Confirmed: Rick Gates has spilled his guts to Robert Mueller about Donald Trump and Paul Manafort
For the past few weeks we’ve been hearing increasingly loud rumblings that former Donald Trump campaign adviser Rick Gates was negotiating a potential plea deal with Special Counsel Robert Mueller. This would have a major impact the Trump-Russia scandal, because it would all but force Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort to cut a deal as well. Now we have confirmation that Gates has indeed joined Team Mueller, and the implications are massive.
Rick Gates has already completed his “Queen for a Day” or proffer interview, the crucial part of any plea deal in which the defendant spills his guts about everything he knows, according to a new CNN on-air report today. Legal experts have told Palmer Report that once someone completes their proffer session, there’s no turning back; they’ve given away so much about their own crimes that they end up having to cut a deal. Sure enough, CNN says that the deal is now all but complete. More importantly, Mueller now knows everything that Gates knows.
Even as the Gates deal is being finalized, Mueller and his team are surely already working their way through the testimony and evidence that he’s provided them during the interview. It doesn’t necessarily matter how much Gates knows about Trump’s crimes, because Gates knows nearly everything about Manafort’s crimes, based on their many years of working together for the Kremlin on various projects. This means, in short, that Manafort is nailed. If he was hoping his high priced attorneys could get him off the hook at trial, that’s no longer a possibility with Gates having become a witness against him.
So now we all know what comes next. Paul Manafort isn’t loyal and he isn’t stupid. He knows the Rick Gates deal means he’s going to spend the rest of his life in prison unless he cuts a deal with Robert Mueller. Manafort knows he has to do it quickly, before Mueller completes his case against Trump without needing additional help. It’s a safe bet that Manafort can provide evidence against Trump on everything from money laundering to Conspiracy Against the United States. Look for more dominoes to fall quickly now.
