While former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort continues to fight his indictments, Rick Gates, his deputy, has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Politico is taking a closer look at Gates' tenure with the Trump campaign and trying to figure out how much he may have to share in exchange for leniency in sentencing.
Though it is a virtual given that Gates will sell out his business partner and Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, less understood is the direct threat Gates could pose to President Donald Trump.
That’s the conclusion of several lawyers involved in the Russia case and more than 15 current and former Trump aides and associates interviewed by POLITICO to determine how much danger Gates’ guilty plea could pose to the president and his inner circle, and how alarmed they might be by his testimony.
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“He saw everything,” said a Republican consultant who worked with Gates during the campaign. The consultant called Gates one of the “top five” insiders whom Mueller could have tapped as a cooperative government witness.
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Manafort left the Trump campaign under a cloud of scandal in mid-August 2016. Gates, his right-hand man, stayed on through the election before assisting the Trump inauguration and Trump’s early presidency.
Worst of all for the White House, Gates lacks hard-wired loyalty. He is not family, like Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., or his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Nor is he among true Trump believers like Corey Lewandowski and Brad Parscale.
After the election, Gates worked with Tom Barrack, "a wealthy real estate executive close to both Manafort and Trump," on the Presidential Inaugural committee and then went on to help start America First Policies, a nonprofit created to push the president's agenda.
America First Policies pushed out Gates in March 2017 after news broke of Manafort's ties to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Gates went back to work with Barrack.
Barrack soon hired Gates as a political adviser. Given Barrack’s close relationship with Trump, the job kept Gates in the president’s immediate circle. Multiple sources confirmed a June 2017 Daily Beast report that Gates was seen on several occasions at the White House when Barrack was visiting with Trump.
During an October briefing on the day Mueller indicted Manafort and Gates, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders acknowledged Gates’ visits but downplayed his access, telling reporters he had attended “meetings here at the White House, but nothing directly with the president.”
Read more: How much is Rick Gates telling Mueller about Trump? (Politico)
AP Exclusive: Before Trump job, Manafort worked to aid Putin (AP)
Rick Gates out at America First Policies over Manafort ties to Russia (CNN)