they could have some evidence to the contrary. what might that look like? well, gates was a partner, he was a protege of manafort. he clearly had a lot of authority within the firm an he was dealing personally with this accountant, cindy laporta and giving her instructions on how to perform certain tasks and account for things. downing was just making the point that often the accountant is the last to know if there was fraud. the person giving the accountant the information has a lot of power to misrepresent what the numbers say. it looks like that s what their argument is going to be. but every single witness has been asked was paul manafort involved in this transaction, was he calling the shots and they all answered yes, including cindy laporta. she just said that mr. manafort was deeply involved in all aspects of the finances and transactions. so it will be interesting to see what the defense can come up with here. ken, before you run back into
very soon? reporter: that s right, kasie. i ll just relate to you what happened in the courtroom. cindy laporta, the accountant, was on the stand being cross examined by the defense and manafort s lawyer, kevin downing, was asking her about very complicated tax matters and he said would it change your answer if you knew rick gates had embezzled billions of dollars from paul manafort. then there was an objection from the prosecution and downing answered, well, mr. gates has that evidence, he s up next and about 30 reporters scrambled out of the courtroom including you, thankfully. reporter: yes. not as fast as i should have been but cindy laporta is still on the stand. there s some redirect by the prosecution. she s the accountant who acknowledged submitting information on manafort s taxes that she wasn t sure was accurate and turned out to be inaccurate and caused what prosecutors say is tax fraud. the same with a bank loan. she testified under grant of
not. and then we had a witness, cindy laporta. she knowingly falsified these documents. and she felt personally disturbed. what do you make of a fact of a guy who lost his empire, no more luxury lifestyle, he is broke and then he goes to work for trump. i know actions is always good. what was the intrigue here? a broken guy going to work for free for trump. it is intriguing. and i mean, this trial isn t going to answer the question. but it certainly lays the base for the big question which
ring and went to jail for it. on the surface she doesn t appear to have a connection to the russia investigation. but she does have a close relationship with roger stone, a long time adviser to donald trump. sources say her testimony suggests mueller might be building a case against stone. meantime the trial of paul manafort resumes monday after a bruising week for the defendant. in just four day, jurors have seen and heard a mountain of evidence pointing to bank fraud and tank evasion. for more, here is evan perez in washington. reporter: the most damaging testimony so far in paul manafort s tax and bank fraud trial was from one of his former accountants. cindy laporta told the court that she and others helped manafort file supply numbers so that manafort could save hundreds of thousand of dollars in taxes. laporta is the first witness we ve heard from so far who is
they don t just do it in the bright of day, right? they do it in the dark of night. so you have to look at all types of associations in order to determine whether there s something inappropriate. so, that s why they re looking at stone, because he could provide the critical link that would lead to the c question, collusion again, i m sorry conspiracy, since this collusion, no collusion, collusion s not a crime, conspiracy is, and that s why they re looking at it. got you. i want to move to the manafort trial. 18 charges, tax and banking crimes here for paul manafort from a campaign chair for president trump. interesting this week the accountants who testified here, particularly cindy laporta. she testified that her firm falsified a loan amount at the request of rick gates to help manafort pay less taxes. does that, joey, play right into the defense that gates was the one facilitating all of this and that manafort didn t know anything about it? short answer, christi,