Manafort Accountant Denies Gates Deception Theory

and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. As the first week of Paul Maniforts tax and bank fraud trial comes to an end, federal prosecutors are shifting away from highlighting the excesses of President Trump's former campaign chairman's lifestyle and are now concentrating on the core of their fraud accusations against him, joining us as Brad Moss, a partner at Mark Zade Brad, So, the prosecutors are turning away from the lavish lifestyle into the nitty gritty with the bookkeeper

or the accountant and all the documents. What's your take on how the prosecution is putting on its case. Yes, so looks the way they're doing this is they set the stage initially to give the jury as sense of just how high on the hog Paul Manifold was living. All the fancy clothes, the ridiculous Ostrich jacket and the python jack and all these different things and they give them a sense of just how lavish of a lifestyle.

Now they're explaining how he paid for and how he committed tax fraud and bank fraud and wire fraud in order to live like that. He was hiding for bank accounts and defrauding the I R s when he could submit his tax returns. He was submitting fraudulent invoices to banks in order to get loan, bank frauds, wire fraud. So all these things where they set up the initial piece, and now they're showing the jury how he broke the

law in order to live like that. What's your assessment of how the government is is prosecuting the case, particularly this latest part with the accountant and the bookkeeper. Yeah, So these types of process like color crimes, the very document heavy, and they're candidly generally pretty boring. This isn't this isn't matt lock, this isn't law order. There's not going to be anything, you know, really thrilling about this. This is all about documents and the details of who

provided invoices and how it was provided falsely. They're doing a simple standard paper case they do for all these type of white collar crimes, and by and large, they kind of fell in love with the bit of some of their evidence, and the judge rained him in and that's fine, um, But they're largely setting out a pretty lot, you know, lockdown case. I don't really know where manaforts defense is going to come in here to really beat

back most of this. The idea that Richard Gates was doing all of this on his own and that Maniford didn't know just is belied by the testaments coming out from the account they seem to be preparing for that defense cross of their star witness, Rick Gates. How does Manifort get past tax returns where he answered none to the question of whether he had foreign accounts? I mean, how do you get past that kind of evidence? Now,

your guess is as good as mine. Where they're going to go with that, and the interesting to see how they present their case when the testimony is coming out from the accounts from the cp a's the tax prepares laid it out pretty thickly that Gates was not the one, by and large who was controlling all this, even if when he did ford information. They testified that Manafort was well aware of the details, that he was very involved.

So I don't know if the Manafort team has some other trick up their sleeve and they're preparing and waiting for once they start their case, or if they're just banking on one of two things, One Aparton from the President who's clearly not happy with this whole thing going down because it implicates this campaign. Or two they're hoping there's one juror just one who maybe thinks this is a little heavy handed, maybe you know, secretly thinks it's just the deep state coming out to go after Trump

through Manafort and won't budge. So, Brad, what are the chances that mana Fort might actually take the stands in his own defense? Zero to none or yes, I say, I say, slim the Nune if he would be completely against the advice of his law hears, if he goes understand there's no reason for him to go up there. This is all about documentation and whether or not they can just under ride as our undermine the credibility of

the prosecution witnesses, particularly someone like Gates. If it gets to the idea of Manaphort testifying, that's a hail Mary and there's no reason why he should be going up there. The prosecution is already putting in evidence of some of the illegal things that Gates did in this sort of the alteration of documents. So what are they trying to do to prepare for gates testimony? Look, I mean, they're not going to try to point our story portray Gates is some kind of you know, white Knight. He was

part of the conspiracy. He's now cooperating witness outlining how he helped perpetrate or and perpetuate this fraud and explain how he did it in coordination with Manaphor. It wasn't that Gates was doing it all alone and Manaphort was this completely unaware individual. They're gonna outline how every piece of this was a coordinated conspiracy involving both of these individuals. And what do you make Brad of that one slip on on Tuesday, I think it was or Wednesday where

the prosecution said, well we may not call Gates. I mean that that seemed like it was something that even the judge didn't believe at the time. Yeah, I don't know if that was just a little bit of you know, psychological warfare or up the up the drama. There was no way as far as at least as far as I was concerned that they weren't going to be bringing on Gates. He's the star witness. They could probably make

their case without them. They certainly planned the idea of prosecuting both of these individuals without having the other one, so they have enough. But it's just I think they've done a pretty good job through the initial witnesses of demonstrating that Manafort knew what he was doing. Manafort was the one setting of the invoices, Manafort was the one using wire transfers. The idea that this was all Rick Gates and Maniport was unaware. Just isn't Ben a fly?

What do you mean? We had a Bloomberg News story out today about what the deep roots of Trump's hostility toward Mueller might be, even before the the initial you know, the investigation um where he he he interviewed him to be the FBI director. What do you make of that as a possible sort of motive. Yeah, I saw that. I think if if the fact that's where the President's thinking is, I think he's just you know, pulling it whatever strand and straw he can to try to claim

to some type of bias, some type of conflict. I'm sorry that what they're pointing to, what Rudy gian Giuliani keeps referencing with the President's referencing, that's just a way too thin of a read on which to hang this hat. The idea that there was a dispute over the golf fees seven years ago. That's not going to be enough to can flick Mueller out. Nor is the fact that he was interviewed for the job that he had once

