has been doing for the past week other than filing these 89 new felony criminal charges against 17 people, but even just that activity of his that we can see in public, i would say that makes this a pretty good contender for busy week when it comes to the special counsel s investigation. just today alone has been head snapping in terms of how much happened all at once. just since yesterday, just rick gates have been charged with 23 new felonies on top of the eight he was already facing. he then had his entire legal team replaced. then he got a new lawyer, and then he had all 31 felony charges pending against him dropped. then he pled guilty to two brand new felony charges, and then he signed onto a sweeping and sort of intimidating cooperation agreement with the government which among other things he pledges to go undercover for
paul manafort owed this russian guy nearly $8 million, and this russian guy was really coming after him for it. and simultaneously for some reason paul manafort at the time was really scrambling to do what he could get his hands on millions of dollars in cash, and this was right up until he joins the trump campaign. he then joins the trump campaign, the pressure eases off a bit in terms of this guy coming off him for the money, and he starts communicating with this guy. can we use my position in the campaign. he accepts meetings and important messages from this guy about the future of his country. his country is russia. a month after manafort reportedly met with constantine to get these messages from deripaska, we now know from the indictment that rick gates
trials of cases or other court proceedings in the district of columbia and elsewhere. at which your client s testimony may be deemed relevant by the government. ouch. this is very this is very thorough agreement to cooperate. testify to grand jury, testify at trial, show up whenever we need you, go undercover, give us everything you ve got and be here every single time we want to talk to you. if he fails to live up to this cooperation agreement, whether or not they ever decide to bring any other charges against him, just this plea agreement he signed today gives mueller s office tons of leverage over rick gates. just what he s pleading guilty to today affords a maximum prison sentence of ten years in prison. even under the previous sentencing guidelines, the filings today make clear today these two charges he pled guilty
but thereafter rick gates stayed. he was there through the duration of campaign and through election day and then he was a senior official in the trump transition and after the inauguration he was frequently seen at the white house. he worked in a pro-trump outside group and also has long time tiewise the republican national committee. people talk about him as manafort s deputy. and he has had a long-standing relationship with paul manafort, but in terms of his role as a potential witness. in terms of his role for the investigator scene, in terms of what he might have seen, what and who he might have been exposed to in terms of trump as a candidate and trump as a president, rick gates has potentially been a witness to a lot more than manafort saw.
in this case to oleg deripaska, this $8 million, it really looks like that was a loan. at least it really looks like oleg deripaska expected to get that money back from manafort and rick gates. and we know that because he tried to get it back. he sued manafort and gates in the cayman islands to try get back millions of dollars he says they stole from him. they were all supposed to be investing in something together, but he said manafort and gates ran off with millions of dollars of his money. in 2015 he moved that lawsuit from the cayman islands to the u.s., to virginia. he was really going after manafort and gates for millions of dollars he said they stole from him and they needed to pay back. again, august 2015 he moves that case to virginia. once that case moves to the united states they end up deposing manafort and rick gates in that case because deripaska