Paul Manafort Guilty of 8 Charges

[donner]

I'm surprised our other news hawks aren't all over this and the Cohen plea

https://www.usnews.com/news/politic...anafort-trial-enters-4th-day-of-deliberations

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — Paul Manafort, the longtime political operative who for months led Donald Trump's winning presidential campaign, was found guilty of eight financial crimes Tuesday in the first trial victory of the special counsel investigation into the president's associates.

A judge declared a mistrial on 10 other counts the jury could not agree on.

The verdict was part of a stunning one-two punch of bad news for the White House, coming as the president's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was pleading guilty in New York to campaign finance charges arising from hush money payments made to two women who say they had sex with Trump.

The jury returned the decision after deliberating four days on tax and bank fraud charges against Manafort, who led the Trump election effort during a crucial stretch of 2016.

Manafort, who appeared jovial earlier in the day amid signs that the jury was struggling in its deliberations, stared intently at the panel as the clerk read off the charges. He stared down blankly at the defense table, then looked up, expressionless, as the judge finished thanking the jury.

Manafort was found guilty of five counts of filing false tax returns on tens of millions of dollars in Ukrainian political consulting income. He was also convicted of failing to report a foreign bank account and of two bank fraud charges that accused him of lying to banks to obtain millions of dollars in loans after his income dried up.

The outcome, though not the across-the-board guilty verdicts the prosecutors sought, almost certainly guarantees years of prison for Manafort. It also appears to vindicate the ability of special counsel Robert Mueller's team to secure convictions from a jury of average citizens despite months of partisan attacks — including from Trump — on the investigation's integrity.

The verdict raised immediate questions of whether the president would seek to pardon Manafort, the lone American charged by Mueller to opt for trial instead of cooperate. The president has not revealed his thinking but spoke sympathetically throughout the trial of his onetime aide, at one point suggesting he had been treated worse than gangster Al Capone.

The trial, presided over by the colorful and impatient U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III, captured Trump's attention as he sought to undermine Mueller's investigation through a constant Twitter barrage and increasingly antagonistic statements from his lawyer-spokesman, Rudy Giuliani.

But the Trump campaign comprised but a fraction of the trial as jurors instead heard detailed and sometimes dull testimony about Manafort's finances and what prosecutors say was a years-long tax-evasion and fraud scheme.

Manafort decided not to put on any witnesses or testify himself. His attorneys said he made the decision because he didn't believe the government had met its burden of proof.

Manafort's defense team attempted to make the case about the credibility of longtime Manafort protege Rick Gates, who served as the government's star witness. They attacked him as a liar, embezzler and instigator of any crimes as they tried to persuade jurors that Manafort didn't willfully violate the law.

Gates spent three days on the witness stand, telling jurors how he committed crimes alongside Manafort for years. Gates admitted to doctoring documents, falsifying information and creating fake loans to lower his former boss' tax bill. He also admitted to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars without Manafort's knowledge by filing fake expense reports.

But the government's case wasn't all about Gates. Prosecutors spent two weeks presenting a meticulous, document-based case before the jury as they sought to prove Manafort used offshore bank accounts to conceal millions of dollars in proceeds from his Ukrainian political consulting from the IRS and later turned to defrauding banks.

Overall, prosecutors say Manafort avoided paying more than $16 million in taxes over several years.

They called carpenters, landscapers and clothiers to attest to how Manafort paid for his lavish lifestyle of expensive suits and elaborate properties through offshore wire transfers from shell companies in Cyprus and elsewhere. They also brought in bankers and accountants to tell jurors how, when Manafort's foreign consulting income dropped off, he turned to obtaining millions of dollars more in bank loans under false pretenses.

And perhaps most importantly, the government read from Manafort's own emails as they laid out their case, including messages where he personally directed withdrawals from the offshore accounts he never reported on his tax returns.

Some of other emails admitted into evidence revealed Manafort's lobbying of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner on behalf of Stephen Calk, the chairman of Federal Savings Bank. Prosecutors say Calk approved $16 million in loans for Manafort — despite several red flags — because Calk wanted a job in the Trump administration.

