To hear the defense tell it on Day 1 of Paul Manafort’s Virginia trial, Manafort's only true crimes were trusting his business partner Rick Gates a little too lustily and being a tad too accommodating to the preferences of his pro-Russian Ukrainian clients. Defense attorney Thomas Zehnle explained away Manafort’s bank and tax fraud charges, telling the jury Tuesday that the cash was "coming in fast" and Manafort "trusted" Gates to track it because that's what he was "being paid to do.”
The prosecution, however, painted Manafort as a "shrewd" operator and lavish spender who believed he was above the law. “A man in this courtroom believed the law did not apply to him—not tax law, not banking law,” argued Assistant U.S. Attorney Uzo Asonye during his opening statement.
None of the efforts were totally surprising. Juries tend not to like ostentatious perpetrators of fraud, noted former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti, so prosecutors made a point of highlighting Manafort's multiple homes, swanky cars and watches, and a $15,000 coat he bought made from an ostrich.
On the other hand, the defense must provide the jury with a plausible explanation for all the alleged wrongdoing and Gates, who was originally charged alongside Manafort before becoming a cooperating witness, was a sitting duck of sorts to get thrown under the bus.
The defense argued Gates was the type of untrustworthy character who would sell out his former partner and do whatever it took to protect himself and secure a lighter sentence.
That Manafort's lawyers were so unsparing in their portrayal of Gates caught former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance a little off guard. Instead, she told MSNBC Tuesday, she imagined they might cast him as down on his luck and a little desperate in order to pin the fraud charges on him. But demonizing him, Vance said, "that's a strategy that only rarely works for a defendant." (Guessing the ostrich coat won't be doing Manafort any favors either.)
In total, the government alleged Manafort hid more than $60 million in income from the IRS by laundering it through an intricate web of some 30 offshore bank accounts. But even those accounts were someone else's fault, according to Manafort lawyer Zehnle.
He said that arrangement was not Manafort’s doing but was instead the preferred method of payment of the supporters of the pro-Russia Ukrainian political party who were paying his consulting fees.
Overall, the case proceeded notably quickly with the selection of a mostly white jury consisting of six men and six women, before heading straight into opening arguments and even the prosecution's first witness—Tad Devine, a Democratic political consultant who worked alongside Manafort in Ukraine for a critical five-year stint.
Devine said he had worked with Manafort on “probably hundreds” of television ads tied to Ukrainian political campaigns [...] Devine also said Manafort indicated to him that his political work in Ukraine was funded by one particular oligarch: Rinat Akhmetov, one of [former pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor] Yanukovych’s key backers.
The breakneck pace of the trial's first day suggests it may well be wrapped up in the three-week time period Judge T.S. Ellis III predicted it would take.
The government also released all the exhibits they admitted into evidence today, which they intend to do at the end of every day.