Thread by @TheViewFromLL2

1) Someone falsified a $130K invoice, purportedly from a home improvement co. in the Hamptons to Manafort's company Global Endeavor

2) Global Endeavor wired $130K from overseas acct, purportedly to home improvement co. in the Hamptons

3) Gosh, I wonder where that $130K ended up

How strange. This home improvement company did $3.3M in work for Manafort... so why did Manafort's foreign LLCs wire $5.4M total to that company from offshore accounts?

It's almost as if Manafort wired $2.1M to unknown accounts while pretending to wire money for a real service.

TO CLARIFY ignore any similarity to Stormy payment, the $130K figure is 100% a coincidence.

The significance is that today at Manafort's trial, Special Counsel introduced evidence that someone falsified a $130K invoice from the Hamptons company to one of Manafort's companies,

and we know from indictment that Mueller has wire records showing that same Manafort company wired $130K from an offshore account, purportedly to the same company in the Hamptons. But Hamptons never got it.

Gonna be some awful strong evidence of money laundering right there.

The prosecution also put on evidence today of Manafort's relationship with Alan Couture, a NY men's clothing company. The witness from Alan Couture testified that the company had never invoiced Global Endeavor, and that an invoice from "Alan Corture" to Global Endeavor was fake.

And yet indictment shows that Special Counsel has evidence of wire transfers made by Global Endeavor from an offshore account that, purportedly, went to Alan Couture. Or perhaps "Alan Corture."

Assuming Mueller gets the wires in, that's again strong evidence of money laundering.

Another vendor, another fraudulent invoice. This landscaper that did work for Manafort appears to be "Vendor F." Landscaper says he did about $450K in work for Manafort, but indictment shows $655K in total was purportedly wired to the company.

Same deal with this home entertainment company.

So far, the fraudulent invoices have mostly involved a company incorporated in the Grenadines called Global Endeavour, Inc. That company also happens to have been hired by Yanukovych to "consult and lobby" on his behalf.

At least from what we know from the indictment, those Global Endeavour transactions are all clustered between August 2013 through the end of 2014 -- just before and after everything fell apart for Yanukovych in Ukraine.

It's not clear how representative a sample the transactions in the indictment are, but from first glance, it seems like beginning in late 2013, Manafort needed to move a lot of money out of Ukraine fast. Faster, at least, than the laundering methods he had been using would allow.

Instead of making legitimate transactions and then padding them, Manafort switched to wiring $$ straight to his own accounts, using fabricated invoices to explain the transfers. That way he could keep the whole amount, instead of having to divert some of it towards ostrich coats.

It looks like Manafort was wiring in money from overseas in a way that mimicked his established pattern of (semi-legit) transactions with various luxury companies.

If you buy one $15K ostrich coat out of the blue, it looks weird. But if you buy two, well, that's just your thing.

This is why it matters that Global Endeavour, Inc. is the entity predominantly involved in the falsified invoices. Ukrainian president/Manafort client Viktor Yanukovych had agreements with Manafort's company Global Endeavour for "lobbying." buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonl…

As president, before being ousted from office in Feb. 2014 and fleeing to Russia, Yanukovych funneled billions of dollars out of Ukrainian state-owned accounts and into his own pockets (and his friends' pockets) using fake contracts and offshore accounts.
en.censor.net.ua/resonance/3076…

So it could be that Mueller's plan is to trace that money from Ukraine, to Yanukovych, to Manafort's offshore accounts, to wire transfers to U.S. accounts made pursuant to the falsified invoices for luxury goods. That should hit all the elements that Mueller needs to hit, anyway.

Judge Ellis is, so far, blocking most of the prosecution's attempts to bring this evidence in.

A little bizarre and concerning. Manafort's knowledge of the money's origins and purpose would appear to be at the heart of the Special Counsel's case.

https://twitter.com/BBuchman_CNS/status/1026596356553629696

Manafort's defense -- that it was Gates who planned and carried out the scheme, without Manafort's knowledge -- is going to be a lot stronger than I thought, if this keeps up. Judge Ellis is blocking some of the best evidence contradicting the defense's claims.

Despite yesterday's dust up, Gates' testimony so far today suggests that Judge Ellis is not going to be as restrictive as his reported comments made it seem. The basic Ukraine story seems to be fair game, anyway, in a sanitized way.
washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/…