Update, 9:36 p.m.: Manafort attorney Jason Maloni emails in the following statement “on behalf of Paul Manafort:
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Special counsel Robert Mueller on Thursday issued a new slate of charges against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his associate Richard Gates, adding charges of bank and tax fraud to last year’s indictment for failure to disclose his lobbying work for the pro-Russian government of Ukraine.
The initial charges brought against Manafort and Gates last October accused the pair of working in secret as lobbyists for Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and other foreign entities, and laundering payments related to that lobbying through a variety of U.S. businesses. Thursday’s indictment fleshes out these charges, detailing the fraudulent measures by which Manafort and Gates allegedly hid their ill-gotten earnings from authorities.
The new indictment alleges that Manafort, with Gates’s help, avoided paying taxes on his income by disguising it as loans from offshore entities “and by making millions of dollars in unreported payments from foreign accounts to bank accounts they controlled and United States vendors.”
“In furtherance of the scheme, Manafort and Gates funneled millions of dollars in payments into numerous foreign nominee companies and bank accounts, opened by them and their accomplishes in nominee names and in various foreign countries,” the indictment reads.
The new filing, Mueller’s third in less than a week, is a further indication that the special counsel’s investigation is picking up speed. Last Friday, the counsel’s grand jury indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities on charges of conspiring to undermine American democratic institutions. On Tuesday, the court released a plea deal struck by Dutch lawyer Alex van der Zwaan, who admitted he lied to investigators about his recent communications with Richard Gates about their work on behalf of Yanukovych years prior.
Gates’s own role in the developing investigation remains unclear. CNN reported last week that the Manafort associate was close to striking a plea deal with Mueller, as evidenced by his retention of high-profile attorney Thomas Green. The Daily Beast reported Thursday, however, that Gates was not flipping, and that he was in the process of firing Green. Green’s name appeared on court documents filed Thursday, and he called the Daily Beast report “BS.”
