The former 2016 deputy campaign manager, who recently pled guilty and agreed to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, decided to cancel the trip after the comments were made, according to CNN.
A Boston Globe reader posted two comments referencing possible violence against Gates in response to an online Boston Globe story published February 26 and titled “Following guilty plea in Mueller probe, Rick Gates plans to visit Boston.”
The comments suggested Russians living in Boston could be angry with Gates, if Mueller targeted them in his probe.
Gates’ lawyers told a federal court that it was “not prudent” for him to take his wife and kids on a road trip amid the online remarks.
One of the comments invoked the Russian Mafia and some were of a “threatening character,” according to Gates’ lawyer. – The paper has removed the comments.
Gates is only allowed to travel to certain locations outside Washington DC, Virginia and Maryland with permission from the court.
The former Trump campaign adviser pled guilty late in February to two criminal charges stemming from the special counsel’s probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 US election, and agreed to cooperate with the investigation.
Gates, who served as Trump’s deputy campaign chairman, was potentially facing decades in prison, but will now serve only up to six years after pleading guilty to conspiracy to defraud the US and making a false statement.
Rick Gates motivated to take plea deal by considerations of the toll it would take on his family
As part of the plea deal, he’ll help special counsel Robert Mueller in “any and all matters” as prosecutors continue to investigate Russian election interference and Gates’ long time business associate, Paul Manafort.
Gates, 45, is the third former Trump aide to cooperate with Mueller, and the fifth person to plead guilty in the probe.
Manafort and Gates were initially charged in a 12-count indictment last October with unregistered lobbying and conspiring to launder $75 million they received while doing work for a pro-Russian Ukrainian political party.
On Thursday, they were slapped with a slew of new tax-evasion and bank-fraud charges in a superseding indictment that alleged they had laundered $30 million and failed to pay taxes for 10 years.
According to court papers, Gates admitted to lying to the Feds about a March 19, 2013, meeting with Manafort, a lobbyist and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher [R-Calif].
Gates claimed they didn’t discuss Ukraine at the meeting, but they did, according to the filing.
Paul Manafort has been hit with additional charges of money laundering and tax evasion stemming, many believe, from Gates plea deal in the Russia probe
Special counsel Robert Mueller has accused Manafort of bank fraud in addition to secretly paying former European politicians to lobby on behalf of Ukraine.
The new allegation against Paul Manafort comes in a newly unsealed indictment made public Friday that followed a guilty plea by Manafort’s longtime deputy, Rick Gates.
The indictment accuses Manafort of paying the former politicians, informally known as the “Hapsburg group,” to appear to be “independent” analysts when in fact they were paid lobbyists. Some of the covert lobbying took place in the US.
The indictment says the group was managed by a former European chancellor.
Court papers accuse Manafort of using offshore accounts to pay the group more than 2 million euros [$2.45 million].
The charges against Manafort stemmed from Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.
The president has denied that any collusion took place.
Manafort released a statement saying he maintains his innocence: “I had hoped and expected my business colleague would have had the strength to continue the battle to prove our innocence. For reasons yet to surface he chose to do otherwise,” he said.
Hours later, prosecutors filed the new charges against Manafort, accusing him of secretly paying former European politicians to lobby for Ukraine.
Some of the covert lobbying took place in the US, the newly unsealed indictment said.
Gates told family and friends in a letter that he made a deal after having “a change of heart.”
“The reality of how long this legal process will likely take, the cost, and the circus-like atmosphere of an anticipated trial are too much. I will better serve my family moving forward by exiting this process,” he said.
“The consequence is the public humiliation, which at this moment seems like a small price to pay for what our children would have to endure otherwise.”
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