Plea suggests he is likely to cooperate with special counsel’s investigation
.. Richard Gates —a former Trump campaign official who was indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller on tax-related charges—is expected to plead guilty as soon as Friday afternoon as part of a deal that will likely ensure his cooperation in Mr. Mueller’s investigation
.. it almost certainly means Mr. Gates would testify in any trial of his close business associate Paul Manafort
Mr. Gates’ expected guilty plea comes after two others Trump associates have admitted to criminal wrongdoing
.. As recently as two days ago, Mr. Gates has told associates he did not expect to plead guilty
Special counsel Mueller files new charges against Manafort, Gates
Paul Manafort was using fraudulently obtained loans and tax-cheating tricks to prop up his personal finances as he became chairman of the Trump campaign in 2016, according to a new 32-count indictment filed against him and his business partner Thursday.
The indictment ratchets up pressure on Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates, who were already preparing for a trial
.. Mueller accused the men of lying on their income-tax returns and conspiring to commit bank fraud to get loans.
.. these are two fellows on a multiyear tear of lying to every bank they could find about their income. To a federal prosecutor, it’s fairly crude. It’s extensive and bold and greedy with a capital ‘G,’ but it’s not all that sophisticated.”
.. there was one hero in the special counsel’s tale — a bookkeeper who refused an alleged request by Gates to falsely inflate a revenue claim
.. they could be facing de facto life prison sentences.
.. from 2006 to 2015, Manafort, with help from Gates, avoided paying taxes on income from Ukraine by disguising it as loans from offshore corporate entities
.. using foreign bank accounts to make payments to businesses in the United States on Manafort’s behalf.
.. unidentified co-conspirator wrote that a document looked doctored and asked them to “do a clean excel doc” and send that instead.
.. When Manafort joined the Trump campaign as an adviser in early 2016, he agreed to work with no pay
.. prosecutors alleged Manafort was taking out multimillion-dollar loans in those same months, including $5.5 million that he sought in the same month he joined the campaign.
.. Manafort was under significant financial pressure even as he ascended to the top of the Trump campaign in mid-2016.
.. One bank lender “questioned Manafort about a $300,000 delinquency on his American Express card, which was more than 90 days past due. The delinquency significantly affected Manafort’s credit rating score.”
.. On Oct. 25, 2017 — just days before the first indictment was revealed — Gates submitted a false tax document for the 2013 tax year
.. Three of his lawyers had asked to leave the case
.. Thomas C. Green
.. Green is an experienced white-collar attorney with a reputation for cutting plea deals on behalf of his clients.
Don’t Overestimate Trump’s Ability to Knowingly Collude with Russia
It is President Trump’s character that leads me to think he didn’t do it, at least not in a way the impeachment-hungry mob hopes he did.
Oh, I think he’s morally capable of having done it. As a candidate he publicly called on the Russians to (further) hack Hillary Clinton’s server and release the missing emails. He is the one member of his administration incapable of condemning Russian president Vladimir Putin or his regime. Indeed, his instincts are to hail Putin’s “leadership.”
.. Nor do I think Trump surrounded himself during the campaign with people who would have talked him out of collusion (save for then-senator Jeff Sessions).
.. But while they may have been willing to coordinate with the Kremlin, I’m not at all certain they would have been able to pull it off — and keep it a secret. Everything we know about the Trump campaign is that it was a shambolic moveable feast of warring egos, relentless leaks, and summary firings. But we’re supposed to believe that everyone maintained total secrecy about Russian collusion?
.. The man admitted he fired FBI director James Comey to thwart the Russia investigation. Indeed, his blunders are what invited the investigation in the first place.
- .. First: Trump thinks the probe is unfair. He knows he didn’t personally collude and feels unjustly accused.
- Second, it’s a blow to his ego, because he thinks it robs him of credit for what he believes was a landslide victory. (It wasn’t.)
- And third, he fears Mueller might find something else. Perhaps Trump’s not nearly as rich as he claims. Maybe his business practices (or those of his family), particularly with regard to Russia, would not withstand close legal scrutiny. One explanation for why Trump always flattered Putin on the campaign trail is that he thought he would lose the election, so why foreclose future business opportunities?
.. Steve Bannon matter-of-factly told author Michael Wolff: “This is all about money laundering.”.. Tellingly, the president has said he might fire Mueller if he looks into his family’s finances.
The Trolling of the American Mind
The real scandal involves the Russian hacking operation against the Democratic National Committee. This was a genuine crime, a meaningful theft, which led to a series of leaks that were touted by the Republican nominee for president often enough that we can assume that Donald Trump, at least, thought they contributed something to his victory. The fact that members of his family and inner circle were willing and eager to meet with Russians promising hacked emails, the pattern of lies and obfuscation from the president and his team thereafter, and the general miasma of Russian corruption hanging around Trump campaign staff — all of this more than justifies Robert Mueller’s investigation, and depending on what his team ultimately reports it might even justify impeachment.
.. the broader ambition of widening our internal fissures, inflaming our debates, making our imperium more ungovernable at home and thus weaker on the global stage.
.. Such conduct is certainly worthy of indictment, legal and rhetorical. What it is not worth is paranoia and hysteria, analogies to Pearl Harbor and the Sept. 11 attacks, and an “America under attack”/“hacking our democracy” panic that give the Russian trolls far too much credit for cleverness and influence and practical success... Because on the evidence we have, nothing they did particularly mattered. The D.N.C. hack was genuinely important because it involved a real theft and introduced a variable into the campaign that would not otherwise have been present. But the rest of the Russian effort did not introduce anything to the American system.. The protests and counterprotests they ginned up after the election were marginal imitations of the all-American crowds that showed up for Trump rallies and later for the Women’s Marches... on the evidence we have most fake news is political pornography for hyperpartisans — toxic in its own way, deserving of concern, but something driven more by panting, already polarized demand.. the people obsessing about how Russian influence is supposedly driving polarization and mistrust risk becoming like J. Edgar Hoover-era G-men convinced that Communist subversives were the root cause of civil rights era protest and unrest... the proper question should still be: How was it that close to begin with?.. Should this re-emergent nationalism be conciliated and co-opted, its economic grievances answered and some compromises made to address its cultural and moral claims?Or is it sufficiently noxious and racist and destructive that it can be only crushed, through gradual demographic weight or ruthless polarized mobilization?
.. it does us no good to pretend the real blow came from outside our borders, when it was clearly a uniquely hot moment in our own cold civil war.