ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A day after giving a coy answer to the judge about whether it would call Rick Gates as a witness, the prosecution confirmed Thursday that the plan remains for Gates to testify in the ongoing Virginia trial of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
“We have every intention to call him as witness,” prosecutor Greg Andres said in court before the jury was ushered into the room.
For months, Gates has been shaping up to be the key government witness in the case, after he agreed in February to cooperate with investigators. Gates was a longtime protege of Manafort’s, and was originally indicted with him by separate federal grand juries in Virginia and Washington, DC.
During opening statements, Manafort’s lawyer signaled his defense would largely be built on not only tearing down Gates’ credibility but pinning the blame for alleged financial misdeeds on Gates, including claiming that Gates embezzled money from Manafort.
“The foundation of the special counsel’s case rests squarely on this witness,” Manafort’s attorney, Thomas Zehnle, said.
But then in court Wednesday, one of the prosecutors on special counsel Robert Mueller’s team was suddenly noncommittal about whether Gates would even be called.
“He may testify in this case, he may not,” said prosecutor Uzo Asonye.
Prosecutors explained their coyness to the judge Thursday, saying that the jury had been present at the time and they didn’t think it was appropriate for the jury to hear that they planned to call Gates as a witness.
I hope Caitlin didn’t have to fight or stand in line to use the one pay phone to post this nugget.
Like this?
I can’t wait to hear what the man has to say.
I noted yesterday that, after the Prosecution introduced clear evidence of fraudulent invoicing, Gates would be an ideal witness to confirm the pattern of fake invoicing that Manafort authorized and employed. Manafort (likely with Gates’ help) would create fake invoices appearing to come from legitimate US based 3rd party vendors (though there were some obvious spelling and syntax errors) to whom Manafort owed money and issued to Manafort’s offshore shell entities. Manafort would then have this entity pay this bill by sending money to a Manafort bank account. In this manner, Manafort transferred money housed in an offshore account into the US (and therefore laundered it). He then used that infusion of money from foreign based accounts to pay his legit US bills and if there was anything left over, he pocketed it, because there was now a ‘paper trail’ showing that the money was brought into the US as part of a legit looking business transaction.
When Gates testifies and confirms these fake transactions, it will further demonstrate how Manafort lied and willfully committed fraudulent acts to avoid paying taxes on income earned abroad and yet laundered such money into the US to pay for a lavish lifestyle.