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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: zzpat who wrote (1035818)	10/30/2017 10:55:52 AM
From: RetiredNow	1 Recommendation Recommended By Mick Mørmøny Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573717

Former Trump campaign chief Manafort indicted in Russia probe Lobbyist faces 12 charges mostly relating to links with Ukraine before US election race ft.com Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s campaign manager during part of the 2016 US presidential election, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on 12 counts, including engaging in a conspiracy against the US government, in the first charges brought by the special counsel investigating Russia’s role in the race. Mr Manafort turned himself in to the FBI’s Washington field office early on Monday morning. The 31-page indictment was filed on Friday, but unsealed on Monday. Among the other charges against Mr Manafort, who was indicted along with former colleague Richard Gates, are money laundering and making false statements, mostly related to his work in Ukrainian politics before the US presidential campaign. The move comes just three days after a federal grand jury in Washington approved the first charges led by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the investigation into Russia’s interference into the election, and any communications Trump aides may have had with Moscow. Overall, the two men are accused of funnelling $75m through unreported offshore accounts. According to the indictment, the two men “laundered the money through scores of United States and foreign corporations, partnerships and bank accounts” and falsely reported that they had no foreign bank accounts. Mr Manafort “used his hidden overseas wealth to enjoy a lavish lifestyle in the US”, which included buying multiple multimillion-dollar properties and obtaining loans using the properties as collateral, the indictment adds. Mr Manafort is accused of laundering $18m, while Mr Gates is accused of transferring $3m from offshore accounts from 2006 to 2015, a time period in which the two men served as “unregistered agents” of Ukraine’s former president Viktor Yanukovich and his political party. According to Mr Mueller’s indictment, Mr Manafort paid hundreds of thousands of dollars through offshore accounts to pay for high-end goods and services without paying tax on the income used to make these purchases. According to the document, Mr Manafort spent more than $930,000 at an antique rug store in Alexandria, Virginia, between 2009 and 2010; more than $655,000 on a Hamptons landscape service between 2009 and 2011; and more than $850,000 at a New York men’s clothing store during a six-year period. A spokesman for Mr Manafort did not respond to requests for comment. Mr Gates could not immediately be reached for comment. Mr Manafort’s surrender to the FBI comes less than six months after Mr Trump fired FBI director James Comey, setting in motion a chain of events that led to the appointment of Robert Mueller to lead an independent probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. A well-known Washington lobbyist, Mr Manafort has worked with foreign figures, including Viktor Yanukovich, the former president of Ukraine who was deposed in 2014, and Ferdinand Marcos, former president of the Philippines. In recent months, Mr Trump has distanced himself from Mr Manafort, who ran his presidential campaign from June to August 2016, a period that included the Republican National Convention. US intelligence agencies concluded in January that Russia interfered in the election to try to help Mr Trump defeat Mrs Clinton through a campaign of hacking and releasing embarrassing emails, and disseminating propaganda via social media to discredit her campaign. In a series of tweets on Sunday, Mr Trump said the controversies over the Clinton camp’s links with Russia should be probed. “Instead they look at phony Trump/Russia, ‘collusion,’ which doesn’t exist.” he wrote. He went on: “The Dems are using this terrible (and bad for our country) Witch Hunt for evil politics, but the R’s are now fighting back like never before.” He urged Mr Mueller and his team to “do something”.