Gates Guilty Plea Strengthens Mueller's Hand Against Manafort

• February 23 2018
• David Voreacos, Andrew M Harris, Steven T. Dennis

As the newest cooperator for Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Rick Gates gives prosecutors a powerful weapon in pursuing former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and possible Russian election meddling.

As the newest cooperator for Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Rick Gates gives prosecutors a powerful weapon in pursuing former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and possible election collusion with Russia.

Gates, who pleaded guilty Friday in Washington, was Manafort’s right-hand man and worked with him for a decade in his political consulting firm in Ukraine before joining him in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016. Gates also remained on the Trump campaign after Manafort resigned in August 2016, and he helped plan Trump’s inauguration.

In a victory for Mueller, Gates admitted he conspired with Manafort to defraud the U.S. by failing to disclose their work as unregistered foreign agents in Ukraine, and by hiding his offshore bank accounts. Mueller also extracted an admission that Gates had made a false statement to his office. It was the fourth criminal conviction that the special counsel has obtained from someone who lied to U.S. authorities.

Gates, 45, is now poised to testify against Manafort, who was indicted twice alongside him -- first on Oct. 27 on money laundering and unregistered lobbying charges, and then Thursday on tax and bank fraud charges.

Offshore Accounts

Mueller’s office is prepared to have Gates tell jurors how he helped Manafort use dozens of offshore accounts to launder money, while failing to disclose their Ukrainian work as required under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, according to former prosecutors.

“Gates can serve as a narrator and a guide to the jury to walk them through complicated financial transactions and emails, and explain what was going on at the time,” said Lee Vartan, a former federal prosecutor. “This is someone who was on the inside of what the government was alleging, knows Manafort perhaps better than anyone else, and has admitted committing the very crimes that Manafort is accused of.”

By serving as such a narrator, Gates will only help prosecutors, said Paul Fishman, the former U.S. attorney in New Jersey. “The indictments alone reflect what appears to be an incredibly strong case against Manafort simply based on the documents and the tracing of the various transactions,” Fishman said.

It’s not clear from public filings what, if anything, Gates could offer Mueller’s team about whether anyone in the Trump campaign colluded with Russians -- the central mission of Mueller’s appointment.

Pivotal Year

Still, Gates had a unique vantage point on a pivotal year. He joined the Trump campaign after Manafort became campaign chairman in April 2016, and stayed on after Manafort left in August, becoming the campaign’s liaison with the Republican National Committee. He also helped plan Trump’s inauguration, worked closely with a Trump-affiliated political action committee, America First, and was present, according to a person familiar with the situation, at several meetings at the White House during the administration’s early months.

Under advisory sentencing guidelines, Gates faces between 57 and 71 months in prison for the charges he admitted on Friday.

Gates’s plea ends weeks of speculation that he was preparing to cooperate with Mueller, who has charged 19 people in his investigation and secured four other guilty pleas. Gates, a father of four young children, would be a reluctant witness against those Mueller is investigating.

“Despite my initial desire to vigorously defend myself, I have had a change of heart,” Gates said in a letter to his family, according to ABC News. “The reality of how long this legal process will likely take, the cost, and the circus-like atmosphere of an anticipated trial are too much. I will better serve my family moving forward by exiting this process.”

Manafort maintained his innocence and said he would continue to defend himself.

“I had hoped and expected my business colleague would have had the strength to continue the battle to prove our innocence. For reasons yet to surface he chose to do otherwise,” Manafort said in a statement.