The court submission doesn’t elaborate, but Paul Manafort knew he was under investigation for some time by the FBI, Mueller’s office and congressional committees looking into potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. | Win McNamee/Getty Images Court filing highlights breadth of Mueller's investigation into Manafort Prosecutors obtained 15 search warrants, seizing thousands of documents and dozens of electronic devices.

Federal prosecutors’ investigation into Paul Manafort’s financial dealings was enormous in scope, with FBI agents executing at least 15 search warrants and assembling a trove of hundreds of thousands of records related to the case, according to details in a new court filing.

Lawyers from special counsel Robert Mueller’s office publicly outlined the scale of the probe on Friday as they informed a federal judge about efforts to turn over evidence to Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, and his business partner, Rick Gates, who were both indicted in October on charges that included money laundering and failing to register as foreign lobbyists for Ukraine.


Prosecutors said that, by Monday, Manafort’s defense attorneys will have electronic copies of “400,000 items,” such as emails, bank and tax records, and documents from vendors Manafort allegedly paid with some of the money, and images of 36 electronic devices such as laptops, phones and thumb drives.

Mueller’s team said that because the amount of materials in the legal discovery process is so great, the prosecution has tried to flag the most significant records.

“Given the volume of discovery in this case, the government also produced to defendants certain documents that it identified as ‘hot,’” prosecutors said, with about 2,000 records in that category.

POLITICO Playbook newsletter Sign up today to receive the #1-rated newsletter in politics Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Under the Constitution and court precedents, defendants are entitled to evidence the government has that could be helpful to their defense. However, prosecutors typically turn over the vast bulk of material they have relevant to a case, in order to avoid disputes.

The new filing also discloses in a footnote that when FBI agents executed a search warrant at Manafort’s home in July, they seized some materials deemed to be “privileged,” as well as other data “irrelevant to this matter.” The court submission doesn’t elaborate, but Manafort had known for some time that he was under investigation by the FBI, Mueller’s office and congressional committees looking into potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. As a result, it seems likely he had some emails or documents in his home that are protected by attorney-client privilege.

Gates is getting most of the same materials given to Manafort, save for the privileged records, prosecutors said.

U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson has not yet set a trial date in the case, but at one point the parties were pressing for April. Both sides are scheduled to be in court for a status conference on Monday.