Jury selection for Paul Manafort's first trial begins Tuesday, and Special Counsel Robert Mueller has dropped a bombshell just in time.
Mueller intends to prove President Trump's former campaign chair made more than $60 million as a political consultant in Ukraine, per court filings released Monday. It's the first time U.S. prosecutors have put a number on Manafort's alleged undocumented earnings, Bloomberg reports.
Mueller's team charged Manafort in February with tax and bank fraud, alleging that he didn't disclose millions of dollars from the Ukrainian government. An earlier indictment alleged that Manafort laundered up to $30 million in profits from Ukraine, but Monday's court filing doubles the earlier estimate. Court documents say Manafort earned this massive total and "failed to report it on his tax returns for the pertinent years." This sum is separate from the $60 million in loans Manafort received from a Russian oligarch.
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Prosecutors have gathered 50 exhibits of Manafort's political work in Ukraine to build their case, but Manafort moved to exclude those examples from the case, per the court document. Mueller's team wants to reject Manafort's proposal because these 50 examples make his guilt "more probable." A case filing released Friday also details 35 witnesses lined up for Manafort's fraud trial.
Manafort currently faces a number of other criminal counts, including conspiracy, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice. A second trial for those charges will likely happen in September. Read Monday's full court filing here.
