“This verdict makes it absolutely clear that the Mueller probe is not a ‘witch hunt’ — it is a serious investigation that is rooting out corruption and Russian influence on our political system at the highest levels,” Senate Intelligence Vice Chairman Mark Warner of Virginia said in a statement.

House Intelligence Committee ranking member Adam Schiff echoed that assertion. The conviction “shows again that the president’s campaign was populated by individuals with a history of unscrupulous and dishonest business dealings and concerning ties to overseas interests,” he said in a statement.

Schiff also predicted that the conviction would “dramatically increase the likelihood” that Manafort will “cooperate with the government.”

Over 10 days of evidence and witness testimony, prosecutors stitched together a narrative of Manafort as a luxury-obsessed political operative who would go to any lengths to maintain his lavish lifestyle — including hiding $30 million from the IRS in 31 offshore accounts and lying on bank loan applications when his income stream dried up.

The defense blamed any financial mischief on Manafort’s own ignorance of the law or on his longtime deputy, Rick Gates. Gates had signature authority over many of the foreign accounts tied to Manafort and frequently communicated with Manafort’s bookkeeper, tax preparers and bankers with whom he was negotiating loans.

But prosecutors also presented a flood of emails that showed Manafort was more than privy to at least some of his personal and business finances — enough to convince the jury to convict him on eight of the counts.

In emails with the Cypriot lawyer who executed transactions from his overseas accounts, Manafort referred to some of the entities as “my accounts.”

In one email, he directed Gates to make a payment from Leviathan Ltd., one of the accounts. Soon after, receipts showed, the payment was executed.

Manafort’s conviction is one of the steepest political downfalls in recent memory.

He served in senior campaign positions for five Republican presidents — Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Donald Trump. He raked in roughly $60 million over a 10-year period helping Ukrainian politician Viktor Yanukovych rise from the political ash heap to become president there from 2010 to 2014.

Now, Manafort could spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Each of the five charges for filing a false tax return carry a maximum three-year sentence. Convicts face up to five years for failing to file an FBAR.

The two bank loan fraud charges against Manafort carry the biggest max penalty: 30 years apiece.

And he hasn’t reached his legal finish line.

In just weeks, Manafort will stand trial in Washington, D.C., on a multitude of charges including conspiracy to defraud the United States, failing to register as a foreign agent, money laundering, witness tampering, and making false statements to the FBI.

Loan fraud

Manafort’s loan fraud convictions stem from a series of back-to-back loans he secured in 2016, first from Citizens Bank and then from the Banc of California.

Employees of the two banks outlined how Manafort fudged numbers on his financial statements and left out crucial information about his debts in order to secure the loans.

To secure a $3.4 million loan from Citizens Bank in March 2016, Manafort signed a loan application with multiple pieces of false information about two of his properties in New York. He did not disclose a $5.3 million mortgage on a Brooklyn property and claimed that a loft he owned in Manhattan was a primary residence, not a rental.

Within weeks of securing that $3.4 million loan from Citizens Bank, Manafort applied for another loan worth $1 million from the Banc of California on the Brooklyn property he already had a $5.3 million mortgage on.

Manafort indicated on that loan application that he did not have any outstanding loans on his balance sheet — even though he had just secured the $3.4 million loan from Citizens Bank weeks earlier.

Banc of California executive Gary Seferian told the jury during testimony that they ultimately issued Manafort a $1 million loan based on the reported income for his political consulting firm, DMP International. The prosecution introduced emails between Manafort and Gates that showed they inflated Manafort’s income from roughly $400,000 to $4.4 million.

If Banc of California had known DMP International had brought in $400,000 instead of the reported $4.4 million would Manafort have gotten any loan at all?

“I don’t think so,” Seferian said.