A jury has been seated in the trial of President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A jury has been seated in the trial of President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort .</s>A jury has been seated in the trial of President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A jury has been seated in the trial of President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort .</s>ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort Paul John ManafortDemocrats return to a battered Trump Manafort's legal team argues NY prosecution constitutes double jeopardy Clip surfaces of Paul Manafort and wife on Nickelodeon game show MORE was in court Tuesday for the opening day of his criminal trial on bank and fraud charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller Robert (Bob) Swan MuellerFox's Cavuto roasts Trump over criticism of network Mueller report fades from political conversation Trump calls for probe of Obama book deal MORE.

Manafort appeared at the federal courthouse wearing a black business suit. His wife sat behind him in the courtroom.

At one point, Manafort ran his fingers through his graying hair and gave the jury pool a quick, close-lipped smile.

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Opening arguments are slated to begin Tuesday afternoon now that jurors have been selected. The jury box consists of six men and six women. There are four alternates — one man and three women.

The 18 counts facing Manafort include allegedly laundering $30 million from work on behalf of pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians and hiding money overseas to avoid paying U.S. taxes.

In addition to jury selection, Tuesday morning included a hearing regarding a motion to block Ukraine-related documents from being introduced as evidence at the trial.

Judge T.S. Ellis, of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, said he wasn’t going to rule on that motion immediately, and instead asked prosecutors to limit the number of documents they introduce at trial.

The judge also advised the government lawyers against doing a data dump without explaining to the jury the significance of the documents.

Before today’s proceedings, Mueller’s team brought three dollies worth of documents into the courtroom for the trial.

Outside the courthouse, protesters lined up in front of the federal building with signs ranging from “Lock him up” and “It’s Mueller time” to “Trump wouldn’t spend one second in prison for you.”

The trial is expected to last about three weeks.

Manafort faces a separate trial in September in Washington, D.C., also on charges brought by Mueller that include conspiring to defraud the government and launder money, making false statement to federal officials, and failing to disclose he was acting as a political consultant and lobbyist for now-former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, the political party Yanukovych led and the party that took over after Yanukovych fled to Russia in 2014.

Updated at 2:29 p.m.</s>The criminal trial for Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort began Tuesday morning in a federal court in Alexandria, Va. It is the first trial to come out of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Things moved very quickly on the first day of court. The Washington Post reports that a jury of six men and six women was chosen, and both the defense and the prosecution delivered their opening arguments. Prosecutors said Manafort sustained his personal financial fortune over the years by lying to banks and tax authorities.

At 69, Manafort is facing 18 charges of financial fraud. Between 2010 and 2014, he made more than $60 million working as a strategist for a political party in Ukraine, but the government says he failed to pay taxes on some of that money. He then falsified his income and hid debt in order to secure loans from banks once the money from Ukraine stopped coming in. If he is convicted for the most serious charges in the case, he could face life in prison.

While others around him have taken plea deals—including his former right-hand man, Rick Gates—Manafort has chosen to stand tall and face the music. He even attempted to push back against the special prosecutor.

In January, Manafort filed a civil lawsuit against Mueller and the U.S. Justice Department, alleging that when Mueller and his team looked into Manafort’s “unrelated, decade-old business dealings” in Ukraine, they had “diverged” from their original task of investigating whether or not there was collusion with the Russians in the 2016 election. In the same suit, Manafort also accused Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein of exceeding his authority by appointing Mueller as special counsel in the first place.

In April, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson granted a Justice Department motion to dismiss Manafort’s lawsuit. Manafort appealed that dismissal in June, but on Monday night—just hours before his criminal trial was set to begin—all parties reached an agreement to drop Manafort’s appeal of the civil case. No further details on that matter have been released.

In addition to his current financial criminal trial, Manafort will stand trial in a federal court in September on charges that he failed to register as a foreign lobbyist.

He is currently being detained in jail as his cases proceed.</s>Two questions loom large as Paul Manafort prepares to walk into a federal courtroom Tuesday: Will Donald Trump's former campaign chairman spend what effectively could be the rest of his life in prison? Or will special counsel Robert Mueller be handed a defeat in his team's first trial since his appointment more than a year ago?

