Just how influential was Manafort?
Robert Mueller may have completed his investigation, but that doesn’t mean every shoe has yet dropped. The Department of Justice unveiled a sealed indictment against Stephen Calk this morning, a former CEO of a bank, as part of their prosecution of Paul Manafort. Prosecutors allege that Calk directed $16 million in loans to Manafort in exchange for consideration of a Cabinet appointment by Trump:
Federal prosecutors in New York on Thursday unsealed an indictment charging the former CEO of a bank with approving loans to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort in exchange for an administration position.
The relationship between Manafort and Stephen Calk was a focus of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation as far back as early 2018, sources told NBC News at the time.
“As alleged, Stephen M. Calk abused the power entrusted to him as the top official of a federally insured bank by approving millions of dollars in high-risk loans in an effort to secure a personal benefit, namely an appointment as Secretary of the Army or another similarly high-level position in the incoming presidential administration,” Acting U. S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a statement.
This shoe has been a long time in dropping. Last August, one of Calk’s former employees testified to the scheme during Manafort’s trial in Virginia. Manafort asked for the loans in April 2016, and Dennis Raico testified that he alerted Calk to Manafort’s applications because he knew Calk was interested in politics. Then odd things began to happen:
Raico said that he, Calk, Manafort and others dined together in New York in May 2016, where they discussed politics, loans and other subjects. At the time, Manafort was working on the Trump campaign.
