Chris Hayes: ‘Three of the President’s Associates Are Felons, Criminals’

RUSH EXCERPT:

HAYES: “Good evening from New York. I’m Chris Hayes. The former deputy campaign chairman to the president of the United States is a felon. Rick Gates who was first indicted on fraud charges last fall pleaded guilty today. You see him walking to court, to two counts of con piracy against the U.S. And lying to investigators. Gates wasn’t just Paul Manafort’s deputy. After working on the trump campaign, he held a top post on the trump inaugural committee and went on to cofound an outside non-profit promoting the President Trump’s agenda. Later working directly for the president’s long-time friend investor Tom barrack. He is now the third member of the president’s campaign to plead guilty to a federal crime and joins George papadopoulos who advised the campaign on foreign policy and Michael Flynn whom the president chose to be his single most important and powerful national security adviser at the White House, a job in which he lasted 24 days. Three of the president’s associates are felons. Criminals. As part of his plea deal, Gates agreed to cooperate with Robert Mueller whose team told the court they might let Gates avoid prison time if they’re satisfied with what he shares. And that is likely not very good news for one Paul Manafort. Gates’ long time boss and mentor accused right now in the scope of this is staggering and will hard to get your head around, accused of orchestrating a massive enduring, international conspiracy to launder millions of dollars of money dodge tax and banking rules and disguise his work for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. Already Gates’ guilty plea appears to have resulted in a new indictment against Manafort returned today. We’ll get to that in a bit. With Gates’ help, Mueller may be able to get to the bottom of the central mystery that surrounds Manafort to this day. Why was it Paul Manafort worked for free as the Trump campaign chairman when he was reportedly in debt to pro-Russian interests by as much as $17 million at the same time? Did that have anything to do with his outreach to a Russian billionaire, a one-time business partner to whom he owed money at the height of the campaign? At the time, manafort denied the Trump campaign had any ties to Russian oligarchs.”