Alleged Failure to Mention Offshore Accounts Gets Manafort Sued by Feds to Tune of $3M

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is being taken to the cleaners by the Justice Department, which is seeking $3 million in penalties from the pardoned political consultant over his alleged failure to disclose a number of foreign bank accounts. The civil suit, filed Thursday in federal court, makes mention of a “willful failure to timely report” more than 20 offshore accounts that Manafort controlled in Cyprus, the United Kingdom, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines between 2006 and 2014. Officials with the Treasury Department, according to the filing, had reached their conclusions on the lobbyist’s overseas activity in July 2020, warning him then that he owed significant fines over his failure to divulge the accounts. That was five months before former President Donald Trump pardoned the lobbyist of a number of other, unrelated financial crimes. Manafort’s attorney, Jeffrey Neiman, downplayed Thursday’s suit in a statement. “Today’s civil lawsuit seeks a money judgment against Mr. Manafort for simply failing to file a tax form,” Neiman said, accusing the government of seeking to “embarrass” his client.