$16M DISGRACE
Feds: He gave Manafort deal in bid for key job
A millionaire bank CEO was charged with giving a $16 million sweetheart deal to President Trump’s disgraced campaign manager Paul Manafort in hopes of landing a high-level cabinet post, authorities said.
Stephen Calk personally approved the risky loan at a low interest rate to Manafort in hopes of being named Treasury secretary, secretary of the Army or some other plum position in the Trump administration, according to court papers unsealed in Manhattan Federal Court.
“His attempt at petitioning for political favors was unsuccessful in more ways than one – he didn’t get the job he wanted, and he compromised the one he had,” FBI Assistant Director William Sweeney Jr. said.
Calk, who ran the Chicago-based Federal Savings Bank, was hit with a single count of bribery and was expected to appear in court Thursday afternoon.
Jeremy Margolis, Calk’s lawyer, said his client would fight the charges, which he called “a travesty.”
“Mr. Calk has done nothing wrong,” the lawyer said.
The bank claimed it was a victim of the scheme and said Calk had been ousted from his post. His brother, John, is now the CEO.
Manafort, who led Trump’s campaign in summer 2016, was not named in the indictment but details of the loan scheme were discussed extensively during his federal trial. The wheeler-dealer is serving a 7-1/2 year sentence for fraud related to his dealings with pro-Russian figures in Ukraine.
Manafort was one of the first Trump officials to be targeted by special counsel Robert Mueller. The Manafort probe led to more than a dozen criminal referrals and Calk is one of those.
Prosecutors say Calk had the chutzpah to hand Manafort with a wish list of primo gigs, including the Treasury secretary, Army post and 19 ambassadorships.
Manafort recommended Calk as a possible Army secretary to Trump’s transition team. He didn’t land that job but did win a formal interview for the position of under secretary of the Army in January 2017
Calk served in the Army for 16 years but has no other obvious qualifications for the jobs.
Trump has defended Manafort because he refused to flip and offer damaging information about the president despite signing a cooperation agreement with prosecutors. Mueller’s team later accused Manafort of failing to live up to his end of the deal.
Trump also repeatedly claimed that the charges against Manafort related to schemes that had no direct links to his campaign or the Russian effort to interfere with the 2016 election.
But the Calk case suggests that Manafort, whom Trump hailed as a “brave American,” was involved in wrongdoing during and after the campaign.