Rick Gates, a former business associate to U.S. President Donald Trump’s ex-campaign manager Paul Manafort, continues to testify against his former boss and is expected to face a tough cross-examination on Tuesday.
Gates, 46, testified on Monday in an Alexandria, Va., courtroom that he helped falsify Manafort’s tax returns and hide his foreign bank accounts used to receive income from wealthy pro-Russia Ukrainian businessmen.
Gates, who also was an official on Trump’s campaign, pleaded guilty in February to lying to investigators and conspiring to defraud the United States and agreed to co-operate in special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation into co-ordination between members of Trump’s circle with Russia.
On Monday, Gates testified that he has met with prosecutors about 20 times. It is unclear what other information he may have provided to Mueller’s team.
Manafort, 69, has pleaded not guilty to 18 counts of bank fraud, tax fraud and failing to disclose foreign bank accounts.
Prosecutors are expected to continue questioning Gates on Tuesday morning before Manafort’s defence attorneys get their chance to cross-examine him. Throughout the trial, they have tried to pin the blame for financial misdeeds on Gates, whom they also have accused of embezzling millions from Manafort’s consulting firm.
Gates admitted on Monday that he did steal money through inflated expense reports, but he said it was hundreds of thousands of dollars, not millions.
Judge impatient with prosecution
Manafort’s lawyers are expected to use the theft to try to undermine Gates’s credibility as a witness. They also are likely to bring up his making false statements to investigators.
On Monday, Judge T.S. Ellis repeatedly clashed with prosecutors about the relevance of such testimony and once again urged them to speed things along.
Later, with the jury out of earshot, Ellis raised his voice at Greg Andres, scolding him for looking down when he was speaking to him and unnecessarily dragging the wealthy Ukrainian businessmen’s names “through the mud.”
Manafort has pleaded not guilty to 18 bank and tax fraud charges and failing to disclose foreign bank accounts. (Matt Rourke/Associated Press)
Andres told him it was crucial to be allowed explain the role that oligarchs play in Ukraine’s political system.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate to not explain to the jury why these people are paying Mr. Manafort,” Andres said.
Manafort was Trump’s campaign chair for nearly five months in 2016, as he locked up the party’s presidential nomination and was then celebrated at the Republican National Convention.
The current trial is the first of two he faces.
In D.C., Manafort is charged with conspiracy to launder money, conspiracy against the United States, making false statements and charges in connection with failing to register as a foreign agent, despite lobbying in the United States for the pro-Kremlin Ukrainian government of former president Viktor Yanukovych.
That trial is scheduled to start in September.
Manafort was confined to his home awaiting trial until June when the judge in the D.C. case, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, revoked his bail amid witness tampering allegations.