The indictment of Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort reveals, among other things, that the man knew how to spend money. In the five years between 2008 and 2013 he dropped several million dollars—from offshore accounts in Cyprus and the Grenadines—tricking out his houses in Florida and the Hamptons. And in sprees spanning both coasts, he spent another million on men’s clothes. Perhaps the weirdest expense, though, is the documented $1.03 million on antique rugs in Alexandria, the D.C. suburb where he keeps a condo.
Alexandria has just three high-end rug retailers capable of the haul—one of which, Herat Oriental Rugs, is a wholesaler and therefore doesn’t move that kind of inventory to individual buyers. “You should try J&J Rug Gallery or Art Underfoot,” said Herat Oriental Rugs owner Zia Hassanzadeh, a 27-year veteran of the Northern Virginia rug market. “Must be Herat or J&J,” said the rug merchant who answered the phone at Art Underfoot on King Street. (He asked not to be named.) J&J’s inventory expert returned my call within the hour, eager to discuss their rugs, but when I mentioned the name Manafort, the line went dead. When I called back, he hung up again.
Wherever Manafort spent the million, it’s an unlikely sum, Hassanzadeh says: “It shouldn’t be more than a couple hundred thousand dollars at the max to fill an entire big house in Great Falls or McLean.” And, at that, they’d have to to be 18th- or 19th-century Persian, Turkish, or Caucasian carpets—handmade, and of a quality rarely seen in Alexandria. “You may see a few pieces in Manhattan or at a Sotheby’s auction, but if you’re talking about a million dollars of rugs in Alexandria, you’d have to buy an entire shop,” he said.
Jason Nazmiyal, a prominent Manhattan rug dealer, looks at Manafort’s rug spending and tells me, “It doesn’t make sense.” This is not the behavior of a high-end collector. “If you want to spend a million dollars, would you go to experts, or would you go to one of the about-to-go-out-of-business stores in a small town?” He answers his own question, “You don’t go to the local dealer.”
A rug specialist and expert in the art market, who asked not to be named, explained to me the reasoning behind odd spending on fine objects. In a down market—and Persian rugs are down worldwide, thanks in part to sanctions the U.S. imposed on Iran that barred their sale—hoarding valuable rugs as an investment wouldn’t be too unusual. But at such a scale and from a minor merchant? One wonders.
