ExTrump aide gets jail time for role in scheme
WASHINGTON — Rick Gates, the former Trump campaign aide who helped bring down two former advisers to President Trump, was sentenced Tuesday to 45 days in jail and a $20,000 fine for his part in a criminal financial scheme and for lying to federal investigators.
Gates, 47, can serve the jail time intermittently if he prefers, such as on weekends. He was also sentenced to three years of probation and 300 hours of community service. Gates had hoped to be spared a prison term in exchange for his extensive cooperation with the government after pleading guilty in February 2018.
“I greatly regret the mistakes I have made, and I have worked hard to honor my commitment to make amends,” he told Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia.
Sentencing guidelines recommended that Gates, who was a deputy campaign chairman in 2016 and went on to help manage Trump’s inauguration, serve a prison term of 46 to 57 months. But the guidelines are only advisory.
Prosecutors, who did not oppose Gates’ request for probation, strongly urged the judge to take into account what they called Gates’ “extraordinary” efforts to help investigators on a variety of fronts, including with inquiries that remain secret.
“He wholeheartedly held up his end of the bargain,” said Molly Gaston, an assistant U.S. attorney. She described his decision to cooperate just a few months after he was indicted as “a turning point” for the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Thomas Green, Gates’ lawyer, called his client’s cooperation over nearly two years “an amazing effort at redemption.”
Legal experts said the fact that prosecutors did not oppose probation sent a strong signal to Jackson that the government did not want Gates to end up behind bars.
Gates testified in two major trials that sprang from Mueller’s inquiry. Gaston said his testimony was critical to the government’s case against Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman who is now serving a prison term of more than seven years for tax fraud, bank fraud and other crimes.
She said that Gates’ testimony also provided important context for jurors during the trial of Roger Stone, Trump’s longtime friend who is awaiting sentencing on a conviction of lying to Congress and witness tampering.