FBI sought out Gates for Manafort info in 2014

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Paul Manafort’s business partner capped more than two days of testimony against the former Trump campaign chairman Wednesday, revealing that he first disclosed the existence of their consulting firm’s foreign bank accounts to the FBI in 2014.

That was long before the pair became targets of a government fraud investigation. Gates testified that the government was investigating the movement of money out of Ukraine by former President Viktor Yanukovych, who was Manafort’s primary client.

Gates told a federal jury Manafort urged him to be truthful with agents.

The business partners were not required to provide federal investigators financial records that allegedly would have revealed millions of dollars they had hidden in offshore accounts, mostly in Cyprus.

Millions passed through those accounts, and the money was never disclosed to authorities, Gates testified.

This year, Gates pleaded guilty to conspiracy and lying to the FBI and agreed to cooperate with investigators on the case against his former partner.

Manafort faces 18 criminal counts of bank fraud and tax evasion, in part related to his alleged failure to reveal the foreign accounts to federal tax authorities.

Defense attorney Kevin Downing picked up where he left off Tuesday, hammering at the credibility of the government’s star witness.

Prosecutors asked Gates to affirm the terms of the plea agreement he signed this year, which subjects him to a possible 100-year prison sentence if he provides false testimony.

Gates’ testimony was followed by an FBI accountant who guided the jury through a document-intensive effort that linked Manafort to the network of foreign accounts in Cyprus, the Grenadines and the United Kingdom.