Those questions will be answered by 12 jurors selected this week as Manafort's trial on tax evasion and bank fraud charges gets underway at the courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia. The pool of jurors will face questions from both sides and U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III as they try to weed out potential prejudice in what has become a highly publicized and politically divisive investigation.

That task comes as the president and his lawyer-spokesman, Rudy Giuliani, have intensified their attempts to undermine the Mueller investigation in the court of public opinion and as the president continues to waffle on whether he'll sit for a private interview with prosecutors. The president criticized Mueller by name over the weekend and continues to refer to the special counsel investigation into Russian election interference as a "witch hunt" and "an illegal scam."

While the main areas of Mueller's investigation are Russia's actions during the 2016 presidential election and any attempts by Trump to obstruct justice, none of those topics are expected to come up in Manafort's trial. In fact, prosecutors said last week they don't expect the word "Russia" to be mentioned at all.

Instead, the trial will center on Manafort's Ukrainian consulting work and only briefly touch on his involvement with the president's campaign.

Prosecutors have lined up 35 witnesses and more than 500 pieces of evidence they say will show how Manafort earned more than $60 million from his Ukrainian work and then concealed a "significant percentage" of that money from the IRS. Prosecutors will also argue that Manafort fraudulently obtained millions more in bank loans, including during his time on the campaign.

In particular, prosecutors say they will introduce evidence that a chairman of one of the banks allowed Manafort to file inaccurate loan information in exchange for a role on the Republican campaign and the promise of a job in the Trump administration that never materialized.

At the center of all this will be another Trump campaign aide, Rick Gates, who spent years working for Manafort in Ukraine and is also accused of helping him falsify paperwork used to obtain the bank loans. Gates, who cut a plea deal with Mueller earlier this year, is expected to testify against his former mentor.

Gates is also expected to play a key role in Manafort's second trial scheduled for September. That trial, set in the District of Columbia, involves allegations that the longtime political consultant acted as an unregistered foreign agent for Ukrainian interests and made false statements to the U.S. government.

Manafort is the only American charged by Mueller to opt for a trial.

The other 31 people charged have either pleaded guilty or are Russians seen as unlikely to enter an American courtroom. Three Russian companies have also been charged. One of those companies has pleaded not guilty and is fighting the allegations in federal court in Washington.</s>ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Latest on special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and the trial of onetime Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort (all times local):

The judge in the trial of onetime Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is telling prosecutors not to use the word “oligarch” to describe wealthy Ukrainians who paid millions to Manafort for his work as an international political consultant.

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III says oligarch has a “pejorative” meaning and using it isn’t relevant to the bank fraud and tax evasion charges against Manafort.

The judge also is cautioning lawyers for special counsel Robert Mueller that the term could imply that Manafort was associating with “despicable” people and therefore guilty himself.

In Ellis’ words: “That’s not the American way.”

Ellis notes that wealthy Democratic donor George Soros or one of the conservative Koch (kohk) brothers could qualify as oligarchs.

Ellis’ comments on the second day of Manafort’s trial weren’t made in front of the jury.

President Donald Trump says his attorney general should put an end to special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

Trump is making his views known in a series of tweets as the trial of his onetime campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, enters its second day in a Virginia courtroom. He’s on trial for bank fraud and tax evasion charges.

The president says Attorney General Jeff Sessions “should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further.”

But Sessions stepped aside last year from overseeing Mueller’s inquiry, and it’s Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein who’s taken over that duty.

Trump is trying to distance himself from Manafort, who led Trump’s efforts to secure the GOP presidential nomination in 2016. Trump tweets that Manafort “He worked for me for a very short time.”

Manafort was the campaign chairman for about five months in 2016.

Federal prosecutors say onetime Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort considered himself above the law as he funneled tens of millions of dollars through offshore accounts. And government lawyers are alleging that this money paid for some of Manafort’s personal expenses such as a $21,000 watch and a $15,000 jacket made of ostrich.

