul Manafort, who has represented Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole and many other top political people and campaigns. Didn’t know Manafort was the head of the Mob. What about Comey and Crooked Hillary and all of the others? Very unfair!”

Manafort was also on Trump’s mind in the aftermath of his controversial summit last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “With Paul Manafort, who clearly is a nice man, you look at what’s going on with him, it’s like Al Capone,” Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity in an interview from Helsinki.

Trump’s interest in the Manafort’s case has also extended to pretrial legal skirmishes, with the president himself taking the unusual step of celebrating media reports about a hearing during which Ellis grilled Mueller’s prosecutors about a defense motion challenging the special counsel’s authority.

Breaking with long-standing precedent under which presidents avoid mentioning judges by name, Trump singled out Ellis as “highly respected” and “something very special” during an off-script moment addressing the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in Dallas.

Giuliani also told POLITICO this past spring that he may try to use Ellis’ remarks in any potential legal fight with Mueller over the special counsel’s push for a sit-down interview with Trump. Among the dozens of leaked questions that the president’s lawyers have prepared for Trump in preparation for a possible Mueller meeting is one asking what knowledge Trump had of any outreach to Russia by his campaign, including Manafort, for potential help during his 2016 run.

“It shows the concern that the president has raised that this is a witch hunt,” the former New York mayor said. “The judge’s observation was — and they had no good answer for him — that they’re just going after Manafort, they’re not even interested in Manafort, all they want to do is kind of trap the president. So that’s really important to us because we don’t want him trapped.”

The president’s efforts to use Ellis’ comments for their own political and legal gain may have been premature. Last month, the judge rejected Manafort’s pretrial challenge that Mueller lacked the authority to bring criminal charges.

Mark Corallo, a former Trump legal team spokesman, said he expects potential damage to Trump from the Manafort trials will be limited “unless there’s evidence of some tie-in to collusion with the Russians to disturb the election and that other members of the Trump campaign were aware of it.”

But he also said the president should temper his celebration even if Manafort is acquitted. “I would be hesitant to spike the ball in the end zone if I were the Trump administration,” he said, noting that Manafort faces a second trial in Washington, D.C., in September connected with his lobbying for Russian-backed Ukrainian political leaders.

“It’s obvious if Manafort is convicted, the White House is going to distance itself from Manafort even more than they already have,” Corallo said. “But I think they benefit by distancing themselves no matter what.”

Others in Trump’s circle disagree.

“Paul is one of the few in this mess who he’s spoken about by name,” said former Trump campaign adviser Michael Caputo. “It’s my hope the president watches closely and says what’s on his mind.”

Should the Northern Virginia, jury find Manafort guilty, Trump will immediately face a decision on whether to pardon him or commute his prison sentence. Either move would expose Trump to further charges he’s trying to obstruct justice — but they also could head off a possible scenario that no one in the president’s orbit wants to see happen: The 69-year old Manafort accepts a reduced sentence in exchange for spilling to Mueller everything he knows about the president.

“If he’s convicted, you’ll hear sphincters loosening all over the White House,” said a defense attorney who represents a senior Trump official.

“Once he’s convicted it becomes a more naked effort to obstruct the inquiry,” the lawyer added. “Things always look worse after a trial once you’ve put live witnesses on the stand and released documents. It’s hard to put that back in the bottle.”