Nation & World Glance
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — One of Paul Manafort’s tax preparers admitted Friday that she helped disguise $900,000 in foreign income as a loan in order to reduce the former Trump campaign chairman’s tax burden.
The testimony of tax preparer Cindy Laporta came as prosecutors from special counsel Robert Mueller’s office focused on the heart of their financial fraud case against Manafort, with jurors hearing testimony that he inflated his business income by millions of dollars and concealed foreign bank accounts he was using to buy luxury items and pay personal expenses.
Manafort’s defense has sought to blame any criminal conduct on his longtime deputy Rick Gates, while witnesses for the prosecution have testified that Manafort was heavily involved in his own finances and personally directed Gates’ actions.
On Friday, Laporta acknowledged that she agreed under pressure from Gates during a conference call in September 2015 to alter a tax document for one of Manafort’s businesses to show the $900,000 loan.
When Laporta and a colleague provided an assessment of how much tax Manafort would owe, Gates responded that Manafort didn’t have the money to pay it. After a back-andforth discussion about how much income should be reclassified as a loan to aid Manafort, they settled on $900,000, she testified.
The result, Laporta said, was an altered tax payment that Gates told her “could be paid by Mr. Manafort.”
Laporta, who testified under a grant of immunity from prosecutors, said she knew what she did was “not appropriate,” adding that “you can’t pick and choose what’s a loan and what’s income.”
Asked why she engaged in misconduct, Laporta said she had few good choices.
“I could have called them liars,” she said of Manafort and Gates. “But Mr. Manafort was a longtime client of the firm, and I didn’t think I should do that.”
That testimony is important as prosecutors try to rebut defense arguments that Manafort can’t be responsible for financial fraud because he left the details of his spending to others. Those others include Gates, who pleaded guilty earlier this year and is expected to testify soon as the government’s star witness.
Warren at black university: Criminal justice system ‘racist’
NEW ORLEANS — Speaking Friday at a historically black university, potential Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren delivered what she called “the hard truth about our criminal justice system: It’s racist ... I mean front to back.”
The Massachusetts senator identified some of the system’s failures: disproportionate arrests of African-Americans for petty drug possession; an overloaded public defender system; and state laws that keep convicted felons from voting even after their sentences are complete.
Warren was participating in a Q&A session hosted by Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Cedric Richmond at the historically black Dillard University in New Orleans.
She was among several possible Democratic White House contenders who spoke Friday at Netroots Nation, an annual conference for progressives. She was the only leading Democrat to appear at Dillard.
The stop is the latest sign of Warren’s effort to forge ties beyond her largely white political base in Massachusetts and avoid the fate of fellow progressive icon Bernie Sanders, who struggled to win over African-Americans during his failed bid for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.
Hot, dusty and on fire: Portugal’s heatwave breaks records
LISBON, Portugal — Eight places in Portugal broke local temperature records as a wave of heat from North Africa swept across the Iberian peninsula — and officials predicted the scorching temperatures could get even worse over the weekend.
Temperatures built to around 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) Friday in many inland areas of Portugal, and were expected to peak at 47 C (116.6 F) in some places Saturday. Large sections of Portugal are on red alert on the Civil Protection Agency’s danger scale.
The highest temperature recorded Thursday, when the heat began to rise, was 45.2 C (113.4 F) near Abrantes, a town 150 kilometers (93 miles) northeast of the capital, Lisbon, the country’s weather agency IPMA said.
Portugal’s highest recorded temperature was 47.4 C (117.3 F) in 2003. Emergency services have issued a red alert through Sunday.