Manafort put himself above the law to fund his expensive tastes, court hears

[nitpicker]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/31/paul-manafort-trial-day-one-rick-gates-donald-trump

Manafort put himself above the law to fund his expensive tastes, court hears

David Smith in Alexandria, Virginia

Wed 1 Aug 2018 00.44 BST Last modified on Wed 1 Aug 2018 07.57 BST


Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort put “himself and his money above the law” to bankroll a lavish lifestyle that included a $21,000 watch and a $15,000 jacket made from ostrich, a court heard on Tuesday. “As the old adage goes, just follow the money,” assistant US attorney Uzo Asonye told the jury on the first day of the lobbyist and political consultant’s trial on 18 charges of bank fraud and tax evasion.

But Manafort’s defence sought to shift blame to his deputy, Rick Gates, and attempted to cast doubt on his forthcoming evidence by claiming that he betrayed Manafort’s trust and “had his hand in the cookie jar”.

The arguments were heard on the first day of the first trial arising from Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged collusion between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia. Mueller was not present in the courtroom in Alexandria, Virginia, and Trump’s name was not mentioned.

Even so, a pin could have been heard to drop as Asonye embarked on his opening statement. “A man in this courtroom believed the law did not apply to him,” he said, as Manafort looked on without expression. “No tax law, no banking law.”

The evidence gathered by Mueller’s team would show that Manafort funneled more than $60m in proceeds from his Ukrainian political consulting through offshore accounts and had hidden a “significant” portion of it from the IRS, the prosecutor continued. It funded multiple luxury homes, fast cars and “fancy clothes” worth half a million dollars.

That “secret income” had been used to pay for personal expenses such as a $21,000 watch, a $15,000 jacket made of ostrich and more than $6m worth of property paid for in cash, Asonye said. “He got whatever he wanted.”
(snip)

[Arkansas Granny]

1. Ron Perlman makes a good point about Manafort.

Link to tweet

?s=20


Ron Perlman
✔
@perlmutations
I say again: Paul Manafort owed some scary Russian muthafuckas alotta money; so he gets his debts forgiven is he could deliver the idiot trump as a Russian plant. So he ran the campaign for free. And won’t flip cuz he’d rather die in jail than piss off said Russians.

3:23 PM - Jul 31, 2018

This sounds plausible to me.