Former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort’s trial postponed until next week

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Monday postponed until next week the trial of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

The tax and bank fraud trial had been scheduled to start Wednesday in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia.

But U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III pushed the trial back until July 31 to give Manafort’s lawyers more time to review thousands of pages of data and documents turned over by special counsel Robert Mueller’s office in the last several weeks.

The documents come from a firm that handled Manafort’s bookkeeping and the electronic devices of Rick Gates, his longtime business associate. Gates pleaded guilty earlier this year and is expected to testify against Manafort.

Manafort’s trial will be the first arising from Mueller’s investigation into potential coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election. The indictment against Manafort doesn’t focus on his work on the Trump campaign. Instead, it accuses him of funneling the proceeds of Ukrainian political consulting work through offshore accounts and using the funds to pay for a lavish lifestyle.

Manafort has pleaded not guilty and denied all the charges.

He faces a separate trial in the District of Columbia, where he was indicted last October.

Also Monday, Ellis approved and unsealed requests from Mueller’s prosecutors to offer immunity to five witnesses in exchange for their testimony. Prosecutors had asked for the information to be sealed unless and until the witnesses actually testified. The immunity offers mean prosecutors will not use the witnesses’ statements against them in any criminal case.

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