Bank VP says that employees knew Manafort lied on loan applications

CNN/Stylemagazine.com Newswire | 8/13/2018, 3:30 p.m.
A bank that gave former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort $16 million loans knew that he lied about his financial …
The case against Paul Manafort is the first major test in court for special counsel Robert Mueller's team, who is currently leading an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Scannell and Marshall Cohen, CNN

(CNN) -- A bank that gave former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort $16 million loans knew that he lied about his financial situation before the loan was approved by the bank's chairman, a bank official testified Monday.

James Brennan, a vice president of Federal Savings Bank, said that he and his colleagues documented their concerns about Manafort's personal finances. Information about Manafort's company's income, his unpaid debts from his Yankees season ticket and undisclosed mortgages on his other properties in New York raised red flags internally at the bank, he added.

Brennan was the 27th prosecution witness to testify against Manafort in the first major test in court for special counsel Robert Mueller's team, who is currently leading an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Manafort has been charged with 18 tax and banking crimes. He has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.

The defense side of the case remains completely unknown, and it is still not clear if they will call Manafort himself to testify.

Last week, the jury heard testimony that the loans were approved by the bank's founder, Stephen Calk, as he sought Manafort's help in getting a high-ranking position in the Trump administration.

Prosecutors pulled up an email that Brennan sent to colleagues who sat on the bank's loan-approving committee in September 2016. The email detailed some of "the issues we were having" regarding one of Manafort's loan applications, Brennan said.

Regardless of their concerns, Manafort received loans from the bank, totaling $16 million.

"It closed because Mr. Calk wanted it to close," Brennan said, referring to one of the loans.

Prosecution could rest Monday

Prosecutors' arguments are expected to wrap up on Monday.

Friday's testimonies were stalled nearly five hours by private discussions between Judge T.S. Ellis and lawyers for both sides. The content of the meetings have yet to be revealed publicly.

Once the trial picked back up, jurors heard from two employees at Federal Savings Bank and a ticket operations manager for the New York Yankees.

The testimony by Yankees ticket operations manager Irfan Kirimca showed more big spending by Manafort, who according to Kirimca's testimony, had a multi-year agreement with the team to buy four seats for 81 games in a season, totaling more than $200,000 per year.

Payments for the tickets were paid through one of the dozens of Cypriot accounts Manafort allegedly hid from the government, used to collect his Ukrainian lobbying income and for which he never paid taxes. Manafort's deputy, Rick Gates, was not involved in making the payments, Kirimca said Friday.

Friday also included a filing by prosecutors asking Ellis to correct a previous statement made to the jury. It was the second instance during the trial where prosecutors asked Ellis to correct a statement he had made. This instance was regarding a remark from Thursday during a witness' testimony about alleged bank fraud conspiracy.

Ellis made a comment stating that the attorneys "might want to spend time on a loan that was granted," but prosecutors argued in the filing that "the comment misrepresents the law regarding bank fraud conspiracy, improperly conveys the court's opinion of the facts, and is likely to confuse and mislead the jury."

The request made by prosecutors has gone unaddressed in public, including to the jury.