That’s some of what came up during the first day of Manafort’s trial in Virginia on bank fraud and tax evasion charges.

The prosecution is laying out the evidence gathered by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team. It’s the first trial arising from Mueller’s investigation into potential ties between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia.

Manafort’s defence lawyer describes his client as a hugely successful international political consultant who left the details of his finances to others.</s>The financial crimes trial of Donald Trump 's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, is expected to get underway in Alexandria, Virginia, Tuesday, the first trial in connection with the more than year-long investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into possible collusion between Russia and then-candidate Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.But collusion and Russia are not expected to come up during Manafort's trial; rather, the white-collar crime case arose from the broader mandate given Mueller to probe matters arising directly out of the investigation into any campaign links to the Kremlin.As part of that investigation, Mueller began exploring Manafort's longtime work for Ukrainian politicians with ties to Moscow, which he began in 2006. Government investigators unearthed a raft of alleged financial crimes unrelated to the campaign and obtained multiple, related indictments against the veteran GOP lobbyist, including counts of tax evasion and bank fraud.Manafort, who's 69 and could spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted, has pleaded not guilty to all charges.Federal prosecutors allege Manafort funneled some $75 million through offshore accounts, using a complex scheme to hide income, buy posh real estate, make home improvements to his many houses from the affluent Hamptons to tony West Palm Beach, and generally to live a life of luxury.The exhibits list for the prosecution at times reads like a script from the set of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous," with photographs to be presented of pricey vehicles, opulent home furnishings and haute couture, including a watch from House of Bijan, which CNBC earlier this year labeled "the most expensive store in the world."In short, the prosecution is expected to attempt to paint Manafort as leading a criminal high-life to the jury of 12 men and women, along with four alternates, chosen from the Virginia suburb just outside the nation's capital.Former federal prosecutor Peter Zeidenberg, in an interview with ABC, called Manafort "particularly" unsympathetic "and completely unrelatable. He made a massive fortune working for a Russian stooge in the Ukraine . Hard to relate to that."But veteran white-collar defense attorney Shan Wu, said, "You make your client a sympathetic figure by showing him as a person - what they have done, what they have accomplished."In a high-profile case like this, I would emphasize the amount of resources the prosecution has expended against my client - that they have some other agenda in mind, because otherwise his crimes are not worth the amount of money, time and staff devoted to it. This makes the client a human being versus the government," Wu said.Making that last point might be hard for Manafort's defense attorneys, Kevin Downing, Thomas Zehnle, and Richard Westling, who told federal judge T. S. Ellis last week that they do not intend to argue that their client was "selectively or vindictively prosecuted," although the defense lawyers said they might raise the issue at a later date.Manafort's overall defense strategy is unknown, largely due to a gag order on lawyers imposed by the judge in a separate case against Manafort in Washington, D.C. Manafort has maintained he had no contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin or other Russians.One image the jury will not see is the defendant in his jail-issued dark green jumpsuit arriving from nearby Alexandria Detention Center, where he has been since June. He was sent there after the judge in his separate Washington, D.C., case ordered him held for alleged attempted witness-tampering. Instead, Manafort will appear in normal business attire.Excluded at trial will be any mention of collusion and Russia, as decreed by the judge, but Manafort's defense team was unsuccessful in efforts to exclude more than 50 government exhibits related to Manafort's work in Ukraine. They had argued "strategy memos and PR don't go to the financial crimes" their client allegedly committed.Lead prosecutor Greg Andres took great exception, arguing that exhibits like photos of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on a Manafort-produced photo-shoot for his client were at the "core" of the government's case."These exhibits...go directly to how Mr. Manafort made his money," Andres said, adding, "The point is to show how he made not hundreds of thousands but millions and millions."Judge Ellis urged prosecutors to "be cautious," noting that "most people don't distinguish between Ukrainians and Russians," but said he would allow the government to proceed.Zeidenberg, a former deputy special counsel in the perjury and obstruction of justice prosecution of Lewis "Scooter" Libby -- former top adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney -- said the prime task of the prosecution will be to keep it simple.He cited a daunting paper trail from countless emails and documents from cooperating witnesses to boxes and file cabinets of bank records and other items seized in a May 2017 raid on Manafort's storage unit and another raid - on his Alexandria condo - two months later."The government always wants to simplify these types of cases as much as possible and illustrate the vast wealth that Manafort accumulated but never accounted for," Zeidenberg said. "This should not be a difficult case to prove, particularly given