FBI first contacted Gates in 2014
Manafort’s Ukrainian client was under scrutiny
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 court jury that Manafort urged him to be truthful with agents.
The business partners were not required to provide federal investigators with 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 tax authorities, Gates said.
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. The case does not directly deal with Manafort’s role as Donald Trump’s campaign manager.
“(Manafort) said we did not need to disclose the foreign accounts to the accountants,” Gates said Wednesday.
Defense attorney Kevin Downing picked up where he left off Tuesday, hammering at the credibility of the government’s star witness, who acknowledged embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from Manafort.
Downing suggested that Gates used the money to finance a series of extramarital relationships beyond a brief affair he disclosed Tuesday.
Gates said that relationship lasted five months and occurred 10 years ago, adding he had revealed it to his wife and the government.