Mueller Names 35 Witnesses for First Manafort Trial

By Josh Gerstein, Politico

28 July 18

Jurors are expected to hear from a slew of bankers, accountants and luxury-good vendors.

rosecutors plan to make their tax and bank fraud case against Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, by calling a string of accountants, bankers and luxury-goods vendors before a jury to demonstrate that Manafort’s extravagant lifestyle was funded by offshore accounts he never disclosed or paid taxes on, a new witness list made public Friday indicates.

Complying with a judge’s order, special counsel Robert Mueller’s team submitted a roster of 35 witnesses the prosecution may call at the longtime lobbyist and political consultant’s trial, set to kick off next week.

The deep dive into Manafort’s pricey tastes is expected to include testimony from a proprietor of a New York boutique where he allegedly spent more than $850,000 on high-end suits, an employee of a car dealership where Manafort’s wife bought a $130,000 Mercedes, the owner of a Florida home-theater company and a manager of season-ticket sales for the New York Yankees.

Few individuals involved in Manafort’s lucrative Ukraine-related consulting work appear to have made the cut, although prosecutors did signal plans to call Tad Devine, who did some work on the project for Ukraine’s Party of Regions and was a top strategist for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in his bid for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. Democratic consultant Daniel Rabin, who also worked in Ukraine, is on the prosecutors’ witness list.

Other prosecution witnesses include Manafort’s former business partner, Rick Gates, who was initially charged along with Manafort but cut a plea deal with prosecutors earlier this year. Prosecutors also signaled plans to call Manafort’s former personal assistant, Alex Trusko, who agreed to cooperate with the FBI early in the investigation and provided details that helped prosecutors get search warrants for Manafort’s home in Alexandria, Virginia, and a nearby storage locker containing his business records.

A real estate agent who lived near Manafort and helped him buy his Alexandria condo, Wayne Holland, is also on the witness list. POLITICO reported last year that Holland was called to a grand jury examining Manafort and unsuccessfully tried to assert a privilege to avoid testifying.

The 35-person witness list provides no details on the individuals beyond their first and last names. The connection of some names on the list to Manafort is unclear.

Also of note are the names that did not make the government’s witness list. One notable omission: Jeffrey Yohai, Manafort’s former son-in-law. Yohai pleaded guilty to a real estate-loan fraud charge in California earlier this year and has offered to cooperate with Mueller’s team. Prosecutors have accused Manafort of seeking to trick a lender by telling Yohai to falsely claim that he lived in a New York condo being refinanced.

Also absent from the list: Stephen Calk, CEO of The Federal Savings Bank, a mortgage lender based in Chicago. Prosecutors have said Calk greased the process to allow Manafort to get $16 million in loans he was unqualified for in 2016 and 2017. Calk facilitated the loans as part of a successful bid to win a post on the Trump campaign’s economic advisory board and an unsuccessful effort to get a top job at the Pentagon, prosecutors have alleged, although Calk has not been publicly charged with any crime.

However, two other Federal Savings Bank employees, Dennis Raico and James Brennan, are on the prosecution’s witness list and have been granted immunity to testify at the trial, which is expected to last about three weeks.

Manafort also faces another trial set to open in September in Washington on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent and money laundering. Mueller's team is also prosecuting that case.