Thread: A federal grand jury filed a 32-count indictment Thursday against Manafort and Gates

A federal grand jury filed a 32-count indictment Thursday against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and aide Rick Gates.

3 hours ago

Manafort, Gates indicted on new tax and bank fraud charges

By Samuel Chamberlain | Fox News

At least one new charge filed in Manafort case

Court records indicate at least one new charge has been filed under seal in the case against President Trump's former campaign chairman.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller filed a 32-count indictment Thursday hitting former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and aide Rick Gates with fresh charges of tax evasion and bank fraud.

Manafort is specifically charged with five counts related to filing false income tax returns and four counts of failure to report foreign bank and financial accounts. Gates is accused of 11 counts related to filing false income tax returns and three counts of failure to report foreign bank and financial accounts. Both men are accused of nine counts of bank fraud and conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

Prosecutors claim the men doctored documents to inflate the income of their businesses and then using those fraudulent documents to obtain loans. They also accuse Manafort of evading taxes from 2010 through 2014 and in some of those years concealing his foreign bank accounts.

The charges against Manafort and Gates don't relate to any allegations of misconduct related to Trump's campaign.

The two men were initially charged in a 12-count indictment last October that accused them of a multimillion-dollar money-laundering conspiracy tied to their foreign lobbying work. They are accused of directing a covert Washington lobbying campaign on behalf of pro-Russian Ukrainian interests. Manafort and Gates pleaded not guilty to the initial charges.

The additional charges involve much of the same conduct Manafort and Gates were initially charged with, but they increase the amount of money Manafort is accused of laundering through offshore accounts to $30 million.

The new indictment was returned by a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va. It leaves open the possibility that Manafort or Gates could face additional state charges of filing false tax returns.

In a document that accompanied the new indictment, prosecutors said they had filed the charges in Virginia, rather than Washington where the other case is pending, because the alleged conduct occurred there and one of the defendants objected to them being brought in Washington.

The new indictment comes a week after Mueller filed charges against 13 Russians, accusing them of a vast conspiracy to undermine the U.S. presidential election.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018...ort-gates.html

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