WASHINGTON — Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his second-in-command Rick Gates, who were indicted in October in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, face a new raft of charges just across the Potomac.
Manafort and Gates were indicted by a federal grand jury Thursday in the Eastern District of Virginia on 32 counts: 16 counts related to false income tax returns, seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts, five counts of bank fraud conspiracy, and four counts of bank fraud.
“Between approximately 2015 and at least January 2017,” states the indictment, “…Manafort and Gates fraudulently secured more than twenty million dollars in loans by falsely inflating Manafort’s and his company’s income and by failing to disclose existing debt in order to qualify for the loans.”
The two “funneled millions of dollars in payments into numerous foreign nominee companies and bank accounts, opened by them and their accomplices in nominee names and in various foreign countries, including Cyprus, Saint Vincent & the Grenadines (Grenadines), and the Seychelles,” the indictment alleges, while they “hid the existence and ownership of the foreign companies and bank accounts, falsely and repeatedly reporting to their tax preparers and to the United States that they had no foreign bank accounts.”
More than $75 million “flowed through the offshore accounts” and Manafort “laundered more than $30,000,000” while Gates “obtained more than $3,000,000 from the offshore accounts, income that he too concealed from the Treasury, the Department of Justice, and others.”
The indictment details amounts, payees, transaction dates, originating account holder and country of origination. At three points the document mentions an unnamed “conspirator” working with Gates and Manafort on alleged bank fraud schemes.
The October indictments in D.C. against Manafort and Gates include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading FARA statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. It charges that Manafort and Gates laundered money to hide payments from Kremlin-linked Ukraine clients from “approximately 2006 thorough at least 2016.”
Gates, a resident of Richmond, Va., stayed at the Trump campaign and worked on the inaugural committee after Manafort left in August 2016. He joined America First Policies when the nonprofit formed in January 2017 to promote Trump’s agenda, and left after just a few months.
The Daily Beast reported in June that Gates was working for Tom Barrack, Trump’s longtime friend and head of his inaugural committee who played an instrumental role in bringing Manafort onto the campaign. Gates has accompanied Barrack on multiple visits to the White House.
The DB reported Thursday that Gates fired attorney Tom Green, who was reportedly trying to get him a plea deal with special counsel Robert Mueller, but Green told the website that he’ll continue to represent Gates.
Earlier on Thursday, a judge rejected Manafort’s bail proposal to be released from house arrest.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member