A Nevada company that funneled $1 million to former Donald Trump presidential campaign chairman Paul Manafort is battling special counsel Robert Mueller over keeping the source of the funds secret, reports Bloomberg.
According to the report, Woodlawn LLC lent the money to the embattled Manafort but the actual funds came from a source who wishes to remain anonymous. Woodlawn is seeking to recover the money from Manafort who is looking a long jail term after running afoul of federal investigators but has balked when asked who put the money up in the first place.
According to Bloomberg, "The loan came at a perilous time for Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, around the time of a raid on his properties. Woodlawn provided $1,025,000 to a Delaware entity controlled by Manafort’s wife in August 2017. Manafort himself guaranteed the loan, with a Baxter Street condominium in Manhattan pledged as collateral."
However, before allowing Woodlawn to proceed with recovering the money, Mueller's office wants the name of money's actual source which the lender said it would provide -- but only if the name is kept secret.
The loan’s backer or backers wanted to remain anonymous given the “potential for public embarrassment,” Bloomberg reported previously.
Manafort, who was convicted by a Virginia jury of tax and bank fraud and then pleaded guilty to conspiracy in Washington, was reportedly "desperate for cash" at the time of the loan which occurred when he joined the president's campaign as an unpaid volunteer.
“Woodlawn decided to go ahead with the loan because Woodlawn’s investors were worried that the Manaforts could sue them for breach of contract,” lawyers for the lender wrote in its filing. “This was an arms-length loan at a market rate of interest by a legitimate lender, not a sham.”
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