Former Trump aide Rick Gates is charged with 12 counts that include lying to the FBI, failing to register as a foreign agent, money laundering, and …
PAUL J. MANAFORT, JR., and RICHARD W. GATES III, together with others, knowingly and intentionally conspired to defraud the United States by impeding, impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful governmental functions of a government agency, namely the Department of Justice and the Department of the Treasury, and to commit offenses against the United States …
That charge of conspiracy against the United States contains six separate counts. A conviction on all charges would be expected to land Gates behind bars for decades. But over the last few weeks there have been repeated stories about Gates’ wrangling with his defense attorneys and requests for delays in his case. This seems to be leading up to Gates pleading guilty on one or more counts.
"Rick Gates is going to change his plea to guilty,'' said a person with direct knowledge of the new developments, adding that the revised plea will be presented in federal court in Washington "within the next few days.''
Among the charges against Gates, the final count is a charge of making false statements. Were Gates to accept a deal that saw him pleading guilty to only that charge, it would having him receiving a similar deal to that of former Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos and former national security adviser Michael Flynn. However, that would also leave Gates floating free after receiving several million dollars that came into the country through illegal money laundering, and which Gates failed to report as income to the IRS. That seems … awfully nice.
No matter what kind of deal Gates receives, it can be expected that part of what he delivers to Robert Mueller will consist of Paul Manafort sliced, diced, and ready for delivery to a handy federal facility. Gates and Manafort partnered together on numerous deals, including supporting the Russian-controlled government in Ukraine and the laundering of funds from offshore accounts—all of which was lovingly detailed by Mueller in his charges.
But that’s the problem. Mueller’s charges against Manafort already seem rock solid. Unless Gates is simply throwing up his arms and pleading to the lot, which seems unlikely, why give him a deal?
Expectations are that Gates is going to get something very close to a minimum charge.
According to a person familiar with those talks, Gates, a longtime political consultant, can expect "a substantial reduction in his sentence'' if he fully cooperates with the investigation. He said Gates is likely to serve about 18 months in prison.
Which seems like one helluva deal if he does nothing more than nod over all the dozens of illegal funds transfers that Mueller has already documented. Gates will presumably also own up to his own role in a sort of political extortion scheme operated within the Ukraine, and to illegally dropping foreign funds on U.S. lobbying organizations.
Gates’ friends are putting his cooperation down to an inability to afford a legal defense adequate to the case …
"He can't afford to pay it,'' said one lawyer who is involved with the investigation. "If you go to trial on this, that's $1 million to $1.5 million. Maybe more, if you need experts'' to appear as witnesses.
But considering that between them, Gates and Manafort made off with a minimum of $21 million from just two of their foreign deals, finding enough pocket change to stay out of jail shouldn’t be Gates’ top concern. A more likely reason for Gates’ negotiations with Mueller is a simpler one: he recognizes that, no matter how much he spends, he is likely to lose. In that case, making a deal with Mueller would make much more sense than trying to hire more attorneys.
There’s a chance that Gates could have more information than just confirmation on Manafort’s actions. Not only was he there from the time Manafort joined the campaign, but Gates stayed on, serving first as a liaison to, then a fundraiser for, the RNC, and finally starting a Trump-centric PAC. That long history would suggest there’s a chance that Gates could have played a role—or at least, been in the background—for some of the more interesting events of the Trump campaign and transition.
However, there seem to be low expectations.
Despite Gates’s extended tour in Trumpworld, a source tells the Times that it’s unlikely he has information that would “turn the screws on Trump,” but should Manafort maintain his not-guilty plea, Gates’s testimony could prove crucial to either pressuring Manafort to cooperate, or convicting him. In other words, Manafort is probably the one who is now screwed, and if he flips, it will be interesting to see whom he flips on.
But putting pressure on Manafort to “flip” would seem to require that Manafort know something that would put Trump definitively behind the Impeach-ball. If Mueller is that certain that Manafort knows something definitive, why does he need Manafort? Manafort’s absolutely soul-free support of every monster on the planet for decades, together with his complete flouting of U.S. law, would seem to suggest that he deserves a sentence of no less than 10,000 years. Any deal at all with Paul Manafort seems like too sweet a deal.
And too soft a deal for Gates … is kind of worrisome.