a russian lawyer had promised to give them dirt on hillary clinton. gates and manafort reportedly also once e-mailed about trump campaign adviser george papadopoulos efforts to set up a meeting between trump and russian officials. they reportedly dismissed the idea, but still, the special counsel may question gates knowledge as part of the wider probe into collusion. randi kaye, cnn, new york. there is a lot more ahead tonight, including new reporting on what the president s associates are telling him about his twitter habit. that and the posting that might have been one tweet too far because it once again gives a new account of that trump tower meeting randi just mentioned. the question, does it clear anything up or does it just dig the president in a deeper hole? we re keeping him honest, ahead. later the debate on whether there s a racial component to the president s attacks. sometimes a day at the ballpark is more than just a day at the ballpark.
interpret those e-mails. what did you understand manafort to mean when he said that? what were you saying to manafort, back and forth? walking through each one of the counts, each one of the charges against manafort and explaining exactly what was happening and how it works. they ll really use it almost like a preview of a closing argument, allowing the jury to see how rick gates interfaced with all the evidence, having him explain as an insider how the scheme worked. renato mariotti, appreciate it. jennifer rodgers as well. more now on the star witness, how he became one and how he got in a position to be so valuable for the mueller team. randi kaye has more on that. reporter: rick gates, a 45-year-old father of four, was once a senior aide to donald trump s campaign. he entered trump s orbit through paul manafort, trump s former campaign chairman. gates and manafort met in the 1980s when gates interned at manafort s lobbying firm. gates teamed up with his old boss again in 2006 a
speech and after the meeting was allegedly bust, that speech was never given. to continue distancing the president from this meeting after the story broke, the president and his team denied any knowledge of the meeting. listen. did you know the time that they had the meeting? no, i didn t know anything about it. he was not aware of the meeting, did not attend the meeting and was only informed about the e-mails very recently by his counsel. so then when it was reported that the president on board air force one had dictated a statement that was released by don jr. about the meeting being about adoptions, the president s team denied the president had done that. listen. he certainly didn t dictate, but, you know, like i said, he weighed in, offered suggestion, like any father would do. that s what sarah sanders said when faced with factual reporting. her answer was kind of a half acknowledgment which became a fuller but still a dishonest acknowledgement in a letter from the pre
just a couple months later don junior for reasons that still don t make much sense, he decided to go on fox news. did you tell your father anything about this? no. it was such a nothing. there was nothing to tell. nothing to tell. so now his memory refreshed about this meeting and what it was really about, he also remembered that he certainly never told his father about it before or after. never told his dad, despite the fact that don jr. had suddenly been told the russian government was supposedly supporting his father s campaign and had dirt on hillary clinton. that s pretty big news. allegedly he never told his dad that was big news. never mind donald trump has been hands-on his entire life, was hands-on his campaign, wanted to be in the loop. right above the floor each other s and the dad and son spoke often. never mind trump promised a
them. the only limit to your achievements is the strength of your dreams and your willingness to work for them. reporter: things only got worse. in october last year, gates surrendered after being indicted by a federal grand jury. court filings exposed what prosecutors describe as an 11-year scheme in which gates and manafort laundered tens of millions of dollars they made doing foreign lobbying work. prosecutors say the two funneled $75 million through offshore accounts. among the charges, conspiracy to launder money and failing to report foreign bank accounts. the white house quickly tried to distance itself from him. look, i think that those are issues that took place long before they were involved with the president. reporter: but there is no denying gates history with the trump campaign. gates ties to manafort and his activities could mean he was briefed on the june 2016 trump tower meeting which manafort attended, along with don jr. and jared kushner.