*(Via ABC News) – After nearly four days of deliberation, a jury found former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort guilty on eight counts of financial crimes, marking the first major prosecution won by special counsel Robert Mueller in his investigation of Russian meddling during the 2016 election.
Manafort was found guilty on the eight counts of the special counsel’s 18-count indictment. Each count carries a hefty prison term – when combined, he is facing a maximum of 80 years in prison, but at sentencing the total will likely be less. The federal judge declared a mistrial in the other ten counts after jurors could not reach consensus.
Special counsel Robert Mueller and his team of prosecutors secured an 18-count indictment on tax- and bank-fraud charges against Manafort in February. At trial, the special counsel rested its case after parading more than two dozen accountants and associates of Manafort over the course of two weeks, painting the longtime Republican operative as a man who shielded millions of dollars from American authorities in order to fund his lavish lifestyle.
The outcome almost certainly guarantees years of prison for Manafort and established the ability of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team to persuade a jury of average citizens despite months of partisan attacks — including from Trump — on the investigation’s integrity.
The verdict raised immediate questions of whether the president would seek to pardon Manafort, the lone American charged by Mueller to opt for trial instead of cooperate. The president has not revealed his thinking but spoke sympathetically throughout the trial of his onetime aide, at one point suggesting he had been treated worse than gangster Al Capone.
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