Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman. Photos and illustrations / AP
Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman. Photos and illustrations / AP
Here are some of the key players in the Paul Manafort trial:
THE JUDGE: TS ELLIS
A federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia, Ellis was appointed by President Ronald Reagan and took the bench in 1987. He took senior status in 2007, meaning he can choose not to work a full caseload. But the 78-year-old keeps a busy court schedule, commuting from Charlottesville, Virginia, each week to preside over espionage, gang murder and drug cases.
He oversaw the plea and sentencing of American Taliban supporter John Walker Lindh as well as a case involving government secrets leaked to a pro-Israel lobbying group and an Israeli official.
Born in Bogota, Colombia, Ellis served as an aviator in the US Navy and has an undergraduate degree from Princeton and law degrees from Harvard and Oxford. He is a fan of astronomy and reads physics books in his spare time, according to a former law firm colleague.
He often draws on his personal history in court, telling amusing and occasionally rambling anecdotes about his life and career. He is tough on lawyers who come to court unprepared and often intervenes during trials with his own sharp questions.
In sentencing he preaches personal responsibility, telling defendants they determine their own path with the choices they make. But when he feels a criminal has accepted responsibility and shown remorse, he is known for showing compassion.
Andrew Weissmann: An aggressive career prosecutor with a reputation for getting targets to turn on their co-conspirators, Weissmann helped take down Enron and the famous Italian mob boss Vincent "Chin" Gigante.
As chief of the Justice Department's fraud section before the Russia probe began, he directed the case involving Volkswagen's diesel emissions and a push to root out bribery of foreign governments by US companies.
He worked under Special Counsel Robert Mueller as general counsel for the FBI, overseeing an attempt to fine tech companies that did not comply with wiretap orders.
Greg Andres: Andres is a white-collar criminal defence lawyer at the firm Davis Polk & Wardwell. He previously supervised fraud, organised crime and foreign bribery prosecutions at the Justice Department, including a US$7 billion Ponzi scheme orchestrated by Texas financier Allen Stanford.
Like Andrew Weissmann, Andres served as a line prosecutor in New York City, taking on international banks and local Mafia figures, one of whom tried to have him killed.
Uzo Asonye outlines the prosecution's case.
Uzo Asonye: Brought on for the Virginia case against Manafort, Asonye is a fraud prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia who put Norfolk's treasurer behind bars, along with a top official at the General Services Administration and a former staffer for a state senator.
Brandon Van Grack: Van Grack is a national security division prosecutor in the Department of Justice who, before joining the Special Counsel's office, was detailed to the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. He prosecuted a man from Kosovo who stole US service members' information and gave it to Isis (Islamic State), the first time a hacker was convicted of helping a terrorist group. He also helped convict spies for Syria and China while working in the DOJ's counterespionage division.
Michael Dreeben: A deputy solicitor general, Dreeben is known for his encyclopedic knowledge of criminal law. Among issues he has argued before the Supreme Court, where he is only the second lawyer to appear more than 100 times: law enforcement access to cellphone records, sentencing disparities for crack and powder cocaine, DNA collection from people arrested for serious crimes, when it is legal for police to put a GPS device on a car, when online threats are criminal, and whether a US company can be compelled to turn over data stored overseas.
He was involved in another politically charged case brought in the Eastern District of Virginia: an unsuccessful effort to uphold the fraud conviction of former Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell.
Scott Meisler: A criminal appellate lawyer at the DOJ, he defended before the Supreme Court that a 6 1/2 year prison sentence given to a Mexican man for returning to the United States after being deported was legal. He also helped defend the conviction of a Washington state man who possessed child pornography that was found through Naval intelligence surveillance deemed illegal.
Adam Jed: Jed is an appellate lawyer from the Justice Department's civil division. A former clerk to US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, he defended the Obama Administration's contraception mandate and a failed attempt by the Justice Department to seize the property of a marijuana dispensary in California.
Jed won a DOJ award for exceptional service in 2014 for his work on a team implementing the Supreme Court decision granting full federal recognition of legally married gay couples.
MANAFORT TEAM
Kevin Downing, lawyer for Paul Manafort.
Kevin Downing : Downing spent 15 years in the tax division of the Justice Department before leaving, in the words of Judge TS Ellis, "for the siren call of money." He convicted three people involved in setting up illegal tax shelters at the accounting firm KPMG and led a probe into the Swiss bank UBS, for which he received the department's highest honour for trial lawyers: the John Marshall Award.
He was a key leader of a 2008 Justice Department effort to go after foreign bank accounts controlled by Americans, a change in enforcement that probably made it easier to go after Manafort.
At the firm Miller & Chevalier, he defended financial institutions and advised them on tax compliance. Downing left the DC firm after taking on Manafort as a client.
Thomas Zehnle: Like Kevin Downing, Zehnle worked as a federal tax prosecutor before going into white-collar defence law; they overlapped at the Department of Justice for seven years. He won an acquittal in 2013 for alawyer in a tax shelter conspiracy case involving KPMG.
