Former Manafort MP Rick Gates testifies against Greg Craig

Legal

Former Trump Deputy Campaign Chairman Rick Gates, one of the most critical witnesses to Robert Mueller's investigation of Russia, again appeared in federal court Thursday. to testify against former Obama attorney, White House President Greg Craig, at the conclusion of his ongoing lawsuit, following a legal project relating to the ;Ukraine. involving the former boss of Gates, Paul Manafort.

Gates' turn as a prosecution witness on Thursday is his first court appearance since his court appearance a year ago in the Mueller-led trial against Manafort, the former Trump campaign president. , for tax evasion and bank fraud.

History continues below

Gates has been Manafort's right-hand man for about a decade, including the period in 2012 when Manafort oversaw a thorough review of the much-criticized trial that Craig held of the trial of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko on abuse power charges.

The project – presented as an independent review of the controversial lawsuit – was commissioned by Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych, Manafort's main client, and secretly funded by a Ukrainian steel oligarch, Viktor Pinchuk.

Craig served in 2009 as the first White House advocate for President Barack Obama, was a key figure in Obama's first presidential bid and had already joined President Bill Clinton's White House to defend him against dismissal. During an investigation of the Ministry of Justice on his work in Ukraine, he is accused of attempted concealment of important facts and the obligation to do so under the law on the registration of foreign agents.

Prosecutors argue that Craig did not intend to do so because he felt that such a filing would jeopardize his chances of holding a high-level position in a future Democratic administration and because the information detailed information requested under this law could have undermined the credibility of the review by exposing secret funding. of Pinchouk's $ 4.6 million project and revealing a parallel assignment of the then Craig law firm, Skadden Arps, was to advise the Ukrainian government in a second planned trial of Tymoshenko on other charges.

Craig, 74, pleaded not guilty and denied ever trying to mislead or mislead US officials about his role in the project or the central issue of the trial: his involvement in the deployment of the report in the media in December 2012.

The publication of this report has been the subject of months of careful choreography by Manafort, Gates and a cohort of PR advisers and lobbyists seeking to improve Yanukovych's public image and put his country on the map. towards greater integration into the European Union.

However, Craig insists that his actions to publicize the Tymoshenko report – including manually handing an embargoed copy of the 186-page journal to the long-time home of US national security journalist David Sanger at the New York Times – were not part of the carefully crafted media plan Manafort and Gates prepared.

Craig and his lawyers argued that his contacts with the press were aimed solely at protecting his reputation, as well as that of Skadden, despite repeated indications that the Manafort team and others working for the government Ukrainians intended to misrepresent the rather ambiguous report as a justification of the facts. prosecution and imprisonment of Tymoshenko, Yanukovych's main political rival.

The clash between Craig and Gates is a kind of reputation mismatch.

Craig is one of the most respected members of the Washington Bar. His career in the public service began with the registration of African-American voters in the South during the civil rights movement half a century ago.

Craig attended Yale Law School, where he was in the same class as Bill and Hillary Clinton. Craig subsequently held the position of General Counsel to Senator Ted Kennedy and held one of the most prestigious positions at the State Department, Under-Secretary of State, Madeleine. Albright.

Gates began as a trainee in the Washington-based political lobbying and lobbying firm created by Manafort and former GOP agent Charlie Black. The company was known to represent unsavory foreign leaders such as Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire and Jonas Savimbi of Angola. Gates eventually became Manafort's senior assistant in a small spinoff company, Davis Manafort.

Gates was released in August 2017 when he and Manafort were indicted in the first public trial by Mueller's office. They were accused of conspiring to avoid signing up for their work in Ukraine, of laundering money, of making false statements and of failing to report their bank accounts abroad.

Gates initially pledged to fight the charges, but surrendered in February last year, agreeing to plead guilty to conspiracy and lied to the FBI. In search of clemency, he became a prolific collaborator behind the scenes of Mueller's team.

Gates' public debut for Mueller took place at the Manafort trial in Virginia last August. He admitted that he and Manafort had used millions of dollars in offshore bank accounts in Cyprus and the Caribbean to avoid US taxes.

Gates has been cross-examined by Manafort's lawyers. At the Virginia trial, Gates admitted to stealing Manafort. Gates also said that he may have stolen money from Trump 's inaugural committee while he was working for that organization.

The defense lawyers also drew attention to Gates' personal life, revealing that he had had extramarital affairs. In a preliminary hearing last month, trial judge Craig asked both parties if they were considering exploring this aspect of Gates' past. Crown and defense lawyers both refused.

Gates was to be a crucial witness at the second Manafort trial in Washington following the Virginia trial, but Manafort agreed to plead guilty in this case. He is currently serving a combined sentence of approximately seven and a half years in prison resulting from the two federal cases.

Before and after his guilty pleadings last year, Gates was released from prison, he lives in Richmond and occasionally travels with his family for court-approved trips. He is still waiting for the two crime charges he has admitted.