FBI Raids Paul Manafort Home
D. S. Mitchell
Nearly two weeks after the event, news was finally leaked by the Washington Post, that in the early morning hours of July 25, 2017, former Trump campaign chairman, Paul Manafort’s home in Alexandria, Virginia was raided by FBI investigators. Reports indicate boxes of documents were removed from the home.
The raid came within hours of Manafort speaking to investigators for the Senate Intelligence Committee, at which time he answered questions and provided notes from several meetings, including the controversial June 9, 2016 meeting between Russian “government attorney” and several other people with known Russian connections and members of the Trump 2016 Presidential election team, including the Trump campaigns big names, Kushner, Manafort and Don, Jr.
FBI investigators under orders from Special Counsel, Robert Mueller executed a search warrant and entered the Manafort home in the predawn hours reportedly searching from tax documents and banking records. Manafort was awakened to a cadre of officers pounding on his bedroom door. A spokesman for Paul Manafort said that Manafort “was as always, co-operating with authorities.”
Some legal pundits explain that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is broadening the investigation into the Russian tampering in the 2016 Presidential election with the intent to defeat Hillary Clinton. This newly divulged activity is the most significant public step investigators have made since Mueller’s appointment in May.
A search warrant is considered an aggressive step because authorities must first show there is ‘probable cause’ to believe they will find evidence that a crime has been committed and that the target of the probe is likely to attempt to hide or destroy such evidence.
Being served with a search warrant would be an unnerving experience, especially if you are guilty of misconduct. The process is invasive and sends a loud statement from the prosecutors to the target that there should be no doubt the severity of the investigation. It has been suggested that Mueller is sending a loud and clear message to the world that the investigation is serious, while at the same time applying pressure to Manafort and other possible participants in the campaign to co-operate with authorities.
Mueller remained mum on the event but it is understood that the search warrant demanded tax and foreign banking records, suggesting that investigators believe possible criminal activities related to the Federal Bank Secrecy Act. The FBS Act requires American citizens to report all foreign banking accounts.
Paul Manafort was Trump campaign chairman for several pivotal months of 2016. Manafort is under investigation for business deal with his son-in-law, Jeffrey Yohai, his role in the Trump Tower meeting with a “Russian government attorney” on June 9, 2016 who claimed to have political dirt on Hillary Clinton, and whether his work for the Ukrainian government violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act. I’m glad they are on his tail and not mine.
Manaforrt is a long time Republican operative who has spent decades working mysteriously overseas as a consultant to foreign governments. Manafort, a Harvard educated attorney, was hired by the Trump campaign in June of 2016 after previous chairman Corey Lewandowski was fired. After two months in the chairperson role Manafort resigned, amidst reports that he had been the recipient of millions of dollars in “cash, off the record payments” for his Ukrainian consulting work.
The beleaguered Manafort has been hammered recently by multiple negative disclosures raising questions about his business dealings, as well as the now infamous June 9th Trump Tower meeting, and intensifying belief that he was deeply involved with the Russian collusion/conspiracy in the 2016 Presidential campaign.
Manafort’s consulting firm is known to have retro-actively filed forms with the Department of Justice to come in compliance with federal law. Previous reporting has indicated that Manafort maintained hundreds of bank accounts in Cyprus. Cyprus is well-known for money laundering.
Apparently, Manafort maintained these reported Cyprus bank accounts through out his time working as a consultant to a pro-Russian Ukrainian political party. In July 2017, Manafort filed documents disclosing lobbying efforts in Ukraine through 2014, when his client, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted in a popular uprising. Yanukovych later fled to Russia.
In June 2017, the New York Times reported that federal authorities were examining real estate deals by Manafort and his son-in-law involving luxury homes in California and New York, funded by Manafort. The FBI is reviewing financial records related to Yohai, who has been accused of fraud in a lawsuit brought against him in federal court by former investors.
The plot thickens as the Special Counsel brings pressure on current and former Trump insiders. I think it will be some time before the secrets of the 2016 election are made public. I also think that there is a lot of pant’s wetting going on as Mueller tightens the screws on the people who may be implicated in this sweeping inquiry. Stay tuned, we will be bringing you updates as they become public.
In the meantime keep tweeting, keep calling the lawmakers and demand that they bring charges of impeachment against Donald J. Trump.
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