The emails showed that in the weeks after the 2016 election, Manafort urged Kushner to consider Calk for Secretary of the Army, a position Calk had put at the top of his list in an earlier email to Manafort. Calk also listed seven other senior domestic appointments and 18 ambassadorships — ranked in order of preference — that he would accept.

Kushner respond to Manafort's email by saying, "On it!" But Calk ultimately did not get an administration post.

The trial in Alexandria, Virginia, is the first of two for Manafort. He faces a trial later this year in the District of Columbia on charges of conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, making false statements and acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Ukrainian interests. He is also accused of witness tampering in that case.

 

[Dave70968]

It doesn't support the narrative.

 

[Cowcatcher]

Cool! Glad the law is working.

 

[donner]

It doesn't support the narrative.

whatever do you mean?

 

[John6185]

How many others in Washington circles are guilty of the same or worse? I hope this conviction makes other begin to sweat and is the beginning of the end for others whom we've entrusted in politics.

 

[donner]

How many others in Washington circles are guilty of the same or worse? I hope this conviction makes other begin to sweat and is the beginning of the end for others whom we've entrusted in politics.

agreed. draining the swamp

 

[SlugSlinger]

Lock them up and get 2 more worthless attorneys off the street.

 

[Louro]

You see Trump collude with Rusia, just been sarcastic......lol

 

[Shadowrider]

I'm surprised our other news hawks aren't all over this and the Cohen plea

https://www.usnews.com/news/politic...anafort-trial-enters-4th-day-of-deliberations

A lot of noise about nothing.

1) There's no connection to Trump whatsoever so stop implying something earth shaking occurred. Some tax charges from years before Trump was even a candidate. I'd wager that every single attorney in NYC and DC could be convicted on similar charges with the complexity of the tax code and an unending investigation. *yawn*

2) Cohen didn't commit a crime. NDAs aren't illegal in the slightest. He can use all his money on keeping hookers quiet, there's nothing illegal about it. He screwed himself. Good riddance.

 

[donner]

A lot of noise about nothing.

1) There's no connection to Trump whatsoever so stop implying something earth shaking occurred. Some tax charges from years before Trump was even a candidate. I'd wager that every single attorney in NYC and DC could be convicted on similar charges with the complexity of the tax code and an unending investigation. *yawn*

2) Cohen didn't commit a crime. NDAs aren't illegal in the slightest. He can use all his money on keeping hookers quiet, there's nothing illegal about it. He screwed himself. Good riddance.

1) you don't want to drain the swamp of bad apples? And i implied nothing. You can choose to infer what you wish, but i simply posted an article about a prominent news event.

IIRC, he also has another trial coming up soon for lying to the FBI, money laundering and foreign lobbying, too. Not to mention if they refile any of the 10 counts from the mistrial.

2) If he didn't commit a crime, why'd he plead guilty?

Cohen pleads guilty, implicates Trump in hush-money scheme

NEW YORK (AP) — Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer, pleaded guilty Tuesday to campaign-finance violations and other charges, saying Trump directed him to arrange the payment of hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels and a former Playboy model to fend off damage to his White House bid.

Cohen’s extraordinary account marks the first time that any Trump associate has gone into open court and implicated Trump himself in a crime, though whether — or when — a president can be prosecuted remains a matter of legal dispute.

The guilty plea was part of a double dose of bad news for Trump: It came at almost the same moment his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was convicted in Alexandria, Virginia, of eight financial crimes in the first trial to come out of special counsel Robert Mueller’s sprawling Russia investigation.

In a deal reached with federal prosecutors, Cohen, 51, pleaded guilty to eight counts , including tax evasion. He could get about four to five years in prison at sentencing Dec. 12.

In entering the plea, Cohen did not name the two women or even Trump, recounting instead that he worked with an “unnamed candidate” to influence the election.

But the amounts and the dates all lined up with the $130,000 paid to Daniels and the $150,000 that went to Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal to buy their silence in the weeks and months leading up to the 2016 presidential election. Both women claimed to have had affairs with Trump, which he denies.

Cohen, his voice shaky as he answered questions from a federal judge, said one payment was “in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office,” and the other was made “under direction of the same candidate.”

