name, but disentangling it, right up through that time when he s having that inexplicable mad scramble to get his hand on millions of dollars in cash he was in debt to russian interests tuesday the tune of about $17 million, including $7.8 million he owed to a russian oligarch that s very close to putin. he s been denied a vicea to the united states because of what the government believes his links to organized crime. manafort was in hot to this guy for nearly $8 million. part of the scheme that was describing yesterday s indictment is sometimes manafort and gates would call something a loan when it was really just money being paid to them, and that was part of their tax evasion scheme.
referred alex van der zwann to that guy. and we know one of the things he lied about was his communication with rick gates. rick gates in 2016 sent van der zwann documents with an encrypted app and he put him in contact. and they had a conversation in russia about payments that were just the tip of the iceberg and about potential legal liability for paul manafort. rick gates was connect today the mad and illegal scramble for cash right before manafort and gates joined the trump campaign. he was part of the initial deals that incurred that debt from deripaska. he was in communication with constantine who was managing communications while manafort was running trump s campaign. that was all happening during the trump campaign while they
that puts mike flynn s jail risk at zero to six months. what s hanging over rick gates right now is multiple years starting right away and he s already signed for it. so this cooperation deal that he signed today, these two charges that he pled guilty to, this has been put together as a very serious package for trump s deputy campaign manager, and it therefore puts a spotlight on what gates could possibly give mueller for his ongoing investigation. and here s the part i think is really important. and i will say i think so much of this is happening so fast i m not sure this really important part of it has sunk in yet. but after marinating in these legal filings in my opinion i think this is the most important piece. the special counsel s office spelled out in intense detail a two part scheme by manafort and gates.
inner workings at a senior level. and gates could prove a key source of information on these and other issues. joining us now is the top democratic on the intelligence committee, congressman adam schiff. thank you for being with us tonight. i really appreciate it. thank you. why do you think that gates could be a key source of information on the central matter at hand here? well, you have paul manafort who was the campaign chair for a period of time and cory lewandowski who was the trump campaign chair for a period of time. and rick gates also played a role in the transition and thereafter. so he s in a position to see the whole length and breadth of what was taking place during the campaign. he traveled on the presidential plane for a period of time. and he s obviously facing extraordinary liability.
obtaining surreptitious money, millions of dollars worth of it, laundering that money and lying about it. so there s enormous liability facing them both, and gates is in a position to talk about a great deal. congressman, in the past week we ve seen a remarkable amount of activity from the special counsel s office. i ve probably got the math wrong, but by my best count i think we ve seen 89 felony charges brought against 17 people in the course of a week. and now we ve got the deputy trump campaign chairman pleading guilty f guilty. through the indictments wave seen through the past week or so aside from the legal jeopardy these folks may be facing, big picture do you feel like the special counsel s investigation has now told us more than we knew before about the central question, about the russian attack, about if they had help?