2016 ELECTION/LEGAL/ROBERT MUELLER/RUSSIA: “After weeks of rumors, it became official Friday afternoon: Rick Gates pleaded guilty to two criminal charges and agreed to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing probe into Russia’s attempted meddling in the 2016 election.
Gates, who served as Trump’s deputy campaign chairman for a time in 2016, became the third person in Donald Trump’s orbit to cop a plea as a result of the Mueller investigation — joining former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos as cooperating witnesses.
Mueller’s willingness to cut a plea deal with Gates — coming less than 24 hours after the special counsel’s office charged Gates and one-time Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort with a bevy of money laundering and bank fraud violations — suggests that Mueller believes that Gates has information critical to his broader investigation into Russian meddling and any possible collusion between the foreign power and the Trump campaign.
The big question is: What does Mueller believe Gates knows — and about whom?”
-Chris Cillizza, “The one very big question about Rick Gates’ plea deal,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, Feb. 24, 2018 03:02am