However, in the charging documents, a news release and comments outside the courthouse, prosecutors did not go as far as Cohen did in open court in pointing the finger at the president. Prosecutors said Cohen acted “in coordination with a candidate or campaign for federal office for purposes of influencing the election.”

As cable networks were showing split-screen coverage of the conviction and plea bargain by two of his former loyalists, Trump himself boarded Air Force One on his way to a rally in West Virginia and ignored shouted questions about the men.

Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, noted in a statement that “there is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the president in the government’s charges against Mr. Cohen.”

Daniel Petalas, a former prosecutor in the Justice Department’s public integrity section, said, “This brings President Trump closer into the criminal conduct.”

“The president has certain protections while a sitting president, but if it were true, and he was aware and tried to influence an election, that could be a federal felony offense,” Petalas said. “This strikes close to home.”

After the court hearing, which ended with Cohen released on $500,000 bail, the lawyer wiped away tears as he gazed out a courthouse window. He left the building and headed straight for a black SUV with tinted windows. A couple of people outside chanted, “Lock him up!” as they recorded the scene with their phones.

Under federal law, expenditures to protect a candidate’s political fortunes can be construed to be campaign contributions, subject to federal laws that bar donations from corporations and set limits on how much can be given.

“If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn’t they be a crime for Donald Trump?” Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, tweeted.

Cohen’s plea follows months of scrutiny from federal investigations and a falling-out with the president, for whom Cohen once said he would “take a bullet.”

The FBI raided Cohen’s hotel room, home and office in April and seized more than 4 million items. The search sought bank records, communications with Trump’s campaign and information on the payments to the two women.

According to prosecutors, the payment to McDougal was made through the parent company of the National Enquirer. Cohen made the payment to Daniels through his own company and then was reimbursed by Trump, he said.

Trump denied to reporters in April that he knew anything about Cohen’s payments to Daniels, but the explanations from him and Giuliani have shifted multiple times since.

The president has fumed publicly about the raid, branding it “a witch hunt,” an assault on attorney-client privilege and a politically motivated attack by enemies in the FBI. But privately he has worried about what information Cohen may have after working for the Trump Organization for a decade.

“Obviously it’s not good for Trump,” Sol Wisenberg, who conducted grand jury questioning of President Bill Clinton during the Whitewater investigation, said of the plea bargain.

“I’m assuming he’s not going to be indicted because he’s a sitting president, Wisenberg added. “But it leads him closer to ultimate impeachment proceedings, particularly if the Democrats take back the House.”

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has held that a president cannot be indicted while in office. Trump’s lawyers have said that Mueller plans to adhere to that guidance, though Mueller’s office has never confirmed that. There would presumably be no bar against charging a president after he leaves the White House.

Daniels said Tuesday that she and her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, feel vindicated and look forward to apologies “from the people who claimed we were wrong.”

Nothing made public so far indicates Cohen has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, but Avenatti said he is certain that is happening.

Mueller’s team, which is looking into Russian interference in the presidential election, came across some of the evidence against Cohen in the course of its investigation and referred the matter to federal prosecutors in New York.

Deputy U.S. Attorney Robert Khuzami said that in addition to the campaign finance violations, Cohen failed to report more than $4 million in income between 2012 and 2016, including $1.3 million from his taxi medallion holdings.

Cohen also lied to a financial institution by failing to disclose more than $14 million in debt and obtaining a $500,000 home equity line of credit he wasn’t entitled to, Khuzami said. Cohen used that credit line to fund the Daniels payment, prosecutors said.

After making the hush money payments, Cohen submitted phony invoices to Trump’s company, ostensibly for services rendered in 2017, the prosecutor said.

“Those involves were a sham,” Khuzami said. “He provided no legal services for the year 2017. It was simply a means to obtain reimbursement for the unlawful contributions.”

Before the election, Cohen had been a trusted member of the Trump organization, working out of an office in Trump Tower next to one used by his boss. He raised millions for Trump’s campaign.

The president’s initial support for Cohen after the raid soon degenerated into a public feud, with Cohen hinting he might cut a deal with prosecutors.

When Cohen’s team produced a recording he had made of Trump discussing one of the hush-money payments, Trump tweeted: “What kind of lawyer would tape a client? So sad!”[/QOUTE]