Prosecutor: Bank CEO sought 'power' with $16M Manafort loans
NEW YORK (AP) — A Chicago bank owner traded $16 million in loans to ex-President Donald Trump's ex-campaign manager in a bid for a prestigious position in Trump's administration, a prosecutor told jurors in an opening statement Wednesday before a defense attorney assured them that the banker committed no crimes.
“This is a case about greed, but not greed for money. Greed for power, for prestige, for importance,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexandra Rothman said shortly before pointing out Stephen Calk to a Manhattan jury and describing his dealings with Paul Manafort, who led Trump's presidential campaign for several months five years ago.
She recalled election night 2016, saying that Calk, the former chief executive of The Federal Savings Bank, messaged Manafort after it became clear Trump had won the election to promise that a $9.5 million real estate construction loan that had seemed stalled, if not dead, would be “wrapped up the next day.”
Within weeks, Calk was interviewing at Trump Tower for a position in the administration and was eagerly pushing through another $6.5 million to Manafort so he could finish construction on a Brooklyn condominium and avoid foreclosure, Rothman said.
Manafort, the prosecutor said, was seen by Calk as “his personal piggybank to try to buy himself prestige and power."
Still, Rothman said, Calk never was granted any Trump administration position he put on his wish list, including head of the Treasury, Commerce or Defense Departments. And he also didn't get what he claimed was his “No. 1 desire,” to be Secretary of the Army, she added.
He did gain media exposure, though, from his voluntary role on the Trump campaign's Economic Advisory Council, where he served with other high-profile business leaders advising Trump, she said.
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