Prosecutors Challenge Judge's Ideas About Banker's Awareness of Alleged Manafort Fraud

[DonViejo]

By Tierney Sneed | August 13, 2018 11:38 am

Just because a bank CEO was aware that Paul Manafort was committing bank fraud doesn’t make Manafort’s conduct any less fraudulent, special counsel Robert Mueller’s prosecutors argued in a court filing Monday morning.

The filing appeared to be prompted by a bench discussion the attorneys had with the defense and Judge T.S. Ellis on Friday, pertaining to Steve Calk, the CEO of The Federal Savings Bank (TFSB) who served as a Trump campaign advisor.

Federal Savings Bank was one of a number of lenders that prosecutors say were misled by false representations made by Manafort in applying for millions of dollars in loans in late 2015 and 2016. Manafort was approved for a Federal Savings Bank loan the day after Calk expressed to the Trump campaign chair interest in working for Trump, a bank employee testified last week. The prosecution presented other evidence that Calk was promised campaign and administration positions while negotiating Manafort’s loans.

During Friday’s bench conversation about whether statements by Calk could be admitted, Ellis “expressed concern about the notion that TFSB could be defrauded when Calk, who ultimately approved these loans for TFSB, was going to approve the loans for personal reasons,” according to Monday’s filing.

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[htuttle]

1. Robbing a bank is still robbing a bank, even if you have an inside person helping you

They come up with the stupidest defenses...

[Uncle Joe]

2. A most excellent filing.

Thanks for the thread DonViejo

[Stallion]

3. Just Ridiculous-Federal Savings Bank is Backed by the Good Faith and Credit

of the United States Treasury and if that Bank goes under because of bad loan-- you and I pay for the loss. When I first started practicing law about a third of my cases dealt with the FDIC/FSLIC fiasco and most dealt with these kinds of fraudulent, undocumented loans and side agreements. I find it hard to believe that a federal judge could be so oblivious to this concern

[avebury]

4. Mueller's prosecutors are 100% correct.

Years ago I was a Loan Review Officer for a Bank. We received word from an employee of one of lending divisions with information on some hanky panky that was going on there. An immediate audit was ordered on that particular portfolio and I ran that audit. All the Loan Officers involved determined that it was in their best interest to resign. They would have not survived the audit. My report was the only audit report that was handed out to every lender in the bank with the firm instructions that Senior Management and the Board never wanted to see a report like that ever again. It wasn't pretty.

There are times when bank official(s) will go rogue and you cannot assume that their actions are approved by Senior Management and/or legal.

I would love to be on the Manafort jury. I have been out of banking for a while but I think I would still be good at figuring out what to look for and where the skeletons are buried.