US Supreme Court rejects appeal by banker linked to ex-Trump adviser Manafort, Reuters

By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal by a former Chicago bank CEO who was convicted of bribery after approving $16 million in risky loans to Paul Manafort, the chairman of Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign in an attempt to get a senior. job in the Trump administration.

The justices rejected an appeal by Stephen Calk, former president and chief executive of Federal Savings Bank, of a lower court’s decision to uphold his conviction and prison sentence of one year and one day.

Prosecutors said Manafort, after obtaining the loans in 2016, recommended to the team Trump created to find people to fill top administration jobs after he won the November election that Calk be nominated as secretary of the US Army, the most important civilian job in the military service.

Calk, 59, served as an Army reservist for 16 years. He was eventually interviewed by the Trump team in January 2017 for the position of Under Secretary of the Army, but was not selected.

A federal jury in Manhattan convicted Calk in 2021 of bribery and conspiracy by financial institutions.

Audrey Strauss, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan at the time, said Calk used his federally insured bank as a “personal piggy bank to try to gain prestige and power.”

Calk’s sentence also included two years of supervised release, 800 hours of community service and a $1.25 million fine.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan upheld Calk’s conviction and sentence in November 2023.

In his appeal to the Supreme Court, Calk said the conduct for which he was convicted should not be considered corrupt under a federal anti-bribery law because Manafort’s assistance was not a “thing of value” worth a certain amount of dollars.

Calk said the Second Circuit’s decision created a split with four other federal appeals courts that have found that the term “thing of value” does not mean anything that a recipient subjectively values. Calk also said the 2nd Circuit erred in finding that he could have been corrupt by acting with an “improper purpose” if he honestly believed his actions were in the bank’s best interest.

Opposing Calk’s appeal, the U.S. Department of Justice said that “anything of value” can include intangibles, not just items with a dollar value, and that Calk’s claim that the appeals courts were divided was “displaced”.

It also said corruption did not require a willful breach by Calk of a legal duty to his bank.

Manafort, a veteran Republican operative, was convicted of tax evasion and bank fraud in 2018 and sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison and later released to home.

Trump pardoned him in December 2020, four weeks before his presidency ended. Trump is now the Republican nominee in the November 5 US election, facing Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.