Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort benefitted from his consulting work in Ukraine to the tune of more than $60 million, much of which went unreported, according to a filing Monday by federal prosecutors. The Washington Post writes:
"The government expects to prove that Manafort earned more than $60 million dollars from his Ukraine work during the period at issue and failed to report a significant percentage of it on his tax returns,” prosecutors wrote.
The filing is an opening salvo in Manafort's trial set to begin Tuesday in Alexandria federal court. Manafort's lawyers are angling to deprive jurors of a full accounting of his work in the region between 2006 and 2015 for former pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, and other Russian-friendly groups. Government prosecutors are making the case that the full scope of Manafort's work in Ukraine is central to the bank fraud case they are bringing against him.
Overall, Manafort faces 18 counts including falsifying income tax returns, maintaining unreported bank accounts, bank fraud, and conspiracy to commit bank fraud. Prosecutors plan to call some 30 witnesses, including Manafort’s former business partner Rick Gates, but it’s largely a paper-trail case.
Prosecutors say Manafort both laundered money and utilized offshore bank accounts to hide the extent of his income earned through political work. He also allegedly committed bank fraud by failing to properly disclose his income/debt to banks in order to secure loans in 2014 following the fall of the Ukrainian party he worked for.
Though Manafort does play a central role in the special counsel's investigation into Russia's attack on the 2016 election, prosecutors have said they don't plan on including the issue in the Virginia trial.
“I don’t anticipate the word ‘Russia’ will be uttered by a government witness,” one member of the special counsel team said in a pre-trial hearing.