LEGAL/PAUL MANAFORT/TRUMP PEOPLE/WOMEN: “Lawyers for Paul Manafort accused his longtime deputy Rick Gates of having four extramarital affairs and lying about them, a last attempt by the defense to undermine the credibility of the government’s star witness at the fraud trial of Mr. Manafort on Wednesday [8-8-18]. Kevin Downing, the lead lawyer for Mr. Manafort, offered no evidence of either the affairs or Mr. Gates’s misrepresentation of them, and the judge, T.S. Ellis III, cut off the questioning before Mr. Gates could directly respond to the allegations. The exchange marked a dramatic conclusion to Mr. Gates’s testimony against his former boss, which spanned three days in federal court here in the trial of Mr. Manafort on bank and tax fraud charges brought by the special counsel. Mr. Gates provided hours of damning testimony against Mr. Manafort related to their decade of work together on behalf of Russia-aligned Ukrainian politicians and oligarchs. Mr. Gates accused Mr. Manafort of deliberately hiding income from the Ukraine work in foreign bank accounts to evade federal taxes, as well as personally directing the falsification of financial statements to obtain bank loans.”
–Kenneth P. Vogel and Noah Weiland, “Paul Manafort’s Defense Team Accuses Rick Gates of Multiple Affairs,” The New York Times online, August 8, 2018