Day 400: Gates Cooperating, Mueller’s Investigation Officially Getting Interesting
Donald Trump’s former deputy campaign chairman, Rick Gates, is expected to plead guilty Friday to a slew of charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team. The plea signals that Gates is cooperating with Mueller’s investigation in exchange for lighter punishment.
Unlike after campaign aide George Papadopoulos’ surprise arrest and plea, Trump won’t be able to spin Gates’ involvement in his campaign as peripheral. Gates stayed on the Trump team for many months — and visited the White House numerous times after the inauguration— even after his longtime associate and Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort was ousted.
But Mr. Gates was present for the most significant periods of activity of the campaign, as Mr. Trump began developing policy positions and his digital operation engaged with millions of voters on platforms such as Facebook. Even after Mr. Manafort was fired by Mr. Trump in August 2016, Mr. Gates remained on in a different role, as a liaison between the campaign and the Republican National Committee. He traveled aboard the Trump plane through Election Day.
The principle underscoring every plea deal is simple: quid pro quo. Considering what appears to be overwhelming evidence of guilt related to money laundering, Mueller’s team won’t entertain a lighter punishment for Gates without an exchange for something valuable. (In turn, Gates won’t give up that something valuable for free.)
In nature, the bigger fish eats the smaller fish. But in a criminal court, the smaller fish is more likely to destroy the bigger fish.
There are many guesses that can be posited from Gates’ plea, but given the quiet-as-a-mouse nature of the Mueller investigation, it’s unlikely anyone will know those details for some time. The broad strokes, however, are clear: Gates is flipping on someone.
Mueller’s indictments relate to meddling by Russians and financial crimes and lying to the FBI by Americans. However, the various charges don’t bridge the gap into collusion between Russia and Team Trump. (Importantly, this doesn’t mean Mueller’s team doesn’t have evidence of collusion, it just means that to date there has been no charge for it.)
If Gates flips on Trump or his team, obviously the investigation immediately goes into overdrive. However, if he flips on Manafort, which seems more likely given how closely they worked for a number of years, that still puts the Trump team in real danger. Manafort has shown to be willing to do anything for his own benefit. As The Atlantic noted, Manafort sees himself as an oligarch.
But his role as adviser, as powerful as it was, never quite matched his own buccaneering sense of self. After spending so much time in the company of Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs, he set out to become an oligarch himself.
Manafort’s work for decades has focused on Eastern European and the men in charge of the nations therein. His Rolodex is overflowing and the Mueller investigation just so happens to be looking into Trump-Russia ties.
That’s where the most likely problem for Trump and his team comes in.
If Gates flips on Manafort, evidence including a lengthy paper trail and Gates’ testimony will be used to try Manafort. He knows he would have little chance of an acquittal. The idea of a political mercenary like Manafort laying down and willingly spending a decade or more in federal prison is unlikely. If he has bigger fish to give up, he’ll do it.
And there are only a few people above Manafort on the food chain.
400 days in, 1062 to go
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