President Donald Trump's former campaign deputy Rick Gates pleaded guilty Friday to fraud and lying, pledging to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller on his vast probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Gates was the third former Trump aide to agree to cooperate in exchange for reduced charges by Mueller, who is also examining Moscow's alleged collusion with the Trump campaign and whether the president illegally sought to obstruct his probe.
The plea deal in a Washington federal court, on charges much reduced from the original ones filed against Gates, immediately put him at odds with his former business partner and ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who refuses to bow to pressure from Mueller to strike a deal. Manafort has countersued Mueller, accusing the former FBI director of going far beyond his Justice Department mandate in the probe.
A new indictment against Manafort accuses him of having secretly paid a group of former senior European politicians more than two million euros ($2.5 million) to lobby for the government of Ukraine's former pro-Russia president Viktor Yanukovych.
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