Gates Pleads Guilty In Mueller Probe, Will Testify Against Manafort
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Fri, 02/23/2018
A former Trump campaign aide and longtime business partner of Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, has changed his previously plea from innocent to guilty to two charges in a scheme in which Special Counsel Robert Mueller claims more than $75 million flowed through secret accounts set up by the pair.
Gates will plead guilty – the third to do so by someone tied directly to Trump’s campaign – to a conspiracy to defraud the United States “by impeding, impairing, obstructing and defeating” the DOJ and Treasury, and a second count of lying to authorities over his work with Manafort in Ukraine by giving a “materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement” to the Special Counsel’s office.
Gates and Manafort stand accused of laundering over $18 million in income related to lobbying activities on behalf of the former President of Ukraine, through his firm, DMI – of which Gates transferred over $3 million from offshore accounts to accounts he controlled. Manafort and Gates used millions of dollars from the offshore accounts to pay for personal expenses, including the payment of Gates’ mortgage, his children’s tuition, and even interior decorating for his Virginia home, Mueller claims.
In a statement, Manafort maintained his innocence.
“Notwithstanding that Rick Gates pled today, I continue to maintain my innocence. 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.”
The Rest…HERE
