The Justice Department is suing former President Donald Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort over allegedly undeclared foreign bank accounts.
The Justice Department is seeking over $2.9 million from Manafort to cover fines and interest for his “willful failure to timely report his financial interest in foreign bank accounts” during the 2013 and 2014 calendar years, according to a complaint filed Thursday with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Manafort, who was a political consultant at the time, is accused of failing to report consulting income from Ukrainian sources that was deposited into 22 accounts connected to him in Cyprus, the United Kingdom, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
PAUL MANAFORT BOOK SET TO PUBLISH IN AUGUST
Though the accounts were not held in his name, they were opened or operated by people working on Manafort’s behalf, the lawsuit alleges. Manafort had access to the accounts in question and used them to pay for “personal expenses,” according to the filing.
Manafort hired an accountant to prepare his federal tax returns for the years in question, but the accountant did not report his interest in foreign accounts on his federal income returns or through the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, the lawsuit contends. Manafort was notified about his failure to file his 2013 FBAR by the Treasury Department, according to the lawsuit.
Jeff Neiman, Manafort’s lawyer, said his client has been trying “for months” to “resolve this civil matter.”
“Today’s civil lawsuit seeks a money judgment against Mr. Manafort for simply failing to file a tax form,” Neiman wrote in a statement Thursday obtained by CNBC. “Nonetheless, the Government insisted on filing this suit simply to embarrass Mr. Manafort.”
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In 2019, Manafort was sentenced to 47 months in prison on fraud and tax charges, including one count of concealing foreign bank accounts. He was later pardoned by the Trump administration, which cited “blatant prosecutorial overreach” in Manafort’s case, in December 2020.