the use of a cooperating witness like Gates," a reference to former longtime Manafort business partner Rick Gates, who pleaded guilty to reduced charges earlier this year and has been cooperating with the Mueller investigation for five months.Zeidenberg said jurors in the eastern district of Virginia "are generally pretty sophisticated," adding, "This isn't that tough. failure to report his foreign bank accounts and the bank fraud should not be difficult concepts for the jurors."Still, Wu said much depends on the skill of the prosecutors."So the way you defend a white-collar case with a lot of records arrayed against your client is to take on the narrative of those documents and make the story either sympathetic to your client or punch it full of holes," said Wu, who at one point briefly represented Gates."Making complex evidence interesting and easy to understand is very much dependent on the courtroom skills of the lawyer. You have to know exactly how your evidence tells a story so you are presenting the story - not the evidence," Wu said.Perhaps the biggest day in court - and potentially the most damaging for Manafort - is when Gates, who also worked alongside his longtime colleague on the Trump campaign, takes the stand against him. The government's exhibit list, alone, is littered with communications involving Gates.The two were originally indicted in Washington, D.C., in October on conspiracy, false statements, and a slew of financial crimes related to their lobbying and political work on behalf of pro-Russia Ukrainian politicians.Besides Gates, the list of 35 potential witnesses the government revealed Friday includes the former chief strategist to Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign, who worked with Manafort eight years ago to help get Kremlin-backed Viktor Yanukovych elected.Former bankers, tax accountants, bookkeepers, a real estate agent, even the CFO at the Alexandria Mercedes dealership where Manafort did business will possibly take the stand for the government.Though none of the witnesses is a household name, a number are from high profile institutions, such as the director of ticket operations for the New York Yankees and AirBnB's director of customer experience for North America -- all companies with which the government says Manafort did business.Five individuals from financial institutions and bookkeeping firms have been granted limited "use" immunity to testify against their former client without fear of prosecution. They are free from legal jeopardy in this instance only - a one-time "use."It is unclear if Manafort will take the stand. Wu noted that the defense strategy of humanizing a client is "much harder to do if they do not testify, which most criminal defendants do not do as it exposes them to the dangers of cross-examination."One person who is not expected to show is Robert Mueller, according to the special counsel's office.A component of the expected three-week trial that's sure to be unpredictable and anything but simple is the judge himself.T.S. Ellis, at 78 years old, is slight, balding with bushy eyebrows, ever-irascible, unpredictable, and fond of stem-winding jaunts through history or down memory lane of his 30 years of experience on the bench.Over the last five months, the Reagan appointee has shown himself to be sympathetic toward defendants, scholarly in his opinions, irritated by mandatory sentencing guidelines, a scourge of any unprepared lawyer, ready with verbal quips and tongue lashings, and a fan of fast-moving proceedings.The Eastern District court - of which Ellis' courtroom is a part - has a long reputation as the "rocket docket" - moving proceedings along without delay.Prosecutors have been applying great pressure on Manafort for the past year to get him to cut some kind of deal, so much so that Judge Ellis even referred to it in one pre-trial hearing, saying the government was trying "to turn the screws" and really just wanted Manafort, "the vernacular is, to sing."And while President Trump is not expected to be a topic in the trial, politicos will certainly be watching for his reaction, either through tweets or at a political rally scheduled for Tuesday night, announced by his campaign just a little more than a week ago.Manafort was brought onto the Trump campaign by one of the President's closest friends and confidantes, California real estate mogul Tom Barrack, who also kept Gates on to help run the Inaugural Committee after Manafort departed the campaign early on. Barrack has been interviewed by the special counsel investigators.Just two weeks ago, Trump - on Fox News' Sean Hannity show - called Manafort "a really nice man" before comparing his former campaign manager to a mobster brought down by his tax returns, "You look at what's going on with him, it's like Al Capone."President Trump could always offer his former campaign manager a pardon.Trump's own lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, in June did not rule it out, though he was adamant that no pardons be issued until the investigation is complete."When it's over, hey, he's the President of the United States. He retains his pardon power. Nobody's taking that away from him," Giuliani said on CNN's "State of the Union."When asked last month if he was paying close attention to Manafort's legal predicament, Trump said, "They went back 12 years to get things that he did 12 years ago? You know, Paul Manafort worked for me for a very short period of time. He worked for Ronald Reagan. He worked for Bob Dole ... He worked for many other Republicans ... I feel badly for some people because they've gone back 12 years to find things about somebody, and I don't think it's right."</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — A jury was seated this afternoon to begin hearing testimony in the trial of President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, on tax evasion and bank-fraud charges.

