Russia special counsel Robert Mueller's new indictments Thursday against Paul Manafort and Rick Gates have now created "exclusively a tax and bank-fraud case" that could bring each decades in prison, National Review's Andy McCarthy said.
"The indictment dramatically alters the case, although not in a way that will surprise National Review readers," the Review's contributing editor said in a column.
Mueller's team announced a new 32-count felony indictment against Manafort, former Trump campaign manager, and longtime associate Gates that alleged widespread bank fraud and replaced the original 12 charges filed against them in October.
"There continues to be no connection to the Trump campaign . . . much less any suggestion of collusion between the campaign and Russia," McCarthy said.
"The new indictment, however, retreats from the original allegations of money laundering, failure to register as foreign agents, and the so-called conspiracy against the United States."
McCarthy then referenced a November column on the original charges, noting "the absence of tax-evasion and bank-fraud charges.
"Mueller had seemed to lay the groundwork for these allegations but to have refrained from charging them," he said Thursday.
McCarthy said Mueller most likely did not bring the tax charges in October because they must be approved by the Justice Department's tax division, which is often a slow process.
"We predicted that there would be tax charges, in part, because the money-laundering allegations in the original indictment relied on tax offenses.
"Wisely," he said, "prosecutors discarded the money-laundering counts once the tax charges were ready to go."
McCarthy also noted he predicted in November that Mueller would bring the tax-and-fraud charges because "if Mueller is trying to pressure Manafort [to become a cooperating witness], a bank-fraud conspiracy is a heavier hammer."
Further, the new charges bring as much as 30 years in prison, versus no more than five on the original money-laundering offenses.
"Suffice it to say," McCarthy concluded, "that Manafort and Gates are looking at decades in prison if convicted on these charges."
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