It's Draft Time: Impeachment Edition

[GMDino]

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/22/mueller-adds-new-tax-bank-fraud-charges-against-manafort-gates-422335

Quote:Mueller adds new tax, bank fraud charges against Manafort, Gates
Special counsel files new criminal case against pair in northern Virginia.

By JOSH GERSTEIN
 
02/22/2018 04:39 PM EST
 
Updated 02/22/2018 06:18 PM EST


Special counsel Robert Mueller turned up the pressure on former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and aide Rick Gates, as a federal grand jury returned a new indictment Thursday charging the two men with tax and bank fraud.


The new 32-count indictment returned by a grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia comes after Mueller separately charged the pair in Washington last year with money laundering and failing to register as foreign agents for their work related to Ukraine.

The new indictment accuses Manafort and Gates of dramatically understating their income on federal tax returns filed from 2010 through 2014. The pair is also accused of bank fraud totaling more than $20 million tied to three loans Manafort applied for in connection with various homes he owns.


In all, Manafort and Gates laundered more than $30 million in income, chiefly from their Ukraine work, the new indictment alleges.


None of the charges currently facing the pair appears to relate directly to the core of Mueller's investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. But the special counsel has jurisdiction to pursue any crimes he finds in the course of his probe, and the new charges Thursday show he is ramping up pressure on the former aides to President Donald Trump.


Some of the alleged bank fraud appears to have overlapped with the Trump campaign. Manafort and Gates joined the campaign in the spring of 2016 to help plan for the Republican National Convention, and Manafort was campaign chairman from May until he resigned on Aug. 19. But the White House has subsequently tried to distance itself from him, with Trump saying at one point that Manafort only worked for him for a “very short period of time.”

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The scrutiny of the pair so far has focused on their lobbying work on behalf of the Ukrainian government and former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych from 2006 to 2015. The initial indictment claimed they generated tens of millions of dollars through that work, which was then laundered through “scores of United States and foreign corporations, partnerships, and bank accounts.”


Prosecutors claim in the new indictment that Manafort made various misrepresentations to obtain loans, including forging profit-and-loss statements for his consulting businesses.


No new defendants were charged in the latest indictment, but it alleges that the men had a "conspirator" at at least one of the lenders from which Manafort obtained the loans.


In response to one of the profit-and-loss statements provided in connection with a loan request, the unnamed "conspirator" allegedly replied that the document was too obviously faked.


"Looks Dr'd. Can't someone just do a clean excel doc and pdf to me?" the indictment quotes the bank employee as replying.


Based on the description of the loan in the court document, the lender appears to be Providence, R.I.-based Citizens Bank. A spokesman there declined to comment on Thursday.

Prosecutors said the case against Manafort and Gates filed in Washington in October will continue, although it appears a few charges from that indictment are being moved to the Virginia case. Defendants in tax cases have the right to insist on being charged in their home district. Mueller's team said they were willing to consolidate the case in Washington, but either Manafort or Gates declined to agree to be prosecuted on those charges in Washington.


The parallel legal cases will increase the complexity and cost of the legal defense for Manafort and Gates.
Gates' legal team has been in flux recently, with his existing lawyers, Shanlon Wu, Walter Mack and AnneMarie McAvoy, seeking to withdraw for reasons that have not been explained publicly.


Longtime Washington defense lawyer Thomas Green of Sidley Austin formally entered an appearance in the case Thursday and consented to the other lawyers departing.
Lawyers for Manafort and Gates did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the new charges. The judge in the Washington case has imposed a gag order, but the Virginia case will be heard before another judge, T.S. Ellis.