What Rick Gates' Guilty Plea Means For Mueller’s Probe
A bit dated, but there are still unanswered questions posed.
Garrett M. Graff security 02.23.18 03:02 pm
Rick Gates, a longtime deputy of Paul Manafort's and also a Trump campaign aid and transition official, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and lying to the FBI. He has agreed to cooperate with the special counsel. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images
Today’s guilty plea by Rick Gates might be one of the least surprising developments in the Mueller investigation: It had been clear that the former Trump campaign aide would likely seek a deal almost since the day Gates and his business partner and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort were indicted in October, and we’ve seen reports for weeks that negotiations between Mueller and Gates have been underway.
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Now, though, months of investigation—including five guilty pleas and the remaining open indictments of Paul Manafort and the 13 Russians involved in the Internet Research Agency—has provided a whole new set of “known unknowns” (a dozen of them, to be exact). Be on the lookout for some of these to become “known knowns” before long.
1. What can Paul Manafort offer Bob Mueller?
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8. Which, if any, Americans cooperated with the Russian efforts?
This question goes to the political heart of Mueller’s inquiry. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein made a rare public statement last Friday to announce the charges against the Internet Research Agency; he pointedly noted that no Americans were wittingly involved in the matter “in this indictment,” which President Trump wrongly seized upon as vindication (“Case Closed .. https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/17/politics/white-house-responds-mueller/index.html ,” he tweeted), but most observers interpreted the statement as an artful way of saying that there might be cooperation alleged in a future indictment.
For instance, there were three unnamed Trump campaign staff mentioned in the indictment, officials who were approached by IRA specialists. Notably absent from the indictment’s otherwise high level of detail is whether there were replies to those overtures. The new indictment also talks about the IRA’s decision to promote Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who appeared at the same December 2015 dinner in Moscow .. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/guess-who-came-dinner-flynn-putin-n742696 .. with Vladimir Putin that Gen. Michael Flynn attended. Is there any link between her attendance and the IRA’s decision to promote her candidacy? Similarly, there are plenty of unanswered questions about the Trump campaign’s repeated contacts with Russian officials and Russian nationals—and their repeated lies about such contacts when asked about them.
9. What was the ongoing evidence of Carter Page’s cooperation with Russian agents?
The widely derided “nothingburger” of the so-called Nunes Memo did establish one intriguing piece of evidence: The 90-day FISA warrant to surveil one-time campaign adviser Page was renewed three times, by three different deputy attorneys general: Sally Yates, Dana Boente, and Rod Rosenstein. Each time, in order for it to have been renewed, there would have needed to be new evidence that Page was still involved in foreign intelligence matters. What exactly was that evidence—and who was Carter Page talking to, well into 2017?
10. How big is “Project Lakhta”?
Mueller’s indictment of the Internet Research Agency refers obliquely to the IRA as part of a “larger… interference operation” funded by the oligarch Yevgeny V. Prigozhin that was known as Project Lakhta. The indictment says, “Project Lahkta had multiple components, some involving domestic audiences within the Russian Federation and others targeting foreign audiences in various countries, including the United States.” Is this a bread crumb pointing toward future indictments or other investigative avenues? Did Project Lakhta also involve other “active measures .. https://www.wired.com/story/a-guide-to-russias-high-tech-tool-box-for-subverting-us-democracy/ ” conducted by other entities, like perhaps some of the active cyber intrusions we saw conducted by the Russian government’s hacking teams known as Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear?
11. Who directed Michael Flynn’s conversations with Sergey Kislyak—and why did he lie about them?
The former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency was once one of the most respected intelligence officers of his generation, but he lied to the FBI just days into his 24-day term as the White House’s national security adviser. Why? The lies focused on his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition, specifically in regard to the Obama administration’s announcement of sanctions against Russia for their election interference as well as a UN resolution about Israel. He told Mueller’s team that the conversations were directed by a senior official—KT McFarland saw her nomination to be ambassador to Singapore scuttled .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/kt-mcfalrand-withdraws-nomination-to-be-trumps-ambassador-to-singapore/2018/02/02/8da67a02-0862-11e8-ae28-e370b74ea9a7_story.html .. over the conversations—but why, if it was an appropriate, authorized conversation, did he choose to lie to the FBI about it?
12. Why did the Russian embassy need $150,000 in cash?
One of the most intriguing threads of the Mueller investigation is a series of money transfers and payments that were flagged as atypical and suspicious by the Russian Embassy’s US bank, Citibank. Buzzfeed has reported that Mueller’s team has the reports of suspicious .. https://www.buzzfeed.com/jasonleopold/newly-uncovered-russian-payments-are-a-focus-of-election?utm_term=.ttpaZbgV2R#.blw7ybRNJa .. activity and that Citibank specifically flagged an unusual $120,000 “payroll” deposit to Kislyak 10 days after Trump’s election and blocked an attempted withdrawal of $150,000 in cash just after the inauguration. Garrett M. Graff (@vermontgmg) is a contributing editor for WIRED and the author of? The Threat Matrix: Inside Robert Mueller's FBI. He can be reached at?garrett.graff@gmail.com.
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