A cache of documents included in a filing Thursday largely includes emails and memos about campaign strategy and activities on behalf of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters Paul Manafort

Lawyers for former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort filed court papers Thursday asking a federal judge in Virginia to exclude more than 50 pieces of evidence the government has said it may introduce at trial related to Manafort's previous work in Ukraine. But the filing includes copies of all the exhibits Manafort doesn't want a jury to see. The cache of documents largely includes emails and memos about campaign strategy and activities on behalf of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, Manafort's former client. It also includes photos of Yanukovych that special counsel Robert Mueller's office said were taken at Manafort's direction, draft political speeches, and memos about US–Ukraine relations.

Office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller / Via US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia A draft of a speech for Yanukovych.

Office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller / Via US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia A photo of Yanukovych prosecutors say was taken at Manafort's direction.

Tad Devine, a senior adviser to Bernie Sanders in 2016 and a longtime Democratic aide, worked in Ukraine with Manafort and Manafort's former associate Rick Gates and appears in a series of exhibits that provide rich detail about the work the Americans were doing there. Gates was originally charged with Manafort, but has since pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with Mueller's office.

On Thursday evening, Devine's political consulting firm, Devine Mulvey Longabaugh, put out a statement that Devine is assisting the special counsel's office in the Manafort prosecution. The exhibits Manafort is seeking to exclude from being introduced contain detail, and casual conversation, about the political work the consultants did abroad, as much as a decade before the 2016 election. Manafort's case seems likely to explore in depth the lucrative, insider world of Washington influence, and which cuts against the outsider image of Donald Trump, whose campaign Manafort chaired — and that of Bernie Sanders, the democratic socialist whose campaign Devine produced ads for. "Gents," Gates emailed a handful of political consultants on April 2, 2012, according to Exhibit G. "I hope everyone is well. We have once again reached the point in time where we should cast aside all US political work in favor of everyone's most beloved country — Ukraine."



Office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller / Via US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia June 2014 emails between Devine and Gates.

The documents contain everything from the draft text of a speech for Yanukovych’s victory night (sent by Devine to Manafort on Feb. 3, 2010) to talking points Devine wrote for Yanukovych in August 2010, to polling and drafts of ads. On June 6, 2014, according to one exhibit, Gates emailed Devine with “goals” for a visit to Kiev (“Messing on the new party,” “media training,” and “speech”) with proposed dates. In the course of the email thread, Gates proposes a “daily rate” for comp; Devine responds that his “rate for something like this would be $10,000/day, including travel days.” Another exhibit is a draft script for a television ad for Yanukovych's Party of Regions.

Office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller / Via US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia Memo about a television ad for the Party of Regions.