What in the world was going on with Rick Gates? First he was going to cop a plea, then he didn’t, then his lawyers moved to withdraw from the case.
It appears that we now (probably) know.
In a remarkable passage by Tierney Sneed at TPM describing the superseding indictment against Gates, she notes:
The first count is conspiracy against the United States. The second count is for making a false statement. Remarkably the alleged false statement was made by Gates to the Special Counsel’s Office and the FBI on Feb. 1, months after the original indictment was issued, according to the information. That suggests Gates lied in the course of plea negotiations. His lawyers moved to withdraw from the case the same day.
To give the context, David Kurtz (also of TMP) notes:
Gates was talking to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office and the FBI as early as Feb. 1 (and probably well before then). This usually happens in the form of a proffer, in which Gates lays out to investigators what he knows and what he could testify to. It’s a very controlled and delicate negotiation.
It appears as though Gates lied in the course of making a proffer! This would explain why, also on the Feb. 1 date, his lawyers did the only thing they could do: motion to withdraw from the case.
Kurtz concludes:
What’s transpired since—filings under seal, a new lawyer waiting in the wings, a new lawyer finally coming aboard—suggests that the lie in the course of the proffer shifted things significantly. It probably ramped up the pressure on Gates to an even greater degree, and it put his old and new lawyers in difficult positions.
The saga of TrumpRussia continues . . .
UPDATE (from Snud, below):
Document says Gates lied this month about Ukraine discussion
Gates was caught in a lie by investigators after an interview on February 1, one of the days he spoke to investigators during plea negotiations, according to the plea document and a source familiar with the case.
The document says Gates lied to investigators earlier this month about a 2013 meeting in Washington, attended by Manafort and others. According to the document, Gates lied when he said Ukraine was not discussed at the meeting.
"Gates had participated with Manafort in preparing a report that memorialized for Ukraine leadership the pertinent Ukraine discussions that Manafort represented had taken place at the meeting," the new court filing says.
That meeting, in mid-March 2013, was attended by Manafort, California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, and former Rep. Vin Weber, who is now a lobbyist with Mercury LLC, according to lobbying disclosures filed last year with the Justice Department. Rohrabacher and Weber were not identified in Friday's court filings, though their positions were referenced and the description in the court filing matches the record of the meeting in the lobbying disclosures.