Once again, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has demonstrated that just because someone already has a stack of indictments long enough to see them incarcerated until the Earth spirals into the Sun, that doesn’t mean there’s not room for more. To make things cleaner, Mueller’s team has created a superseding indictment for Paul Manafort that incorporates the contents of the previous indictment, plus some new ones.
And actually, it’s quite a few more. Where the previous indictment carried 12 counts. The new one carries …. 32.
The focus of most of those new charges is on foreign bank accounts and IRS reporting requirements. As an example ...
22. For each year in or about and between 2008 through at least 2014, MANAFORT had authority over foreign accounts that required an FBAR filing. Specifically, MANAFORT was required to report to the Treasury each foreign bank account held by the foreign MANAFORT–GATES entities noted above in paragraph 12 that bears the initials PM. No FBAR filings were made by MANAFORT for these accounts.
Manafort didn’t file reports, of course, because he was hiding these accounts.
Despite expectations that Rick Gates was going to plead guilty to some reduced set of charges, that still hasn’t happened. However, Gates did apparently sit down for a “queen for a day” interview with Mueller’s team. Following that interview, Alex van der Zwaan, an attorney at a firm associated with Manafort and Gate’s misdealings in Ukraine, did plead guilty to making false statements, which led to an earlier set of additional charges which are now incorporated in this superseding indictment.
Though it’s not possibly to perfectly predict the reasoning for Mueller’s actions—the indictment of 13 Russians earlier in the month shows how completely Mueller has been able to hide his upcoming actions from both the press and speculators—it seems as if the actions in the last few weeks have been intended to put additional pressure on Paul Manafort. Which could in turn lead to Manafort agreeing to some sort of deal in exchange for his taking his own turn at confessing all to Mueller.
Though, as the list of charges grows longer, the idea that Manafort might be allowed to walk away with the kind of slap on the wrist charges given George Papadopoulos or Michael Flynn would seem to be diminishing.
Michael Flynn also made news today in announcing that he would not accept any funding from the fund that Trump contributors set up to cover the legal services of current and former staffers.
Former National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn will not accept support from a new legal fund called the “Patriot Legal Expense Fund” established with President Donald Trump’s campaign funds to help his White House and campaign aides shoulder legal expenses related to the special counsel’s probe, a source close to Flynn told ABC News.
Considering the reported financial pinch Flynn is under this would suggest that accepting those funds might put Flynn in the difficult position of accepting funds from pro-Trump sources … when his testimony is going to be anything but pro-Trump.