DOJ backs ex-Trump campaign aide Richard Gates’s probation request

The Department of Justice on Tuesday said it would not oppose former Trump campaign aide Richard Gates‘s request for probation over charges of fraud and lying to investigators.

 

Gates pleaded guilty to the charges last year as part of an agreement with former special counsel Robert Mueller. He has since cooperated with investigators and testified against Roger Stone and Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, helping to secure convictions of both men.

 

“Since entering a guilty plea in February 2018, the defendant, Richard W. Gates III, has provided the government with extraordinary assistance,” the Justice Department said in a sentencing memo submitted Tuesday. “He met with investigators more than fifty times, providing truthful information to the Special Counsel’s Office and several other prosecuting offices of the Department of Justice.”

 

“In short, under exceedingly difficult circumstances and under intense public scrutiny, Gates has worked earnestly to provide the government with everything it has asked of him and has fulfilled all obligations under his plea agreement,” the memo adds.

 

Gates, who served as deputy campaign manager for Trump in 2016, was charged with various counts of fraud over his efforts to help Manafort shield his wealth and hide their work on behalf of the Ukrainian government.

 

He testified during Manafort’s trial that the two of them had committed crimes together. And during Stone’s trial over charges of lying to Congress, he said that the right-wing provocateur had informed Trump in the summer of 2016 that WikiLeaks was planning to release damaging information about the Democratic Party and its 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

 

The Justice Department requested in its memo on Tuesday that Gates‘s continued cooperation with investigators be made a condition of a lenient sentence. He is scheduled to be sentenced next week.