Rick Gates has done more damage to Donald Trump than we thought

| 11:05 pm EDT March 20, 2019
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When Donald Trump’s former campaign vice chairman Rick Gates cut a cooperating plea deal with Robert Mueller last year, it was obvious that Gates would fully cooperate against Paul Manafort, or else he wouldn’t have been given a deal. The question at the time was how much Gates would be able to give up on Donald Trump. After all, Gates continued to work for the campaign, and then for the transition team, long after Manafort was fired.

Rick Gates was one of the many Trump-related people who received document requests from the House Judiciary Committee. Some big names, including Steve Bannon and Hope Hicks, are cooperating. Other people are saying they won’t cooperate, and are willing to roll the subpoena dice instead. But we were all expecting Rick Gates to cooperate, right? After all, Gates is still hoping for a lenient prison sentence, and he needs to be as helpful as possible.

But this evening we all learned that Rick Gates has informed the House Judiciary Committee that he can’t give them his documents at this time, because prosecutors have advised him not to. The only possible reason for this is that prosecutors are still using Gates’ documents in an ongoing criminal case.

Considering that just about everyone else involved has either been convicted or pleaded out, it’s clear that the evidence Gates is withholding is against Donald Trump. Gates is saying that he might be able to give Congress his documents in the “coming months.” This would seem to fall in line with the expectation that Robert Mueller will drop the hammer on Trump before much longer. Stay tuned.