Manafort, who is already in custody and could spend the rest of his life in jail, appeared in the federal courtroom in Alexandria, Va., in a dark suit with his wife, Kathleen.

It's the first trial to result from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into potential ties between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia. And while prosecutors weren't expected to address the question of possible collusion between Trump and Russia, Manafort's case was widely viewed as a test to the legitimacy of Mueller's ongoing probe, which Trump has dismissed as a "witch hunt."

"There was No Collusion (except by Crooked Hillary and the Democrats)!" Trump tweeted early today.

Manafort is accused of trying to hide tens of millions of dollars in Ukrainian political consulting fees and using that money to fund a lavish lifestyle. He is the only American charged by Mueller to opt for a trial.</s>ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — The Latest on Paul Manafort's trial on tax evasion and bank fraud charges (all times local):

Prosecutors say President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman orchestrated a multimillion-dollar conspiracy to evade U.S. tax and banking laws, leaving behind a trail of lies as he lived a lavish lifestyle.

The allegations came during opening statements Tuesday in the Paul Manafort trial. It's the first trial to stem from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into potential ties between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Uzo Asonye told the jury that Manafort considered himself above the law as he funneled tens of millions of dollars through offshore accounts to pay for personal expenses such as a $21,000 watch and a $15,000 jacket made of ostrich.

The comments were the first volley in the bank fraud and tax evasion trial. It is expected to last several weeks.

A jury has been seated in the trial of President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, on tax evasion and bank fraud charges.

Six men and six women, along with four alternate jurors, were chosen on Tuesday. Opening statements were expected later in the afternoon.

Manafort, who is already in custody and could spend the rest of his life in jail, appeared in the federal courtroom in Alexandria, Virginia, in a dark suit with his wife, Kathleen.

It's the first trial to result from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into potential ties between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia. Prosecutors are not expected to address the question of collusion, but Manafort's case is widely viewed as a test to the legitimacy of Mueller's probe, which Trump has called a "witch hunt."

Jury selection is underway in the trial of Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman.

Dozens of jurors packed a federal courtroom Tuesday in Alexandria, Virginia, to face questions from a judge and lawyers about whether they can be fair and impartial.

The trial is the first arising from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into potential ties between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia. But that isn't a focus of this trial.

Manafort is accused of failing to report tens of millions of dollars in Ukrainian political consulting fees and using that money to fund a lavish lifestyle.

Manafort, who is in custody, sat quietly with his defense lawyers. He was dressed in a suit, not jail attire.

Jury selection is set to begin in the trial of President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman.

Paul Manafort will appear Tuesday in federal court in Virginia for the first trial arising from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Manafort is accused of concealing tens of millions of dollars in income from the IRS and fraudulently obtaining millions more in bank loans.

The trial will give the public the most detailed glimpse yet into a part of the Mueller investigation. It also comes as Trump and his lawyers have dialed up the intensity in their attacks on Mueller.

This is the first of two trials for Manafort. The second trial, scheduled for September in the District of Columbia, involves allegations that he acted as an unregistered foreign agent for Ukrainian interests.</s>Political observers agree that special counsel Robert Mueller needs a win from the first trial arising from the federal investigation into Russian election interference.

