Russia probe: What charges do Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, George Papadopoulos face

Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and Manafort’s business associate Rick Gates face decades in prison if convicted.

President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, allegedly laundered millions of dollars through overseas shell companies and bank accounts, according to a federal indictment. Mr Manafort and a longtime business partner, Richard Gates, were charged with 12 criminal counts related to a decade of work they did for pro-Kremlin political parties in Ukraine. The allegations announced by Special Counsel Robert Mueller range from money laundering to tax evasion to conspiracy against the US. Both men are expected to appear in court Monday.

Separately, a plea agreement between Mr Mueller’s team and George Papadopoulos, a foreign-policy adviser to the Trump campaign, was also unsealed.

WHO ARE THE ACCUSED?

PAUL MANAFORT

Before Manafort became GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s top strategist between late March and August 2016, he had a storied career in Republican politics.

A lawyer by training, Manafort gained prominence rounding up delegates for Gerald Ford at the 1976 Republican convention and helping manage Ronald Reagan’s convention efforts in 1980. He founded a lobbying shop, known as Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly, earning a reputation for both his flashy lifestyle and his willingness to take on less-than-savory clients, such as Democratic Republic of Congo’s dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko.

In 1995, Manafort set up a new lobbying firm with Rick Davis, who later helped Manafort establish his political contacts in former Soviet states, including Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Ahkmetov. Manafort’s work in Eastern Europe came at a lucky time, as struggled in his domestic lobbying business and his spending on an ill-fated career as a movie producer left him nearly broke in the early 2000s.

As an adviser to Ukraine’s pro-Russian Party of Regions, Manafort helped the party turn around its reputation as corrupt and under Russian influence, getting Ukraine’s president elected in 2006. Manafort remained an adviser to the Party of Regions until 2014, when it was ousted amid popular protests. Among Manafort’s long-term friends was Thomas Barrack, who was also personally close with Trump. That connection and Manafort’s perceived skill in Republican Party politics got Manafort his entree into Trump’s campaign. In August 2016, he was ousted amid revelations of large payments listed in an alleged “black book” of under-the-table payments by the ousted Ukrainian government.

RICK GATES Rick Gates was Manafort’s deputy, both in the Trump campaign and in Manafort’s work in Ukraine. Now 45, Gates began as an intern at lobbying firm Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly, before furthering his career elsewhere. But after working with another Republican lobbyist, Rick Davis, Gates came back into Manafort’s fold. By the time that Davis took a leave from his partnership with Manafort to run John McCain’s presidential campaign, Gates joined Manafort’s new firm, Davis Manafort Inc and was working with Manafort to drum up business in former Soviet States. They hit gold in work performed for the Party of Regions, a pro-Russian Ukrainian political party, though that work fizzled out in 2014 after Ukraine’s president fled to Russia amid popular protests. Gates joined Manafort for the Trump campaign, too, serving as a top decisionmaker for day-to-day matters. But he never drew a Trump campaign paycheck.

When Manafort got booted from the campaign amid revelations about his Ukrainian political work and questions about how he’d been paid for it, Gates stayed on in Trump Tower as a Republican National Committee liaison to the campaign. Gates work wasn’t done after Election Day, however. He was tapped by Trump Inauguration Chairman Thomas Barrack, a friend of both Manafort’s and Trump’s, to manage the work of the inaugural committee. And he also took a post with a newly created political nonprofit to support Trump, America First Policies, though he stepped down amid controversy surrounding his and Manafort’s work with a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska.

GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS Before joining Trump’s campaign, Papadopoulos billed himself as international energy consultant - though he only graduated from DePaul University in 2009 and was largely unknown in foreign policy circles.

Trump’s campaign named him as one of eight foreign policy advisers in March 2016, however, as it scrambled to develop policy positions on key international issues. The Washington Post previously reported he had tried to facilitate contact between Russian government entities and the Trump campaign.

Below is an overview of the charges outlined in the 31-page indictment and Mr Papadopoulos ‘s plea deal.

Count one: conspiracy against the US

Date of alleged conduct: 2006 to 2017

Prosecutors allege that Messrs Manafort and Gates, in their work for Ukraine, conspired to evade reporting requirements for lobbyists who represent foreign powers, and to avoid paying US taxes on their profits through the use of shell companies.

Prosecutors say Messrs Manafort and Gates enlisted two Washington, DC, firms in 2012 to lobby in the US for Viktor Yanukovych, then president of Ukraine, and his pro-Russia Party of Regions. Podesta Group Inc. and Mercury LLC nominally represented the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine. Prosecutors said the Centre was “a mouthpiece” for Mr Yanukovych.

