Federal prosecutors who have already indicted President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort on charges of money laundering, bank fraud and covertly lobbying for pro-Russian interests may have additional leverage arising from a loan he received while engaged in the bankruptcies of properties in California, Reuters reported. New information has been discovered about Manafort’s handling of the loan and its potential link to the bankruptcies as Special Counsel Robert Mueller seeks to pressure Manafort to cooperate with his investigation into Trump’s campaign team and possible collusion with Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election. At issue is whether the failure to disclose a loan from a lender that was also the main creditor in the California bankruptcy cases represented an illegal concealment of material information. Over the past several months, Mueller has begun focusing on Jeffrey Yohai, Manafort’s former son-in-law and his partner in four California property deals that failed and were placed in bankruptcy, as a potentially valuable witness in his probe. Last week, Mueller filed new criminal charges against Manafort and Rick Gates, a former business partner who served as Trump’s deputy campaign manager. The California bankruptcies might be yet another avenue of inquiry for Mueller’s team. A review of property records and California bankruptcy court filings shows that a Manafort-controlled company secured in early 2017 a loan against a Brooklyn home from Genesis Capital LLC, now owned by Goldman Sachs, which was the top secured creditor in the bankruptcies of the four high-priced properties in the Los Angeles area. Genesis signed off on the $303,750 loan two days after a judge overseeing the bankruptcies agreed to release from creditor protection one of the properties. The move, pushed by Manafort’s lawyers and requested in court by a lawyer representing the bankrupt properties, allowed Genesis to put the property up for sale, while the loan helped Manafort finalize a $6.8 million refinancing of the Brooklyn home with another lender.
