By Evan Hurst as originally published over at Wonkette and reposted here with permission
Another morning, another round of LATE AFTERNOON NEWS DROP to catch you up on, and it is that special counsel Robert Mueller has dropped a new 32 COUNT INDICTMENT on Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, just in case we didn’t think they were guilty enough already. And oh boy, for a document about bank and tax fraud, it’s quite a fun read, because these guys are brazen IDIOTS.
These indictments, on top of the alleged money laundering and literal actual foreign agent stuff and the conspiracies against the United States, show Paul Manafort and Rick Gates lying on tax returns and defrauding American banks and hiding dirty moneys in Cyprus and other small island nations, and so much more. Is there a white collar crime these guys have not committed? Who can say!
A big takeaway from the new indictments is that while they may not appear to be directly tied to NO COLLUSION, NO COLLUSION, they definitely show Manafort and Gates committing money crimes during the Trump campaign and the transition. They also show that sometimes when two criming idiots love each other very much, they will leave a criminal paper trail because one of them is too big of A Idiot to change a Microsoft Word file into a PDF. Doy doy doy doy doy!
There’s also a weird thing about how everybody is having to go back and forth between DC and the Eastern District of Virginia, because one of the defendants (Manafort) refused to waive venue and allow this to be tried in DC. As the Washington Post explains, because all the tax returns involved in the indictment were filed in Virginia, the case couldn’t be tried in DC. Gates waived venue, which would be typical behavior for somebody who’s flipping and doesn’t intend for this to go to trial, especially not twice.
Here’s a nice summary from WaPo, including a quote from the beginning of the indictment:
The new indictment offers a more detailed portrait of what prosecutors say was a multiyear scheme by Manafort and Gates to use their income from working for a Ukrainian political party to buy properties, evade taxes and support a lavish lifestyle even after their business connections in Kiev evaporated.
“Manafort and Gates generated tens of millions of dollars in income as a result of their Ukraine work. From approximately 2006 through the present, Manafort and Gates engaged in a scheme to hide income from United States authorities, while enjoying the use of the money,” the indictment charges.
Greedy fuckers.
As Mueller lays out, these fuckweasels’ criming schemes had two phases: 1) between 2006 and 2015, when they were making shit tons of money and hiding it, but still finding creative ways to enjoy their riches just the same; and 2) between 2015 and JANUARY OF 2017 WHEN DONALD TRUMP WAS INAUGURATED, when they used Manafort’s real estate, bought with blood money, as collateral to get big loans Manafort did not actually qualify for, due to how he was kinda poor when it came to actual legal money and also had bad credit. How many loans? TWENTY MILLION IN LOANS.
How much dirty money in offshore accounts are we talking about in total? SEVENTY-FIVE MILLION DIRTY MONEYS:
And how did this work in real time? Well, when Paul Manafort wanted to buy nice things, like thousands of dollars worth of antique rugs, instead of writing a check or using his AmEx (because it was maxed out at THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS and he hadn’t paid on it in months, no we are not kidding), he would say, “Would you mind if I just wire the money for this delightful antique rug from Cyprus or maybe the Grenadines?” Strangely, a rug vendor in Alexandria, Virginia, was cool with that! Or if Manafort wanted one million new pairs of fancy underpants, he would do the same with a store in New York or another store in Beverly Hills. Home renovations in the Hamptons or Florida or Virginia? Direct wires from fake offshore companies to the contractors! Paul Manafort want a nice Range Rover? How about FOUR OF THEM, and also a Mercedes, all paid with wire transfers?
Manafort also bought real estate this way. Condo in Brooklyn? Just wire the money from Cyprus and call it a “loan” instead of “income”! Manafort moved $13,214,000 in this way.
As Mueller lays out, this is not just a matter of Manafort and Gates occasionally forgetting to report a foreign bank account or income to the proper authorities. It’s that they did it EVERY TIME WITH EVERY DIRTY MONEY THEY TOUCHED FOR OVER 10 YEARS.
Gates was telling those same lies “as recently as October 2017.” Like we said, they were doing this shit while they were working for Trump. Better get to flippin’, Rick Gates!
