First day in court for Trump's former electoral commander

The former Electoral Commander of Donald Trump risks having to spend the rest of his life in jail if he is guilty of it. The 69-year-old man is the first to have appeared in court as a result of the Russian investigation on specialist Robert Mueller.

He is also the only one of the 30 accused in Russia who did not reach an agreement with the investigators.

Several other former Trump employees have been charged for less serious circumstances because of their cooperation with the investigators. However, Manafort rejected all charges, and after spending a month in detention, he arrived in Alexandria, Virginia, on Tuesday with his wife.

Luxury Consumption

The court hearing began with the election of twelve members of the jury, and then the actor held his opening position. State Attorney Uzo Asonye claimed that Manafort was a man who considered himself elevated above the law.

Then he accused the former Trump adviser of placing tens of millions of dollars on secret bank accounts abroad. In particular, he spent money buying a watch for NOK 170 000 and a $ 120 000 jacket.

Mueller's investigation focuses on whether Trump's collaborators are working with Russia to undermine Hillary Clinton's election campaign. 2016.

However, the charges against Manafort are not directly related to that. This is mainly the Manafort lobbying campaign for former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. The actor estimates that "with his business partner Rick Gates, he received nearly $ 250 million of so-called consulting grants from the former government in Ukraine – money that the US tax authorities have never known anything.

Yanukovych was crushed in 2014 and replaced by a more West-oriented leader

Gates Witnesses

The prosecutor will bring 35 witnesses in the case against the 69-year-old man . Among them, Rick Gates, who worked closely with Manafort.

Gates is among those who issued a less serious charge because he collaborated with the investigators. The same goes for Trump's former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, and Dutch lawyer Alex van der Zwaan. The latter admitted to having lied to Mueller investigators about his contacts with Gates and a Russian intelligence officer, and thus escaped a 30-day prison term.

Many protesters were Russian nationals and therefore outside the United States

Small Protest

Some Trump opponents had arrived outside the courtroom at Alexandria, Virginia, Tuesday. They had posters where he was "Burning Inside" and "Trump would not have spent a second in jail for you."

Trump repeatedly dismissed the investigation as politically motivated and called it "witch hunt."

Manafort has already participated in election campaigns for a number of Republican presidential candidates, Gerald Ford in the mid-1970s and Ronald Reagan in the late 1970s.

(© NTB)