Takeaways From the Conviction of Paul Manafort

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A jury on Tuesday convicted Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, on eight counts of tax and financial fraud. No sentencing date has been set yet. Here’s a look at the immediate implications of the verdict for Manafort and the special counsel’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential race.

Before and during the trial, Trump, his allies and Manafort’s defense lawyers have attacked the inquiry as a “witch hunt.” Escalating his attacks this week, Trump described the special counsel, Robert Mueller, as “disgraced and discredited” and his team as “thugs.”

Manafort’s conviction on multiple counts in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, deprives Trump and his supporters of new ammunition against Mueller. It could make it harder for them to win any new converts to the idea that the investigation is without merit and needs to wind down. The four other Americans charged during Mueller’s inquiry all pleaded guilty; only Manafort forced the prosecutors to prove their case before a jury.

“They didn’t get everything they asked for, but it’s certainly substantial enough to vindicate their persistent efforts,” Carl W. Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said of Mueller’s team.

Still, the verdict seems unlikely to deter Mueller’s fiercest critics.

“The idea that actual facts and events would alter their worldview is really counter to what we’ve seen,” said Ilene Jaroslaw, a former federal prosecutor and current partner at Hoguet Newman Regal & Kenney. “The critics will find reason to criticize no matter what the verdict is.”

Although the jury failed to agree on 10 of the 18 counts, the trial’s outcome still highlighted the depth and scale of the prosecution’s evidence. It encompassed an intricate paper trail of financial records and emails, coupled with testimony from bookkeepers, accountants, bank loan officers, luxury vendors and Rick Gates, Manafort’s former associate, who testified as part of a plea deal with the government.

While the specter of the president — and the special counsel’s investigation into whether Trump tried to obstruct a criminal inquiry — loomed over the trial, Trump and his campaign were only fleetingly mentioned, and often not by name. The president, briefly responding to questions from reporters, emphasized that the conviction had nothing to do with him and that “this has nothing to do with Russian collusion.”

Now that he has been convicted, Manafort, the highest ranking campaign official to be charged so far by Mueller’s team, might be more willing to cooperate with the special counsel’s office in hopes of a lighter sentence. The two bank fraud counts he was convicted on each carry a maximum term of 30 years; the other charges carry maximum terms of three to five years.

Manafort, 69, was connected to a number of meetings, relationships and events during the 2016 campaign that Mueller and his team have been investigating. Among them was the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer. The meeting was set up through an intermediary with Donald Trump Jr., who was promised dirt on Trump’s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. The president has denied knowing about the meeting, but it remains a focus of the Mueller inquiry.

Kevin Downing, one of Manafort’s lawyers, said Tuesday only that the defense was disappointed by the trial’s outcome and “is evaluating all of his options at this point.”

Gates, who was initially charged along with Manafort but pleaded guilty in February, was seen as the government’s star witness. Defense lawyers, who did not call any witnesses to the stand, attacked Gates as an untrustworthy turncoat. During his instructions to the jurors, Judge T.S. Ellis III warned them to give “greater care” to the motivations of witnesses who had testified under grants of immunity or as part of a plea agreement.

It remains unclear what other information Gates, Trump’s former deputy campaign chairman, has given the special counsel’s office. When defense lawyers tried to ask him whether prosecutors had questioned him about the Trump campaign, the judge summoned all the lawyers to the bench. At the prosecutors’ request, the transcript of that conference has been sealed to protect a continuing investigation.

But Gates’ performance on the stand might make prosecutors think twice about calling him to testify in any future cases, including during Manafort’s coming trial in Washington on charges that are separate but related to those in this case. While Gates answered the prosecutors’ questions confidently, the defense team put him through a withering cross-examination.

The fact that the jurors failed to convict Manafort on bank fraud conspiracy charges might indicate that they were unwilling to trust Gates, who testified that he and Manafort worked together to deceive bank loan officers.

Trump declined last week to broach the subject of pardoning his former campaign chairman and did not address it on Tuesday. The president has, however, repeatedly lamented the charges brought against Manafort, calling the trial “a very sad day for our country.” He called Tuesday’s verdict “a very sad thing.”

The president, who has doled out pardons for campaign allies like the conservative pundit Dinesh D’Souza and former Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona, does have the ability to pardon Manafort for his conviction. Last year, Trump’s former lawyer, John M. Dowd, raised the prospect of pardoning both Manafort and Michael T. Flynn, the president’s former national security adviser.

The government has until Aug. 29 to decide whether it wants to retry the 10 counts that were declared a mistrial.

Meanwhile, Manafort faces a second trial on seven more criminal charges next month in Washington. There, in a district where Trump barely won 4 percent of the vote, Manafort is expected to face an even tougher jury pool than he did for the trial here.

The special counsel’s office has already submitted more than 1,000 possible exhibits of evidence for the second trial, prompting Manafort’s lawyers to ask for an extension to further review the evidence. The charges include money laundering, failure to register as a foreign agent and obstruction of justice.