By Del Quentin Wilber and Aruna Viswanatha 

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- Federal prosecutors Thursday made their final argument to jurors that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was a liar who cheated the government on his taxes and bilked banks on fraudulent loans to help pay for a life of expensive suits, luxury cars and manicured hedges.

"Mr. Manafort lied to keep more money when he had it, and to get more money when he didn't," prosecutor Greg Andres said in Mr. Manafort's trial on tax and bank fraud charges.

Mr. Manafort's is the first trial to emerge from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

In taking jurors on a tour of financial records, Mr. Andres highlighted testimony from an Federal Bureau of Investigation accountant who tracked payments from Mr. Manafort's clients in Ukraine, where he did political work, to offshore bank accounts and then to vendors.

Over five years, Mr. Andres said, the longtime political consultant wired more than $15 million to tailors, rug shops, car dealers and contractors. That money never appeared as income on his tax returns, nor did Mr. Manafort disclose those funds to his own bookkeepers and accountants.

"Why would Mr. Manafort lie to his bookkeeper and tax preparers?" Mr. Andres asked. "Those questions answer themselves. He wanted to hide that money and avoid paying taxes... Ask yourself why did he pay [his bookkeeper] $100,000 to pay his bills and then pay those vendors himself?"

Mr. Andres took pains to distance the case from one of his main witnesses, Richard Gates, a longtime employee of Mr. Manafort who has been characterized as a liar by the defense team. Mr. Gates pleaded guilty in the case and to lying to federal agents as part of a deal with Mr. Mueller's office. He testified that he helped Mr. Manafort avoid paying taxes on the overseas income and helped him use misleading documents to enable Mr. Manafort to obtain bank loans when his company hit hard times.

Mr. Manafort's defense team will speak to the 12 jurors later in the afternoon, and the jury should begin deliberations by evening.

The defense says the case is based on lies by Mr. Gates, who admitted to a litany of misconduct including embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from his former boss. Mr. Gates's testimony lasted three days, during which he was subjected to withering cross-examination in which he admitted to additional wrongdoing

Mr. Andres didn't bring up Mr. Gates until more than half way into his closing remarks. After laying out emails, memos and other documentary evidence for about an hour, Mr. Andres pointed out that he hadn't referred to Mr. Gates yet.

"The evidence before you is enough" to convict Mr. Manafort on the tax charges, Mr. Andres said. "The star witness in this case is the documents."

Over the past two weeks at trial, prosecutors presented a series of witnesses who worked with and for Mr. Manafort, describing him as a successful political strategist who earned some $60 million working for Ukrainian politicians in the early 2010s. They said he earned the money in Cyprus bank accounts, but hid more than $15 million of it from tax authorities and instead wired it to pay for personal expenses and real estate. They have also described Mr. Manafort as falling into desperate financial straits by 2015, as that income dried up, and he turned to multiple U.S. banks for millions of dollars in loans.

In his closing presentation, Mr. Andres focused in part on the allegations of bank fraud, walking jurors through a series of loan applications Mr. Manafort submitted between 2015 and 2017 that were "riddled with false statements," Mr. Andres said.

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis's frequent interruptions and criticisms of prosecutors have hung over much of the trial, but Judge Ellis interjected into Mr. Andres's more than 90 minute-presentation only once, to ask if he wanted to save some time for rebuttal.

Write to Del Quentin Wilber at del.wilber@wsj.com and Aruna Viswanatha at Aruna.Viswanatha@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 15, 2018 14:17 ET (18:17 GMT)