Rick Gates said Tuesday that Paul Manafort altered a 2016 financial statement for his consulting firm to inflate the income of his business.
Gates told the court that Manafort emailed Gates in 2016 asking how to convert a “non-PDF” to a Word document.
“I understand he’s going to make some sort of change to it,” Gates said of Manafort and the profit-and-loss statement when asked why Manafort would request the document be sent in that format.
[Opinion: Rick Gates reminds Trump to shut up about Paul Manafort]
Gates said he converted the statement to a Microsoft Word document, which would allow it to be edited, and noted that when such a conversion is made, the alignment often changes and the numbers change to symbols.
Manafort later responded to Gates: “I have attached a revised P&L. Please review it and call me to discuss this and other matters.”
The original financial statement for Davis Manafort Partners International from Manafort’s bookkeeper showed the firm had a net loss of $638,000 that year.
But when Manafort sent the document back to Gates to be converted to a PDF once again, it showed a net income of $3 million.
Davis Manafort Partners International, Gates said, had no clients at the time and was not making any money. The altered document was off by roughly $4.2 million.
The altered document was then sent to a bank from which Manafort was seeking a loan.
Gates was called to the stand Monday by prosecutors, and his testimony extended into Tuesday afternoon.