Messrs Manafort and Gates allegedly paid the lobbying firms through offshore accounts linked to shell companies. Podesta Group and Mercury engaged in “extensive lobbying” of Congress on Ukraine sanctions and other issues, the indictment says.

Mr Yanukovych fled Ukraine in 2014 amid protests of his rule and is now living in exile in Russia.

Prosecutors allege that Mr Manafort “used his hidden overseas wealth to enjoy a lavish lifestyle in the United States,” allegedly spending more than $US12 million in untaxed income on home improvements, antique rugs, luxury clothing, cars and landscaping from 2008 to 2014. He also purchased a Brownstone in Brooklyn, a Manhattan condo and a house in Arlington, Virginia, without reporting the money he used to make the purchases, the indictment says.

The conspiracy charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Count two: conspiracy to launder money

Date of alleged conduct: 2006 to 2016

Messrs Manafort and Gates funnelled millions of dollars in payments they received for their consulting work through foreign shell companies in Cyprus, the Caribbean nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Seychelles, an archipelago country off the coast of East Africa.

Mr Manafort used the offshore accounts to purchase the New York and Virginia properties and then borrowed millions of dollars against the properties, giving him access to cash without reporting or paying taxes on it, the indictment says. Mr Gates also allegedly used money from the offshore accounts to pay for personal expenses, including his mortgage, children’s tuition and interior decoration, without reporting it to tax authorities.

In all, more than $US75 million flowed through offshore accounts. Mr Manafort allegedly laundered $US18 million of the funds through the accounts, while Mr Gates transferred more than $US3 million from the accounts to others he controlled.

The charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

Counts three to six: failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts

Date of alleged conduct: 2012 to 2015

These counts point to Mr Manafort’s alleged failure to file annual reports alerting the Internal Revenue Service to his foreign bank accounts.

The charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison because prosecutors allege it was part of a pattern of illegal activity involving more than $US100,000 in a 12-month period.

Counts seven to nine: failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts

Date of alleged conduct: 2012 to 2014

These counts stem from Mr Gates’s alleged failure to file annual reports alerting the IRS to his foreign bank accounts. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison because prosecutors allege it was part of a pattern of illegal activity involving more than $US100,000 in a 12-month period.

Count 10: unregistered agents of a foreign principal

Date of alleged conduct: 2008 to 2014

The Foreign Agents Registration Act requires lobbyists working on behalf of a foreign power in the US to disclose their ties to the Justice Department. Messrs Manafort and Gates allegedly acted as an agent of the government of Ukraine without registering as foreign agents under FARA.

The charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Count 11: false and misleading FARA statements

Date of alleged conduct: 2016 to 2017

After news reports of Mr Manafort’s unregistered work for Ukraine, the Justice Department in September 2016 asked Messrs Manfort and Gates and their political consulting firm, DMP International LLC, for information to help the agency determine whether they had complied with FARA.

Prosecutors allege the letters they received from Messrs Manafort and Gates in response contained false statements, including the claim that their work for Ukraine and the Party of Regions involved no meetings or outreach within the US. The charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Count 12: false statements

Date of alleged conduct: 2016 to 2017

The allegedly false responses to the FARA inquiry violated another law that more broadly prohibits making false statements to government officials.

The charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. Forfeiture: In addition to the criminal charges, Mr Mueller and his team seek to forfeit Mr. Manafort’s properties in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Long Island and Virginia, as well as a life insurance policy.

Count one against George Papadopoulos: false statements

Date of conduct: 2017

Mr Papadopoulos, a foreign-policy adviser to the presidential campaign of Mr Trump, pleaded guilty to making false statements in an interview with FBI agents in January.

Mr Papadopoulos told FBI agents that, before joining the campaign in March 2016, he spoke with an academic linked to the Kremlin. The academic told Mr Papadopoulos the Russians had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton, including thousands of emails.

But “in truth and in fact,” Mr Papadopoulos discussed the alleged information about Mrs Clinton in April 2016 after he had joined the Trump campaign, according to his Oct. 5 plea agreement filed in federal district court in D.C. Mr Papadopoulos tried for months to use the professor’s Russian connections to arrange a meeting between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, according to the agreement, which was unsealed today. He also met a Russian woman he believed was close to the Kremlin — after he joined the Trump campaign — and tried to arrange a foreign-policy trip through her. Those meetings never took place, according to the plea documents.

The charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, though Mr. Papadopoulos is almost certain to receive a much lighter punishment given his plea and co-operation.

The Wall Street Journal