Court Battles

Court filing: Mueller team has three times as much evidence for next Manafort trial

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has triple the amount of evidence to present in the next criminal trial of President Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.

Prosecutors have nearly three times the number of exhibits to present in the upcoming Washington, D.C., trial compared to the Virginia trial that is still in jury deliberations, according to a Thursday court filing obtained by CNN.

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Mueller’s team reportedly has more than 1,000 pieces of evidence to present in Manafort’s D.C. federal case over foreign lobbying and money laundering charges.

Prosecutor Greg Andres said in the Virginia court Wednesday that 388 documents were submitted into evidence in the case currently under jury deliberation.

The judge in the D.C. criminal case told prosecutors to “review” their collection “with an eye towards streamlining the presentation of its case,” according to CNN.

Manafort’s defense attorneys asked a D.C. judge on Thursday to push their filing deadline back because they have not been given enough time to make plans for the September trial, CNN reported.

The judge granted them a four day extension.

Most of the evidence in the two criminal cases will not overlap, CNN reported.

Both cases pertain to Manafort’s time as a political consultant for a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine. He is accused of illegal lobbying as well as bank and tax fraud.

Manafort’s indictment resulted from Mueller’s team during its investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, including whether Moscow colluded with members of the Trump campaign.

The charges against Manafort are not tied to his work on the Trump campaign, and some of the alleged crimes predate the election by several years.