Paul Manafort Spent Over $1 Million of His Laundered Money in Clothing Stores

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Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Richard Gates III were indicted this morning for taking and concealing tens of millions of dollars in payments from the government of Ukraine, and funneling that into foreign bank accounts, which they did not report to the United States and did not pay taxes on. The charges against Manafort allege that he laundered more than $18,000,000, much of which he spent on luxury purchases, including a lot of clothing. According to the court filing, Manafort spent $849,215 at a “men’s clothing store in New York” and $520,440 at a “clothing store in Beverly Hills, California” between 2008 and 2014.

That’s like 10 of the most expensive Chanel haute couture gowns, or, in menswear terms, more than 200 of Tom Ford’s best suits, which is an absurd amount of cash to drop on clothes for anyone, let alone the campaign manager for a presidential candidate who won strong support from working-class voters.

Unfortunately, not even Paul Manafort’s laundered money could save retail from melting down this year.