A spokesman for Rick Gates said Monday afternoon that the former Trump campaign aide is ‘not guilty’ and intends to battle a slate of criminal charges that were unsealed today court.
‘He is not going to comment further until he has had a chance to review the lengthy indictment with his legal team,’ spokesman Glen Sellig said.
Sellig asked the media to respect his client’s privacy as his family deals with ‘this unexpected and hasty proceeding designed to accommodate perhaps political and press considerations rather than his right to have counsel of his choice by his side during this most troubling and challenging day for him and his loved ones.
He concluded, ‘This fight is just beginning.’
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A spokesman for Rick Gates said Monday afternoon that the former Trump campaign aide is ‘not guilty’ and intends to battle a slate of criminal charges that were unsealed today court
In this July 19, 2016 file photo, Rick Gates, far right, former campaign aide to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and former business associated of Paul Manafort, escorts Donald Trump’s children, from left, Tiffany Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Ivanka Trump, on the floor of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland
‘This fight is just beginning,’ a spokesman for Rick Gates said on Monday afternoon
Gates and another former Trump campaign hand, Paul Manafort, entered not guilty pleas Monday afternoon in a federal courtroom, telling a magistrate judge that they intend to knock down a laundry list of felony charges brought by a grand jury on Friday.
Manafort, a former Donald Trump campaign chairman, is a veteran lobbyist now charged with conspiring against the United States and money-laundering on a gigantic scale, following an investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller.
Along with Gates, his longtime business partner and protege, Manafort surrendered to federal authorities early on Monday as the first charges from the probe of possible Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election were unsealed.
Manafort is free on $10 million bond and Gates agreed to a $5 million bond. Both will be on ‘home detention’ as a condition of their release pending a trial.
The indictment against Manafort, 68, and Gates, 45, includes 12 separate criminal counts: conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said during a press briefing that ‘today’s announcement has nothing to do with the president, nothing to do with the president’s campaign or campaign activity.’
Sanders told DailyMail.com that the White House had ‘some initial contact’ with Gates ‘after the president was sworn in, with him at meetings here at the White House – but nothing directly with the president.’
The government alleges that at least $75 million was moved by Manafort to offshore accounts without declaring the income to the government. From there Manafort allegedly withdrew $18 million to fund a lavish lifestyle, and Gates pulled another $3 million out.
Monday afternoon’s preliminary hearing was before U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson.
An angry Trump washed his hands of Manafort on Monday morning. He did not comment directly on Gates in his tweets on the charges that hit both of them.
‘Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign,’ Trump tweeted after the charges were unsealed. ‘But why aren’t Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus?????’
‘Also, there is NO COLLUSION!’ he insisted.
The defendants’ surrender to the FBI in the morning was followed by a dramatic announcement that one of Trump’s campaign foreign policy advisers, George Papadopoulos, had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contact with Russians who promised ‘dirt’ on Hillary Clinton and access to ‘thousands’ of her emails.
Papadopoulos secretly agreed to a plea bargain earlier this month, suggesting he may be cooperating with Mueller.
Monday morning’s events will raise questions about what happens next and whether Manafort and Gates could follow suit.
Gates continued to work for Trump’s campaign even after Manafort was ousted. He went on to hold a central role in Trump’s inaugural committee, ABC News reported.
Briefly a part of the pro-Trump, outside group America First Policies, his tenure ended in March, when he was pushed out of the organization.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told DailyMail.com during Monday’s briefing that the administration had ‘some initial contact’ with Gates ‘after the president was sworn in, with him at meetings here at the White House – but nothing directly with the president’
President Trump pounced on Monday, denying Manafort’s alleged crimes predated his campaign and insisting that he never colluded with Russia to affect the 2016 election. He did not directly mention gates
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation has brought its first criminal charges and yielded three arrests – including one low-level guilty plea
Gates and Manafort have a relationship that goes back years, to when Gates was an intern for Black, Manafort, Stone, Kelly.
They worked together at Davis Manafort Partners Inc., which repped Viktor Yanukovych, the former Ukranian president Manafort would later be accused of taking off the books cash from, the New York Times reported.
The 45-year-old came with Manafort to the Trump campaign last year, becoming deputy campaign manager at the height of his responsibilities, according to ABC.
He is said to be the campaign aide who approved Melania Trump’s ill-fated convention speech that cribbed former First Lady Michelle Obama’s past remarks.
Gates was also the second-in-command on Trump’s inaugural committee to Tom Barrack. He works for Barrack now, ABC reported, and has since March, when he departed the Trump-approved America First Priorities.
The possible sentences for Gates and Manafor, if found guilty, would be stiff: up to 80 years in prison for Manafort and 70 for Gates, plus millions of dollars in fines.
Trump’s personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow, said Monday on CNN that regardless of their legal woes, ‘there is not a formal investigation of the President of the United States.’
He said Trump hasn’t been asked to testify or answer questions for the special counsel, he said, but ‘the president said he would’ if asked.
‘We have been cooperating,’ Sekulow said. ‘If there’s questions that come from the special counsel’s office, we’ve been in full cooperation mode.’
But the charges pending against Manafort, 68, and Gates, 45, are related to ‘business activities, not campaign activities,’ he said.
The indictment includes 12 separate criminal counts: conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts.
