‘CHERRY ON TOP’

Report: Rick Gates Agrees to Testify Against Ex-Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort

The former Trump aide is expected to switch his plea to guilty on money-laundering charges within days.

Rick Gates, the former Trump campaign aide indicted on money-laundering charges in October, has agreed to testify against former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, the Los Angeles Times reports. “Rick Gates is going to change his plea to guilty,” a source was quoted as saying by the Times, adding that the revised plea will be presented in court “within the next few days.” Gates and Manafort were the first former Trump aides to be indicted amid special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, with both pleading not guilty last fall to fraud-related charges. The cooperation of Gates, Manafort’s longtime business partner, would be the “cherry on top” for Mueller’s case against Manafort, a source told the Times. But the same source said the former aide likely does not have information to “turn the screws on Trump,” who has repeatedly dismissed the Russia probe as a “hoax.”