A-Paul-ing $$ claim

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Paul Manafort’s former right-hand man gave a bank executive a wildly inflated figure for their consulting firm’s annual income to help him score a loan, a bookkeeper testified Thursday at Manafort’s tax- and bank-fraud trial.

Rick Gates sent a March 16, 2016, e-mail to the Banc of California claiming that Davis Manafort Partners International raked in $4.45 million during the previous year, Manafort bookkeeper Heather Washkuhn told jurors.

But Washkuhn said her accounting company, NKFSB, had calculated that the actual amount was about $400,000.

During opening statements Tuesday, the defense claimed that Manafort was being set up by Gates, who cut a plea deal with Justice Department special counsel Rob- ert Mueller to serve as the star witness against President Trump’s former campaign chairman.

Also Thursday, federal Judge T.S. Ellis III warned prosecutors to avoid stoking class envy with gratuitous details of Manafort’s lavish spending on custom clothing, pricey home renovations and other luxuries.

“All the evidence of fancy suits or the pagodas, or whatever it is, really is irrelevant and kind of besmirches the defendant,” Ellis said before the jury entered the courtroom.

“It kind of engenders some resentment against rich people.”

“Don’t show me closets full of suits, a house, a condo. Just move it along,” the judge added.

Manafort, 69, is accused of evading taxes on millions of dollars he was paid by pro-Russia pols in Ukraine, and scamming loans from American banks when that work dried up.