New charges have been filed in the federal government’s criminal case against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his associate Rick Gates.
The new document filed in federal court Wednesday by Mueller’s team was put under seal by the court. Judge Amy Berman Jackson is overseeing the case.
According to NBC News, Mueller’s team is looking to see if Manafort promised Stephen Calk, the president of Federal Savings Bank, a job in the Trump administration, possibly in return for loans.
Calk became one of Trump’s economic advisers in August 2016, and Manafort received loans in December 2016 and January 2017 from Federal Savings Bank to buy homes in New York City and the Hamptons. Manafort left the Trump campaign on Aug. 19, 2016.
In court filings Friday related to Manafort’s motion to change his bail terms, federal prosecutors said they have “substantial evidence” that he secured a mortgage from Federal Savings Bank “through a series of false and fraudulent representations.”
In the filings, federal prosecutors said that at the next bail hearing for Manafort they can produce “additional evidence related to this and the other bank frauds and conspiracies.” That evidence would have an effect on the “bail risk” Manafort poses, prosecutors argued.
Special counsel Robert Mueller, who was appointed in May 2017, charged Manafort and Gates in October 2017 with a handful of charges including conspiracy and money laundering. Both pleaded not guilty, but Gates is reportedly set to take a plea deal that would include testifying against Manafort.
On Tuesday in federal court in Washington, a London-based Dutch attorney named Alex van der Zwaan pleaded guilty of one count of making a false statement to investigators as part of Mueller’s probe. Van der Zwaan worked closely with Gates, prosecutors said.
