Prosecutors from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office submitted on Wednesday a list of 436 exhibits they plan to introduce at one-time Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort’s trial.
The Special Counsel’s Office team, led by Mueller’s Clinton-allied “attack dog,” Andrew Weissmann, filed the document with Judge T.S. Ellis of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, in whose court Manafort is slated to begin, on July 25, one of his two criminal trials related to his lobbying affairs in Eastern Europe before he worked on the Trump campaign.
The list reveals immunity orders for five witnesses, who presumably agreed to testify against Manafort in exchange for that immunity, although Weissmann and his team have not yet filed a witness list. Also included are photographs of a Mercedes Benz car and Manafort’s properties in Northern Virginia and New York, one of which includes a “putting green,” a “pool house,” a “pergola,” and other trappings of a wealthy lifestyle.
Politico speculated Wednesday that these exhibits are likely to be used to establish that Manafort hid income from his foreign clients, the most well-known of whom is former President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych, and lied on his taxes. Tax fraud and money laundering charges make up the bulk of the charges against Manafort, although he also faces charges of failing to register as a foreign agent in his other trial in Washington, DC.
Manafort remains in jail pending trial after being accused of attempting to tamper with witnesses, a charge he denies.
Manafort’s lawyers had attempted to have the trial moved from Alexandria, Virginia, just across the Potomac from Washington, DC, to Roanoke, in the Western District of Virginia, arguing the DC Beltway area was poisoned against Manafort by the wide publicity surrounding the case. On Tuesday, however, the day before Weissmann and his team filed their exhibit list, Judge Ellis denied this request.
“[N]ationwide press coverage of [Manafort’s] trial will persist from now until the end of the trial and perhaps beyond,” Judge Ellis wrote. “Therefore, the proximity of [Manafort’s] pretrial publicity to the start of his trial will be the same in Alexandria as it would be in Roanoke or Kansas City or Dallas.”