Coerced into a plea bargain with Special Counsel former FBI Director Robert Mueller, 45-year-old former Trump campaign aid Rick Gates proved only one thing: If you can’t pay the freight, you’ll fold like a stack of cards. Mueller knew that Trump’s former campaign aid, once a partner with former Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, didn’t have the cash to battle the FBI in federal court. Pleading guilty to conspiracy and making false statements, Gates hoped to get his hypothetical sentence reduced to under 50 months, potentially much less should he sing-like-a-canary with Mueller’s bullying tactics. Reporting that Gates plead guilty in Mueller “Russian probe,” the media went wild with another apparent conviction of a former Trump campaign officials.. What the press doesn’t tell the public is that Gates’s plea deal has nothing to do with Mueller’s Russian meddling probe.
Charging Manafort and Gates Oct. 27, 2017 with conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money and tax evasion, Mueller knew that Manafort had the resources to fight the FBI in federal court and most likely win. Gates, on the other hand, had a young family and limited resources, leaving him vulnerable to a plea bargain. Touting the new charges against Manafort and Gates as proof of Trump’s Russian collusion, the charges actually stem from consulting work for the former Russian-backed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovick, over 10 years before Trump’s campaign. While the media hypes today’s plea deal with Gates as proof of Trump’s Russian collusion, Manafort and Gates’ charges have nothing to do with the 2016 presidential campaign. Mueller deviated from his Russian collusion mandate to charge Manafort and Gates with old financial crimes.
If you listen to the media, you’d believe that Mueller’s latest indictments against Manafort and Gates proved Russian collusion. No one in the mainstream press wants to admit that Mueller’s charges have nothing to do with the 2016 presidential campaign. Charged with unregistered lobbying and conspiring to launder cash, Mueller knew that the new charges would get Gates to plea bargain in exchange for his cooperation. Whether or not Gate has anything to add to the Russian collusion investigation is anyone’s guess. Whether legal or not, anything Manafort and Gates did 10-years-ago in the Ukraine has nothing to do with Mueller’s Special Counsel mandate. Mueller’s new charges against Manafort and Gates comes a week after he charged 13 Russian businessmen and three firms with meddling in the 2016 campaign, despite offering the public zero proof.
Taken together, today’s new charges against Manafort and Gates and Feb. 16 charges against 13 Russian businessmen, offer nothing new in Democrats’ charges that Trump conspired with Russian to win the 2016 presidential election. Deputy Atty. Gen Rod Rosenstein, who wrote the April 10, 2016 rationale for firing former FBI Director James Comey, stated emphatically that the 13 indictments of Russian businessmen, doesn’t mean Trump officials colluded with Russia. Mueller knows that it’s highly unlikely any of his recent indictments will wind up in federal court. Unable to find any Russian collusion, Mueller’s deviated from his Special Counsel mandate, focusing on past financial crimes. Gates to plead guilty to lying to FBI agents about a March 19, 2013 meeting between Manfort, a lobbyist and member of Congress, failing to disclose he discussed consulting work in Ukraine.
Unlike Gates, Manafort has deep pockets, ready-and-willing to take on the FBI’s charges in federal court. It’s doubtful with a good defense, Manafort will ever see any jail time, despite all of Mueller’s new charges. “I had hoped and expected my business colleague would have had the strength to continue to prove our innocence. For reasons yet to surface he chose to do otherwise, said Manafort, ignoring the obvious that Gates ran out of cash. “This does not alter my commitment to defend myself against the untrue piled-up charge contained in the indictment against me,” said Manafort, surprised that the younger-and-inexperienced Gates would cop a plea. Dating back to the Nixon administration, Manafort knows the ways of Washington, including hiring the best criminal defense attorneys when things go kaflooey. Mueller intimidated Gates into his plea bargain.
Mueller hopes to get more dirt from Gates on Donald Trump Jr., Manafort and Jared Kushner when they met June 9, 2016 with Russian lawyer Valerie Neselnitskya. While called a Kremlin operative by the press, Veselnitskya was an opportunist, offering the Trump campaign possible dirt on Hillary. When she had nothing to offer, the meeting ended abruptly. Shouting Russian collusion, Democrats and the media ignore former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham’s Clinton’s opposition research on Trump AKA “the dossier” where Hillary sought dirt on Trump from her Kremlin contacts. Mueller knows in the course of fiercely contested campaign, both sides try to dig up dirt and throw mud. “It’s sad,” said Republican lobbyist Jack Burkman, who hosted fund-raiser for Gates’ legal defense. No one can tell someone when to fold his cards. Gates cracked because he knew the price of good legal defense.
