UH OH: Rick Gates just admitted he committed CRIMES working for Manafort!

by The Right Scoop

Looks like Manafort might just be in some hot water here:

FOX NEWS – Rick Gates on Monday took the stand in the federal fraud case against his former business partner, ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, testifying that he committed crimes while working for Manafort.

“Were you involved in criminal activity when you worked for Paul Manafort?” federal prosecutor Greg Andres asked the witness.

“Yes,” Gates replied.

“Did you commit a crime?” Andres asked.

“Yes,” Gates said.

Gates, considered a star witness against Manafort, struck a plea deal with prosecutors to cooperate in the case against his former business partner. The usually bearded Gates appeared in court clean-shaven on Monday.

His testimony is important for prosecutors: The federal judge in the trial, U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III, said in court last week they “can’t prove conspiracy” in the case unless prosecutors call Gates to the stand. Ellis issued that warning after prosecutors suggested Gates might not be called to the stand after all.

Manafort, facing charges of bank and tax fraud related to his work in Ukraine, has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

So far we don’t know much more than Gates affirming he committed crimes. We don’t know if it was just him or doing under the direction of Manafort.

What we do know is that Gates ran the day to day operations for Manafort, who wants to pin this all on him:

During opening arguments last week, the defense team made it clear they intend to blame Gates, who handled some day-to-day business operations for Manafort, for many of the alleged reporting deficiencies Manafort is charged with.

“Rick Gates had his hand in the cookie jar and couldn’t let his boss find out,” Manafort defense attorney Thomas Zehnle said during opening arguments.

It sounds like Gates admitting something like this, especially in a plea agreement with the prosecution, is gonna be bad for Paul Manafort. Of course as far as the media is concerned, all of this only matters if the prosecution can turn Manafort against Trump. That’s why they are very excited about this current breaking news.

I mean this was NBC alone making sure they tweeted it on all their platforms:





I could bore you with the rest, but I won’t. Just wanted you to see how excited the media is over this.


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