Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his onetime deputy, Rick Gates, were indicted on tax and bank fraud charges as U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller mounted a fresh attack to strengthen his legal pressure against the men. Mueller used a new 32-count indictment in Alexandria, Virginia, to raise the legal stakes against the duo, who were initially indicted on Oct. 27 in Washington on charges of laundering millions of dollars and failing to register as foreign agents for their political consulting work over a decade in Ukraine.
The second indictment complicates the legal defense for both men and appears to signal that plea negotiations have been fruitless. Gates had been weighing a guilty plea, according to several reports. Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, has charged a total of 19 people and picked up the tempo of his public actions in recent days.
“Manafort and Gates generated tens of millions of dollars in income as a result of their Ukraine work,” the new indictment said. “From approximately 2006 through the present, Manafort and Gates engaged in a scheme to hide income from United States authorities, while enjoying the use of the money.”
The men are accused of filing false tax returns in each year from 2010 to 2014, and of conspiring to defraud three banks of more than $22 million through loans secured by Manafort’s properties. At one bank, a conspirator helped in the fraud, the indictment said. It also charged that as their political consulting income dwindled in Ukraine in 2014 and 2015, Manafort and Gates defrauded banks to allow Manafort “to have the benefits of liquid income without paying taxes on it.”
Apparently part of the evidence used against these two idiots is an email of Manafort asking Gates to convert a fraudulent document from a word file to a pdf.
Pair of real geniuses here.Y'all I'm dying, Manafort created an incriminating paper trail because he needed someone to help him convert a Word doc to PDF. pic.twitter.com/CTE4oV7zj0— Susan Simpson (@TheViewFromLL2) February 22, 2018
Speaking of geniuses this kind of makes me wonder just HOW MUCH incriminating evidence that Mueller has compiled to use in this investigation.
I mean he started out with indictments against Manafort and Gates accusing them of conspiracy, and when they failed to cooperate he simply indicts them on tax and bank fraud charges like it's nothing.
One has to wonder what else he has in the chamber if Manafort continues to hold out on him?
(You can read these new indictments here.)
Source http://ift.tt/2osYlFD
