Manafort’s Right-Hand Man Testifies Against Former Boss

One day after coming face-to-face in federal court with his longtime boss, Rick Gates returned to the witness stand as the government’s star witness in the financial fraud trial of US President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman.

Gates, in hours of hugely anticipated testimony, calmly acknowledged having embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from Paul Manafort and said the two had committed crimes together by stashing money in foreign bank accounts and falsifying bank loan documents, AP reported.

Prosecutors summoned Gates, described by witnesses as Manafort’s “right-hand man,” to give jurors the direct account of a co-conspirator they say carried out an elaborate offshore tax-evasion and fraud scheme on behalf of his boss.

Manafort and Gates were the first two people indicted in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into potential ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. But Gates pleaded guilty months later and agreed to cooperate in Mueller’s investigation of Manafort, the only American charged by the special counsel to opt for trial instead of a guilty plea.

  Hours-Long Testimony

Gates continued to testify for several hours Tuesday and faced a bruising cross-examination as defense lawyers try to undercut his credibility and pin the blame on him.

His testimony, given in short, clipped answers as Manafort rarely broke his gaze from the witness stand, follows that of vendors who detailed Manafort’s luxurious spending and financial professionals who told jurors how the defendant hid millions of dollars in offshore accounts.

Gates, who is awaiting sentencing, told jurors that he siphoned off the money without Manafort’s knowledge by filing false expense reports. He also admitted to concealing millions of dollars in foreign bank accounts on Manafort’s behalf and to falsifying loan applications and other documents to help Manafort obtain more in bank loans.

“We didn’t report the income or the foreign bank accounts,” Gates told jurors, noting that he knew he and Manafort were committing crimes each time.

Gates, who also served in a senior role in Trump’s presidential campaign, read off the names of more than a dozen shell companies he and Manafort set up in Cyprus, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the United Kingdom to stash the proceeds of Manafort’s Ukrainian political consulting work.

Gates said he repeatedly lied to conceal the bank accounts and, at Manafort’s direction, would classify money that came in as either a loan or income to reduce Manafort’s tax burden.

The criminal case has nothing to do with either man’s work for the Trump campaign and there has been no discussion during the trial about whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia—the central question Mueller’s team has tried to answer. But Trump has shown interest in the proceedings, tweeting support for Manafort and suggesting he had been treated worse than gangster Al Capone.