WASHINGTON
— A former top adviser to Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign
indicted by the special counsel was expected to plead guilty on Friday, a
move that signals he is cooperating with the investigation into
Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
The
adviser, Rick Gates, is a longtime political consultant who once served
as Mr. Trump’s deputy campaign chairman. The plea deal could be a
significant development in the investigation — a sign that Mr. Gates
plans to offer incriminating information against his longtime associate
and the former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, or other members of the
Trump campaign in exchange for a lighter punishment.
The deal comes as the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has been raising pressure on Mr. Gates and Mr. Manafort with dozens of new charges
of money laundering and bank fraud that were unsealed on Thursday in
Alexandria, Va. Mr. Mueller first indicted both men in October, and both
pleaded not guilty.
Mr. Gates is planning to plead guilty to participating in the financial conspiracy with Mr. Manafort, court documents released on Friday
indicate. He is also expected to admit to lying to investigators
earlier this month about the details of a 2013 meeting in Washington
that Mr. Manafort had with a member of Congress and a lobbyist, during
which there was a discussion about Ukraine, where the two men worked as
political consultants.
A hearing in Federal District Court in Washington was scheduled for Friday afternoon.
The
deal came together over the past few days, according to people familiar
with the process. It was not immediately clear what the agreement will
mean for the newly filed charges in Virginia; it is unusual for a new
indictment to be brought on the eve of a plea change.
In a letter to friends and family, obtained first by ABC News, Mr. Gates said there had been false news stories about an impending plea deal over the past two weeks.
But,
he added, “Despite my initial desire to vigorously defend myself, I
have had a change of heart. The reality of how long this legal process
will likely take, the cost, and the circuslike atmosphere of an
anticipated trial are too much. I will better serve my family moving
forward by exiting this process.”
If
Mr. Manafort continues to fight the charges in a trial, testimony from
Mr. Gates could give Mr. Mueller’s team a first-person account of the
criminal conduct that is claimed in the indictments — a potential blow
to Mr. Manafort’s defense strategy.
It
was unclear exactly what Mr. Gates might have to offer the special
counsel’s team, whether about Mr. Manafort or about other members of the
Trump campaign. Neither indictment indicated that either Mr. Gates or
Mr. Manafort had information about the central question of Mr. Mueller’s
investigation — whether President Trump or his aides coordinated with
the Russian government’s efforts to disrupt the 2016 election.
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.
In
addition to offering some visibility into the Trump campaign, Mr. Gates
might be able to provide prosecutors with glimpses into what came after
the president’s election victory. He was a consultant on the transition
team, and he also worked with the main outside group supporting the
Trump presidency in 2017.
The
indictments detailed a wide-ranging scheme by Mr. Gates and Mr.
Manafort to hide from American authorities millions of dollars they had
earned as political consultants in Ukraine. The men worked in various
capacities with Viktor F. Yanukovych, the onetime Ukrainian president
and a longtime ally of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
Mr.
Mueller’s team found that more than $75 million passed through offshore
accounts, and that Mr. Manafort laundered more than $30 million to pay
for real estate and luxury goods in the United States. Mr. Gates
transferred more than $3 million from the offshore accounts, court
documents show.
After
their work was disclosed in news reports in August 2016, when the two
men were working for the Trump campaign, they “developed a false and
misleading cover story” to distance themselves from Ukraine, according
Mr. Mueller’s prosecutors.
The
court papers unsealed Thursday describe an intricate scheme by Mr.
Manafort and Mr. Gates, trying to shield tens of millions of dollars
from the American tax authorities by transferring the funds through
foreign bank accounts, including in Cyprus and the Seychelles.
“Manafort
and Gates hid the existence and ownership of the foreign companies and
bank accounts, falsely and repeatedly reporting to their tax preparers
and to the United States that they had no foreign bank accounts,” the
new indictment said.
The
work the two men did for their firm, Davis Manafort, connected them to
numerous people with ties to the Kremlin. One was Oleg Deripaska, an
aluminum magnate and an ally of Mr. Putin. Mr. Deripaska has been denied
a visa to travel to the United States because of allegations that he is
linked to organized crime operations, claims he has denied.
In
2008, Mr. Gates took over the firm’s duties in Eastern Europe, where he
worked on business development and contract negotiations.
Besides
the charges against Mr. Manafort and Mr. Gates, the special counsel’s
team has secured guilty pleas from two of Mr. Trump’s advisers. Michael
T. Flynn, the president’s first national security adviser, and George
Papadopoulos, a foreign policy aide during the campaign, have both
pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. and agreed to cooperate with the
inquiry.
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