Russia interference in US elections: Top Trump campaign aide pleads guilty

Plea deal signals that Rick Gates plans to share incriminating information against former campaign chairman

A former top adviser to Donald J Trump’s presidential campaign has agreed to cooperate with the special counsel inquiry into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election after pleading guilty on Friday to financial fraud and lying to investigators.

The adviser, Rick Gates, is a longtime political consultant who once served as Trump’s deputy campaign chairman. The plea deal could be a significant development in the investigation — a sign that  Gates plans to offer incriminating information against his longtime associate and the former Trump campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and possibly other members of the campaign in exchange for a lighter punishment. He faces up to nearly six years in prison.

The deal came as the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has been raising pressure on  Gates and  Manafort with dozens of new charges of money laundering and bank fraud unsealed on Thursday. Both men were first indicted in October and pleaded not guilty. The plea agreement was part of a flurry of recent activity by the special counsel’s team. Last week, 13 Russians were indicted on charges relating to a carefully planned scheme to incite political discord in the United States in the months before the 2016 election.

Gates changed his plea on Friday during an appearance in a Washington courtroom, his eyes cast down as the government outlined the charges against him. A man who had made millions of dollars lobbying in Ukraine accepted the fate that may await him: a prison sentence for carrying out a financial conspiracy to hide the money he earned there.

He also admitted that he lied to investigators this month — while under indictment and negotiating with prosecutors — about the details of a 2013 meeting about Ukraine that Manafort had with a pro-Russian member of Congress.

What the dramatic courtroom scene might mean for President Trump depends on what Gates has to offer the special counsel, though at the least, the plea agreement is further evidence that the Trump campaign attracted a cast of advisers who overstepped legal and ethical boundaries. The indictments so far have not indicated that either Gates or  Manafort had information about the central question of  Mueller’s investigation — whether Trump or his aides coordinated with the Russian government’s efforts to disrupt the 2016 election.

But Gates was present for the most significant periods of the campaign, as Trump began forging policy positions and his digital campaign operation engaged with millions of voters on social media platforms such as Facebook. Even after Manafort was fired by Trump in August 2016, Gates remained with the campaign at the request of Stephen K Bannon, who took over as head of the campaign.

From there,  Gates assumed a different role — as a liaison between the campaign and the Republican National Committee — and travelled aboard the Trump plane through Election Day.

In addition to offering visibility into the Trump campaign,  Gates might be able to provide prosecutors with glimpses into decision-making in the months after Trump’s election victory. Gates was a consultant on the transition team, and in the months after the inauguration, he worked with America First Policies, the main outside group supporting the Trump presidency.

Besides the agreement with  Gates, the special counsel’s team has already secured guilty pleas from two of  Trump’s advisers. Michael T Flynn, the president’s first national security adviser, and George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy aide during the campaign, have both pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI  and agreed to cooperate with the inquiry.

Gates’s plea deal came together over the past few days, according to people familiar with the process. In a letter to friends and family,  Gates said there had been false news stories about an impending plea deal over the past two weeks.

But, he added, “Despite my initial desire to vigorously defend myself, I have had a change of heart. 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.”
 

Testimony from Gates could give Mueller’s team a first-person account of the criminal conduct that is claimed in the indictments — a potential blow to  Manafort’s defence strategy. On Friday, Manafort pledged to continue the fight.

“Notwithstanding that Rick Gates pleaded today, I continue to maintain my innocence,” he said in a statement. “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. This does not alter my commitment to defend myself against the untrue piled up charges contained in the indictments against me.”

After Gates’s plea hearing, prosecutors filed a new indictment against Manafort. That indictment did not allege new charges against him, but was done for procedural purposes as prosecutors pursue separate cases in Washington and Northern Virginia.

©2018 The New York Times News Service