held for twelve years. So what this is why the d O j f S people looked at Mueller and screened him before he took over the role of special counsel. He was already cleared for that. Nothing else is come up and that's simply not how to COMPLI The interest will work, all right, Thanks so much, Brad. As always, that's Brad Moss. He's a partner at Mark Zaid. And of course the trial will continue tomorrow. It's expected to be about three weeks, but at the pace it's going,

who knows, it could be even shorter. Coming up on Bloomberg, Politics, policy, power and law. Rick Scott blankets Florida with campaign ads as he tries to unsee Democratic senator Bill Nelson. We'll look at the numbers and the latest polls to see what's happening in Florida with that important seat. This is Bloomberg. Yesterday, the Trump administration took another step in its efforts to

chip away at President Obama's environmental policies. It proposed suspending required increases in vehicle vehicle fuel efficiency standards after and to limit California's ability to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Speaking yesterday, yesterday, excuse me, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders defended the actions. What the e p A released yesterday was a notice

of proposed rule making, not a final rule. The notice lays out a series of options for how to go forward with CAFE standards, and the notice asked for comments on the range of options. We're simply opening it up for a comment period, and we'll make a final decision at the end of that. Jennifer Deloe is Bloomberg News environmental and energy regulation reporters. She joins us Now for more on this story in our Bloomberg One Studios. So, Jen,

what is the process now? Well, right now, we're looking at a public comment period, frankly, for the next sixty days. At which point stakeholders, you know, environmentalists, automakers, the general public will weigh in, give their ideas and feedback back to the administration, and then it will be many months that we'll see the administration negotiating with automakers, with California regulators and others, trying to get to a final proposal. We could see at the very end of this year

or more likely early next year. Does that trouble car makers? I mean, that is a long process and they have to plan as to how they build these cars and what sort of standards they need to meet. Our reporting indicates that, you know, automakers are concerned about uncertainty generally. UH. It's important to to look at how we got to this point. Automakers, frankly, UH to some degree, started this process.

They asked the Trump administration to revisit the issue and UH, and now that Trump administration has UH, they are most concerned about a prolonged legal battle with California and other states over the aggressiveness and the stringency of these standards. That could delay, you know, a final plan next year from really taking effect and really extends the uncertainty around this for years. As they really need to be making cars to meet these standards now, and doesn't this get

to the fact that they don't. They can't build two separate types of cars, one for California and states that similarly are tough on emission standards, and then one model for the rest of the country. Exactly. So, for years, actually decades, California has had the authority and the ability to set its own rules on air pollution and UH, and that, frankly, as the most populous state, that has

meant that it's effectively been in the driver's seat. It's standards tend to encourage the federal government to follow along. Other states follow California's requirements. UH, they set a benchmark and UH. In the Adbomit administration, when these UH rules were put into place, the administration worked with California and with automakers to develop one harmonized program so that you

didn't have these dueling standards. The concern here from automakers is that because the administration is going after California's ability to set its own tail pipe emission standards, that you could see two different standards emerging, and that of course would be tricky. UH. I mean, in some cases it would be a significant economic blow. Yeah, I was gonna ask why he was going after California specifically, But there are other states too that are kind of following California's lead.

Are they at risk? Is going to target exactly? So we had a pretty clear indication of how they felt about it. Yesterday, those states, along with some others uh nineteen in total, vowed to challenge the Trump administration's plan if it's finalized in in its current form. Uh. You know, they have a vested interest in preserving essentially the California model and the California standards since they follow them, and they've indicated they're going to fight this where it has

big oil been in all of this. It's interesting you wouldn't necessarily hear them talking about it too terribly much in public, but they have been working behind the scenes in favor of the uh some more so, some companies more so than others. Refiners, uh, sometimes more than oil producers. Uh. We uh. We have reporting that you know, they've met

with administration officials. Members of these companies and and their leading trade groups have met with administration officials to push this and and it's really no surprise, I mean, this would increase oil demand domestically. Uh, the government estimates that it would be some five hundred thousand additional barrels of demand in the early twenty thirties. That's per day that would result from this program. So you know that that's

not chump change. It's it's a small amount in a in a global market, but it's not it's not insignificant to the oil industry, which is why they're quietly lobbying behind the scenes on this. You know, Jennet, it occurs to me as this whole other industry that exists now because of lower pollution in different standards, electric vehicles are

not going to go anywhere. There are other h you know, parts of the industry as well to that provided a traction or pushback against the rollbacks, which is I think that's a proper sentence. But as that appropriate type of pushback, are they speaking up? You know, electric vehicles, as you noted, you know, they're they're here to stay elsewhere in the world.

I think it's it's unclear you know, their long term status in the United States, but you know, around the world you have government policies that encourage their development in places like China and major cities in Europe um that that are contemplating in some cases banning combustion engines altogether. So you know that global pressure means that automakers need electric vehicles to gain more traction. In the United States here they're just one percent of new auto sales right now.

So what came makers don't want our our unrealistic mandates that force them to sell these electrics at a huge loss for years, uh in the United States just to get more traction. They really would like to see a program that rewards them in the United States and encourages their development here since they're having to sell them around the world intense seconds. What's the administration's official reason for

making this making these changes? Well, they say that the proposal would lower the cost of new cars, and because it does that, it gets people buying new cars that are safer and not holding onto older, clunky or less safe models. Okay, Jennifer Gloway, Bloomberg News Environmental and Energy regulation reporter, thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts,

SoundCloud and on Bloomberg dot Com slash podcast. I'm June Bolso this is Bloomberg,