"The Department of Justice conviction rate on these cases is more than 90 per cent," he said at the time. "It is rare to win one, so when you do, it means something special."
Zehnle worked at Bryan Cave before joining Miller & Chevalier in 2011. Like Downing, he left shortly after being hired by Manafort.
Jay Nanavati: Nanavati served as a prosecutor in Fairfax County and in the Justice Department's tax division before joining the firm BakerHostetler and then moving to Kostelanetz & Fink. He prosecuted a complicated US$200 million tax fraud scheme in Utah involving thoroughbred horses and gas exploration. As a defence lawyer, he successfully defended a Kansas businessman in a tax fraud case, although the man's wife was convicted of tax evasion.
Before joining the Manafort legal team this year, Nanavati commented on the case in an interview with the Washington Post, saying it was striking how many people who worked for Manafort provided evidence against him.
Brian Ketcham: Ketcham works with Nanavati at Kostelanetz & Fink, focused on criminal and civil tax defence. He represented an 83-year-old Florida man and the owner of a fancy French restaurant in New York who both admitted to hiding money in Swiss bank accounts.
Richard Westling: A lawyer at the firm Epstein Becker & Green who specialises in healthcare cases, Westling was a prosecutor in the New Orleans US Attorney's Office and in the tax division of the Justice Department. He at one point represented a Louisiana judge accused of bribery - the last federal official impeached by the US House.
Protesters Gayelynn Taxey, left, and Danny Hastings, stand in front of the Alexandria Federal Court in Alexandria.
KEY FIGURES IN THE CASE
Richard Gates: Manafort's former business partner has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and lying to the FBI and is expected to testify against his former colleague at trial.
Gates started his career as an intern at the aggressive, controversial political consulting firm Manafort co-founded, working closely with Republican lobbyist Rick Davis. Gates left the firm to work for companies in the lottery and gaming business, former partner Charlie Black has said. But he reunited with Davis and Manafort at their new firm in 2006 and became, in the words of his indictment, Manafort's "right-hand man." Manafort had just begun doing political consulting work for Viktor Yanukovych, an aspiring Ukrainian politician with ties to Russian oligarchs.
Gates admitted in the District of Columbia federal court that he funnelled money from Yanukovych and his party through overseas accounts for himself and Manafort, while hiding the accounts to avoid paying taxes.
Once Yanukovych won the presidency, Gates admitted, he schemed with Manafort to lobby for the Ukrainian Government in the United States without registering as foreign agents. He recruited two firms to lobby for Ukraine, directing the campaign in detail, while claiming that their work was actually for an independent nonprofit organisation called the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine. In fact, Gates knew that organisation was set up by the Ukrainian Government.
He also worked to recruit former European politicians to advocate for Ukraine, the "Hapsburg group."
Charges against Gates in Alexandria were dropped pursuant to his plea agreement. But prosecutors say that when the Ukraine work dried up, Gates helped Manafort falsify his financial documents to get approval for loans.
When Manafort joined the Trump campaign, he brought Gates on as his deputy. Along with Manafort, Gates was included on emails discussing an effort by foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos to broker a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
When Manafort resigned amid news reports about his work for Yanukovych, Gates stayed on, working as a liaison between the Republican National Committee and the Trump operation. He worked on the inauguration and for a pro-Trump advocacy group called America First Policies. He was forced out after the Washington Post reported on his ongoing White House access. Tom Barrack, one of Trump's close friends, then hired Gates as a consultant to his real estate investment company.
He was fired when he was indicted in DC federal court last October. Since then, Gates, who prosecutors say initially lied to law enforcement about his Ukraine work, had been cooperating fully and has handed over his electronic devices for their case, according to a defence filing.
The courtroom in Virginia.
Viktor Yanukovych: A politician from Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine who started his career in coal-mining transport under Soviet rule, Yanukovych has twice been ousted from Ukraine's presidency by widespread street protests. The first time was in 2004's Orange Revolution, when he ran with Russian President Vladimir Putin's backing and won a victory ultimately declared fraudulent in court.
After that loss, Manafort was hired to help rehabilitate Yanukovych's image. He cast his client as misunderstood, a supporter of democratic reforms and engagement with the West. He also got him to speak better and dress better. In 2006, Yanukovych became Prime Minister legitimately.
"It's a game," David Zhvania, an MP and financier of the protests against Yanukovych said at the time. "We showed Ukrainians why he was scary, but we also explained to Yanukovych why he was scary, and from his first day in power we saw that he was listening."
Yet once in power, he pushed Ukraine back toward Russia and away from Nato. He jailed his main political rival and other opponents while enriching himself, his family and his friends.
In 2014, Ukrainians again took to the streets in protest after Yanukovych bowed to Putin and rejected a trade deal with the European Union. Yanukovych fought bloodily to keep power but was eventually ousted by Parliament and fled to Russia. Manafort continued to advise his political party, the Party of Regions, which re-formed as the Opposition Bloc.
