but it is important to note that the prosecutors in this particular case explicitly said they do not plan to show any evidence, to present any evidence relating to collusion with russia at this broader manafort trial. but there is also one aspect of it that shows the prosecutors will allegation that paul manafort, one of the things he was working on, one of the loans he got was from a financial institution. the executive at that institution was asking for a quid pro quo, to work on the trump campaign and then to work in the white house if he won. so this also, if you kind of take it up to 10,000 feet, is a reminder also, even if it doesn t have anything to do with collusion, that this is a guy who candidate trump brought in at the highest level of his campaign. he had literally decades of allegations of pretty, you know, working with pretty bad guys
he s also scheduled for a separate trial on other charges later this year. our crime and justice correspondent shimon prokupecz is outside the courthouse. we re learning manafort is in the courtroom right now. what else are we learning? reporter: yeah, john. so some decisions here, some rulings from the judge. he just granted a request from prosecutor prosecutors from the special counsel s office a request he made that he grant five witnesses immunity. these are five mystery witnesses. we don t know anything about them. but prosecutors had last week asked the judge to grant these witnesses immunity so they can come in and testify, not have to take the fifth. they could freely testify without the fear of prosecution. clearly these are important witnesses to the prosecution. so the prosecutors had asked that the judge go ahead and give them immunity. that just occurred moments ago. other procedural matters here in court today involve the request
this idea of whether his election interference and collusion and he just seems to want to say it s fake. everything is fake. don t pay attention to that. i think when you look at this manafort trial, even though it s not really connected to the campaign, i wonder how much it will upset the president to see these headlines, to see what s happening. he just doesn t like anything from the special counsel, any attention to that. so his reaction could, i think, be interesting to watch. as this investigation moves on and the other cases are resolved and the other investigative questions are answered by bob mueller, including will the president ever sit down for an interview, to see the professionalism. that s one thing everybody tells you about the mueller operation. they know what they re doing and have re-created meetings to the point that the people at the meetings are stunned they know more about it than they did. the only thing i would say is
over documents, manafort s attorneys asking the judge to delay this trial because the late production of some of these documents. that decision, we expect, among other things more procedural, kind of cleaning of the house matters to take place at some point this afternoon. everyone is due back in court at 2:00, john. and given what we ve seen play out in the recent weeks and months, the tensions between manafort and the special counsel s office, i would say this is unlikely, but we re always open to the possibility of a surprise. any possibility of a plea deal? certainly that is possible in this case. it s usually difficult once a trial starts to give a plea deal to anyone. however, that could change if somewhere along the way manafort decides to cooperate with the special counsel. of course, there has been a lot of talk that all these charges, this one and obviously the case in d.c., is all about putting pressure on manafort, who if convicted, would likely spend the rest of his li
he is 69. perhaps this is all about putting pressure on manafort to cooperate. that is always a possibility. shimon prokupecz at the courthouse in virginia. keep us posted if there are any other significant rulings. back in the room now. again, to be careful and fair to the president, this trial has nothing to do with the 2016 campaign. however, it does have a lot to do with the credibility of the special counsel s office, which is you shouunder constant attac the united states. this is one trial. there are other cases still in the system. there are sentencing of national security adviser who s admitted lying. manafort s former deputy admitted lying. so there are people closer to the president who have admitted lying to prosecutors who will be sentenced later. how important is this trial for the special counsel, who doesn t talk in public, only the courtroom? it s important i think you hit it right when it comes to the special counsel s credibility and their ability to successful