Everyone at Wonkette agrees the funniest part of the indictments is related to Manafort’s scheme to get big mortgage loans on his properties by lying to banks, which in essence gave him liquid money he didn’t have to pay taxes on. Just read this shit:
OK, so Manafort is begging for a big loan, but he cannot qualify with his actual income. So he emailed his work wife Rick Gates like “Hey, doctor this PDF document up for me so we can lie to banks a lot?” So Gates converted the PDF document into a Word file, made the changes and sent it back to Manafort, who apparently cannot do computers for himself, at which point Manafort was like “Please turn the fake new document into a professional-looking PDF like the old one, sweetheart? I will buy you those cakes you like.” So Gates did that, and holy shit, criminal email chain!
Also, there’s a part where the bookkeeper is like “I AIN’T EDITING THAT P&L, IT IS NOT ALLOWED UNDER ACCRUAL METHOD” and your editrix Rebecca keeps imitating an outraged bookkeeper shrieking “ACCRUAL METHOD” which is the second funniest thing in the world after the Word-doc-to-PDF EPIC JOURNEY.
Better yet? This wasn’t the only time Gates and Manafort pulled that scheme. They falsified income information, debt information, like fuckers were just constantly cold fuckin’ LYIN’, like common professional liars.
Did we mention that they were pulling this shit DURING THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN AND TRANSITION? We feel like we should mention that again, because stupid people like Stupidest Man On The Internet Jim Hoft are lying and saying this all happened before that, because they know their readers are stupid sheep.
If you are as obsessed with reading documents as Donald Trump obviously is, you should read the whole entire indictment yourself! SPOILER, here is the ending:
That’s right, the ending is Robert Mueller’s signature, because Robert Mueller ’bout to fuck these two boys the fuck up!
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The movie will be great and I will buy the popcorn!
I know I bump against Webster but I see a criminal as someone who steals to feed himself, family, or habit. A crook steals only for money or the love of money. alot of crooks in that White House. To quote John Fogerty, “Lord, don’t they help themselves.”
yep! when I see coverage of a man/woman arrested and in handcuffs for stealing food at the grocery store – and that is only because the store filed charges on them — I never shop there again after telling the manager why. THEN you read about the cop on the street who buys lunches for the beggars from his own pocket and feel your heart swell up with goodness.
Criminal vs Crook … I just read a comment here: aiiyiiyiii on Goldman’s Buyback Desk H… (link above under MOST RECENT COMMENTS) and told aiiyiiyiii I would be stealing the phrase mentioned!
The strangest lie from Gates came this month while he was queen for a day. He lied to Mueller about a 2013 meeting with Rohrabacher that had already been reported in the news. Why the hell would you lie when you are trying to prove that you would be a good witness.
Manafort has basically no defense to the charges. Why hasn’t he flipped? He must fear Deripaska and Putin more than life in prison, or perhaps he has some assurance of a Trump pardon.
Saw a tweet today from a young highschooler about Sen. Rubio today somthing to the effect “Senator Marco Rubio should change his name to AR 15 because he is so easy to buy”. From the mouth of babe”s? I love these kids and have enormous respect for their guts people have an opportunity here to join them or keep the gun shooting and deaths piling up.
Manafort and Gates are arrogant scum spawned by a system that is legally corrupt on so many levels. Maybe Robert Mueller is the beginning of the end of a country that is morally lost, we will see. He is a fine American and I thank him and those who work so tirelessly on our behalf.
I ditto your appreciation for Robert Mueller and his tenacity in this deep rooted investigation; smart man! I also applaud these teens; their parents must be enormously proud of them! I am hopeful that Governor Rick Scott will follow thru with his support and commitment of huge money for school safety and mental health — so glad to see a republican break away from trump’s ignorance to arm teachers and glad to hear him want to raise minimum age to 21 for rifle purchases, just like revolver minimum age is now. More republicans should follow his lead and break away from NRA – what a hoot it is today hearing all the companies/banks pushing out NRA affiliations!
Meanwhile, trump using his funeral voice a couple days ago, with his phony pledges to help these kids and do what’s needed…blah blah blah …. turns into his same tough guy act and total lack of common sense and right back to his ignorant rants and name calling and campaign crowd jeering – the most disgusting man on this planet. He is the Best Loser of All Presidents!