Trump’s personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow, said Monday on CNN that regardless of the pair’s legal woes, ‘there is not a formal investigation of the President of the United States’
Trump campaign aide Rick Gates, shown at left during the Republican National Convention, faces charges along with Manafort and has also pleaded not guilty
Guilty: George Papadopoulos is facing up to six months in prison. He was a foreign policy adviser to Trump who admits lying to the FBI about contact with Russians who offered dirt on Hillary Clinton and thousands of her emails
The government alleges that at least $75 million was moved by Manafort to offshore accounts without declaring the income to the government. From there Manafort allegedly withdrew $18 million to fund a lavish lifestyle, and Gates pulled another $3 million out.
A source close to the White House told CNN that ‘today has zero to do with the White House.’
The indictment is purely focused on alleged financial crimes and does not include any charges related to the broader question that formed the basis of Mueller’s investigation – whether Donald Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with Russia to swing the 2016 election in his favor.
It describes criminal allegations that predate the Trump campaign; Trump’s name is not mentioned in the 31-page document.
The move to indict the two men represents a dramatic turn in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
A federal grand jury approved the indictments on Friday and a judge ordered them sealed. A White House official told DailyMail.com on Monday that the administration may not comment at all on the arrests.
The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who was appointed by former president Barack Obama and confirmed in the Senate by a 97-0 vote.
Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez said in a statement that the indictment ‘underscores the seriousness of the investigation into Donald Trump’s ties to Russia. It’s time for Republicans to commit to protecting this investigation and preserving the rule of law.’
In a separate statement, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said the charges demonstrated the necessity of keeping congressional investigations running alongside the Mueller probe.
‘Even with an accelerating Special Counsel investigation inside the Justice Department, and investigations inside the Republican Congress, we still need an outside, fully independent investigation to expose Russia’s meddling in our election and the involvement of Trump officials,’ she said.
‘Defending the integrity of our democracy demands that Congress look forward to counter Russian aggression and prevent future meddling with our elections.’
Manafort and Gates were the one-two punch responsible for keeping Republican National Convention delegates in line last year as the possibility emerged of a contentious floor fight over the presidential nomination.
Then-candidate Donald Trump first Manafort after reports that he pocketed at least $12 million in undisclosed payments from Viktor Yanukovych (pictured), the pro-Russia former Ukrainian president.
Manafort was fired shortly after the convention and replaced by pollster Kellyanne Conway, but Gates stayed on and was more recently working to help close out the financial books of Trump’s inaugural committee.
He had worked for Manafort’s international firm, Davis Manafort Partners, from 2006 to 2007.
The move to throw Manafort overboard came after reports that Manafort pocketed at least $12 million in undisclosed payments from Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russia former Ukrainian president.
Manafort and his firm, which Gates helped run, spent years as Yanukovych’s political consultants.
The Justice Department’s indictment charges that Manafort and Gates ‘generated tens of millions of dollars in income as a result of their Ukraine work.’
‘In order to hide Ukraine payments from United States authorities, from approximately 2006 through at least 2016, Manafort and Gates laundered the money through scores of United States and foreign corporations, partnerships and bank accounts,’ it continues.
Headed to a judge: Paul Manafort was driven by his lawyer on Monday morning to turn himself in to Mueller
It’s unclear if Manafort and Gates are the biggest fish in Mueller’s sights, or if the former FBI director intends to squeeze him for information more directly related to the 2016 election and Russia’s possible interference with it.
The Russia investigation has cast a shadow over President Donald Trump’s nine-month-old presidency and widened the partisan rift between Republicans and Democrats.
U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in January that Russia interfered in the election to try to help Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton by hacking and releasing embarrassing emails and disseminating propaganda via social media to discredit her.
Mueller is also investigating whether Trump campaign officials colluded with those Russian efforts.
Trump tweeted Monday morning about a report that Barack Obama’s campaign organization funneled nearly $1 million to the law firm that served as a pass-through last year between Democrats and an opposition research firm that produced the salacious and discredited ‘dirty dossier’ on the president.
Manafort hid his face from reporters who were staking out his house in Alexandria, Virginia as he left to turn himself in at the FBI’s headquarters
‘Report out that Obama Campaign paid $972,000 to Fusion GPS. The firm also got $12,400,000 (really?) from DNC. Nobody knows who OK’d!’ the president tweeted on Monday.
That tweet came a half-hour before news broke that Manafort and Gates had been indicted. The White House hasn’t yet commented on their surrender.
Trump has denied the allegations of collusion with the Russians and called the probe ‘a witch hunt.’ The Kremlin also has denied the allegations.
Mueller, a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has been looking into possible links between Trump aides and foreign governments, as well as potential money laundering, tax evasion and other financial crimes, according to sources familiar with the probe. He also is exploring whether Trump or his aides have tried to obstruct the investigation.
Mueller was appointed to lead the investigation a week after Trump’s May 9 firing of FBI Director James Comey, who was heading a federal probe into possible collusion with Russia.
Master of distraction: A half-hour before Manafort’s indictment was unsealed, President Trump tweeted about an alleged money-funnel between Democrats and the opposition research firm behind the discredit ‘dirty dossier’ about him
Trump initially said he fired Comey because his leadership of the FBI was inadequate.
In a later interview with NBC, he cited ‘this Russia thing’ as his reason.
Investigators led by Mueller have interviewed former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, former spokesman Sean Spicer and other current and former White House and campaign officials.