The country's chief prosecutor accused Yanukovych of running a "mafia structure" that cost the country up to US$100 billion."
Two years later, a ledger found by anti-corruption investigators in Ukraine revealed Yanukovych's multimillion-dollar payments to Manafort, leading to the latter's resignation as Trump's campaign chairman.
Oleg Deripaska: The aluminum magnate made his fortune in the chaotic years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, when major industries were up for grabs. He is close to Putin.
For more than a decade, Russian officials have tried to help Deripaska secure a visa to enter the United States. According to a 2007 account in the Wall Street Journal, Deripaska had been denied admission by the Justice Department because of alleged ties to organised crime.
It was Deripaska who paved the way for Manafort to work in Ukraine by introducing him to Rinat Akhmetov, a coal and steel baron who was also the leading financial force behind the Party of Regions.
Deripaska appears to have loaned Manafort US$10 million in 2006, according to court filings. The following year, Deripaska partnered with Manafort on an investment project focused on Russia and Ukraine. Manafort's firm also tried to ingratiate the oligarch with Senator John McCain, (R), during the 2008 presidential campaign.
But in 2014, Deripaska accused Manafort in a Cayman Islands court of taking nearly US$19 million intended for investments and then failing to account for the funds, return them or respond to numerous inquiries about exactly how the money was used.
Protesters are gathered in front of the Alexandria Federal Court in Alexandria.
Rinat Akhmetov: A billionaire Ukrainian coal and steel tycoon who hired Manafort in 2005 as an adviser.
Manafort's first job in Ukraine was to burnish the local and international reputation of a company owned by Akhmetov based in the Russian-speaking industrial Donetsk region. Akhmetov soon introduced Manafort to Viktor Yanukovych; Akhmetov was a major financial backer of Yanukovych's Party of Regions, and the Opposition Bloc formed after Yanukovych's ouster.
Manafort wrote a long, detailed memorandum to Akhmetov in 2005 outlining his thoughts on the Party of Regions, including that it was associated in voters' minds with "corruption" and considered the "party of the oligarchs."
Konstantin Kilimnik: Kilimnik ran Manafort's office in Kiev, Ukraine, during the 10 years he did consulting work there. He also served in the Russian Army and learned English at a military school that some experts consider a training ground for Russian spies.
Prosecutors say he has ties to Russian intelligence, according to court documents, something Kilimnik has denied. The Special Counsel has indicted him for witness tampering, saying that, along with Manafort, he tried to sway the testimony of two potential witnesses who might offer evidence for prosecutors. Authorities charge that the conduct of Manafort and Kilimnik amounts to witness tampering and have asked a judge to revise or revoke Manafort's bail package.
Kilimnik's name appears on many emails prosecutors hope to show at trial detailing Manafort's work in Ukraine from 2005 to 2014.
Tad Devine: Devine is a Democratic strategist who worked with Manafort on Viktor Yanukovych's rehabilitation and election as president in 2010.
Devine advised Al Gore and John Kerry in their presidential bids; in 2016 he was the chief strategist for Senator Bernie Sanders, (I), and produced the bulk of his campaign ads.
He says he refused to work for Yanukovych after the Ukrainian president saw his rival in the 2010 race, Yulia Tymoshenko, put in prison. But potential trial exhibits include a memo Devine sent Manafort later that year, as well as an agreement to come back and speak to a new political party formed in Yanukovych's absence in 2014.
Devine is set to testify against Manafort at trial.
"The Special Counsel has asked Tad Devine to appear and testify about media consulting work on past political campaigns in Ukraine," Devine's firm Devine Mulvey Longabaugh said in a statement. "We have been assured by the Special Counsel's Office that we have no legal exposure, did not act unlawfully, and that Tad is testifying as a fact witness."
Rabin Strasberg: The media consulting business that Democratic admakers Daniel Rabin and Adam Strasberg ran together when they worked with Manafort in Ukraine during several elections there. According to Manafort's foreign lobbying disclosure, his firm paid them about US$350,000 in 2012 for work in Ukraine.
Their names come up in proposed trial exhibits from 2010 to 2014, in discussions of campaign ads and a video commemorating the UEFA Euro 2012 soccer championship.
"These draft spots are more political than uplifting," Manafort wrote to Rabin of the Democratic consultant's proposal for that tournament, which was hosted by Ukraine and Poland. Manafort said he wanted something more like Ronald Reagan's "old 'Morning in America' spots in 1984 that was built on the strength of the country and people and hope. . . . We need something less obvious."
Rabin and Strasberg also helped devise an ad strategy for the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary elections, described in a memo as featuring regular citizens arguing that "The Party of Regions inherited a bigger mess than anyone could have imagined."
Rabin is scheduled to testify against Manafort. Like Devine, Strasberg did work for both Kerry and Sanders. Rabin has worked for Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton and the Sierra Club. On the website for Rabin's current company, RSH Campaigns, he highlights his work for Ukrainian wrestler and politician Vitali Klitschko, who opposed Yanukovych, but not his work for Yanukovych and his party.
