A jury of six men and six women was selected Tuesday for the federal criminal trial of former Trump presidential campaign chief Paul Manafort slightly less than four hours after it began.

Opening arguments in the case were scheduled to begin later Tuesday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., after the jury, along with three female alternates and one male alternate, receive instructions in their duties by the trial judge.

Jury selection began Tuesday morning after Manafort, 69, was brought to court from a jail where he is being held without bail on charges lodged by special counsel Robert Mueller related to the money he made consulting for a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine from 2005 to 2014.

The longtime Republican lobbyist — who is accused of multiple counts of bank fraud and tax crimes that could send him to prison for decades if he is convicted — traded his jailhouse jumpsuit for a black suit, white dress shirt and silver tie before he walked into the dimly lit courtroom. He has pleaded not guilty in the case.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers had in total 20 "strikes" that they could use to eliminate potential jurors from the pool of 65 or so who were questioned by both sides and Judge T.S. Ellis III on Tuesday.

They used nearly all of those strikes in a series of rounds, during which Ellis became noticeably impatient with how long each side was taking to decide whom to eliminate.

"Let''s expedite this now," Ellis urged the lawyers at one point.