Though the federal court trial of Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, is not expected to shed any light on Russia's election meddling and the charges Manafort faces do not involve his time with Trump, supporters of Mueller's probe have said a guilty verdict will validate an investigation repeatedly attacked by the president and his allies. Detractors note that a loss could throw the legitimacy of Mueller's mandate into question.

That's perhaps why the special counsel indicted Manafort on crimes like tax perjury and bank fraud, accusing him of hiding millions he made advising Ukrainian politicians and lobbying on their behalf in overseas bank accounts "to enjoy a lavish lifestyle in the United States." Charges like these are relatively easy to prove, compared to other potential crimes with which the special counsel might have charged Manafort. Mueller just needs a win, and he’s almost surely going to get it.

Tax evasion means the defendant knowingly, with the purpose of evading taxes, owed substantially more tax than he reported on his income tax return because, for example, he intentionally failed to report income.

The “tax perjury” statute criminalizes the making of a false statement in connection with a return. All that is required is that Manafort willfully submitted a tax return with a written declaration that it is made under the penalty of perjury — a declaration that he does not believe to be true. The government doesn’t even have to prove that Manafort has tax due and owing, the way it would have to if it was attempting to prosecute him for tax evasion.

To avoid the higher burden of proving a tax due and owing, prosecutors will often charge tax perjury instead of tax evasion.

Mueller's team has also charged Manafort with bank fraud. The bank fraud statute prohibits two types of conduct: knowingly executing a "scheme," either to defraud a bank or to obtain any money or other property from a bank, by fraudulent representations. These are actually two separate options for the prosecution. To secure a bank fraud conviction, the prosecution doesn’t need to prove any fraudulent promises, or that the bank suffered any loss. Nor do they need to prove that the bank was the intended victim. The crime is committed by getting money from a bank while intending to defraud someone else. After a 2016 Supreme Court case interpreting the statute, prosecutors do not need to prove that the bank suffered a loss or that the defendant intended the bank to do so.

The public has already seen the exhibit list, the witness list, and heard the opening statements. This is going to be a by-the-book federal white collar prosecution. The government will rely on the testimony of cooperating witnesses, and reams and reams of documents and data. The government will also introduce evidence of Manafort’s extravagant lifestyle. While this evidence is technically admissible to show Manafort’s need for money and motive to defraud, it also serves to make Manafort eminently unlikable to a jury of working folks.

The defense’s opening remarks suggests that this, like many similar cases, is a tough one to defend. Despite the many documents and witnesses referenced in the government’s opening statement, the defense opened by focusing mostly on casting doubt on the cooperating witness's credibility. In Manafort’s case, that's his longtime business associate Rick Gates, also a former Trump campaign aide.

Sometimes, if the defense has bad facts, or cannot marshal an alternate theory about what happened, all they can do is point at the cooperating witness and say: "He’s lying."

This approach can work, but only if the defense can also show that the documents are “lying,” too. And all the other witnesses are “lying.” It’s an uphill battle for any defense facing a document-heavy case with cooperators, such as this one.

In all likelihood, the special counsel’s team will get a win on at least some of the counts against Manafort. The charged crimes have a relatively light burden; the documentary evidence is overwhelming; and Gates’s knowledge about Manafort will be compelling enough to overcome his credibility issues. The defense will point out that Gates pleaded guilty to conspiracy and lying to the FBI, as part of a deal he struck to cooperate with the special counsel after being indicated alongside Manafort on similar charges. But Gates’s exposed motive to fabricate will not be enough in this case to make the jury disregard his testimony, should he give it.

And if all that wasn’t enough, there's the government’s ace in the hole: evidence of wealth. Regular folks on a jury dislike a rich guy who flaunts it. They really, really dislike a rich guy who flouts the laws the rest of us have to follow.

The special counsel's team is set up for a win, and they're almost definitely going to get one.

Danny Cevallos is an MSNBC legal analyst. Follow @CevallosLaw on Twitter.
The former campaign chairman of U.S. President Donald Trump, Paul Manafort, appears in court for the opening day of his criminal trial on 18 bank and fraud charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller.