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Marcy Wheeler Says Indictments in Russia Probe Further Incriminate Attorney General Jeff Sessions
Embedded Video
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Transcript
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MARCY WHEELER: Well, they’re designed to get them to flip. So, in other words, Mueller has been targeting Manafort for quite some time. I think Gates was actually a bit surprised that he was indicted yesterday. And what he has done is charge them with crimes that are fairly controllable—I mean, they don’t involve colluding with a foreign—you know, with Russia, for example—such that they will be enticed to make a plea deal, just as Papadopoulos did, and provide more information about what Mueller is really investigating, which is whether or not the Trump campaign, for example, was trying to work with Russian agents on June 9th, 2016, when they agreed to take a meeting to find dirt on Hillary Clinton.
So, it’s mostly garden-variety money laundering, although fairly spectacular garden-variety money laundering. Manafort was charged of laundering a million dollars through the local antique rug shop. There’s also a scheme going back to 2012 where Manafort and Gates were both pretending not to be lobbying on whether or not Ukraine was democratic and pro-EU, and getting, incidentally, Tony Podesta, John Podesta—Hillary Clinton’s campaign adviser’s brother—to lobby on his behalf, while hiding that they were actually lobbying. And that’s the big thing that gets Gates. But again, the idea is to get them to make a plea deal so that then Mueller can get them to provide more evidence on the case in chief, on the way in which the Trump administration—the Trump campaign was trying to reach out to the Russians.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Marcy Wheeler, the issue of Gates also being indicted? And as you have pointed out in some of your articles, Manafort was only a chair of the campaign for a short period of time in 2016, but Gates stayed on and actually was involved in the Trump campaign even through the inauguration, his inauguration as president. The significance of Gates being included in this indictment?
MARCY WHEELER: Well, I made a joke this morning. Mueller’s deputy, Andrew Weissmann, is fairly well known for indicting the target and the target’s family member. Manafort has had some marital problems recently, so I joked this morning that rather than indicting Manafort’s wife, who legitimately could have been tied to some of these, because her name is on the business, as well, he instead indicted Manafort’s long-term business partner, Gates, to make him feel like he was dragging somebody else into the dirt.
And so—but you’re right. Gates—in the Papadopoulos plea deal, there is an interchange between Manafort and Gates pertaining to whether or not the campaign was going to try and set up a meeting with Vladimir Putin. And Gates will have been in a lot of these conversations all the way through the inauguration, so he knows some stuff that—Manafort was ousted in August, although he’s stayed close to Trump and has—you know, was speaking to Trump as recently as February.
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So, in addition to Manafort and Gates, who aren’t named but we know from other reporting that they’re included, Corey Lewandowski, who was also a campaign chair and remained on the campaign, a guy by the name of Sam Clovis, who has a confirmation hearing coming up on November 9th for the Ag Department. And then, most importantly, on March 31, Papadopoulos was in a meeting—there’s a picture of this—with both—with a bunch of foreign policy advisers, but it includes Jeff Sessions, now the attorney general, and Trump. And at that meeting, he said, “My job is to set up a meeting with Vladimir Putin.” And as you said, Trump got really silent yesterday after this was released.- DemocracyNow.org
<snip>
Transcript
<snip>
MARCY WHEELER: Well, they’re designed to get them to flip. So, in other words, Mueller has been targeting Manafort for quite some time. I think Gates was actually a bit surprised that he was indicted yesterday. And what he has done is charge them with crimes that are fairly controllable—I mean, they don’t involve colluding with a foreign—you know, with Russia, for example—such that they will be enticed to make a plea deal, just as Papadopoulos did, and provide more information about what Mueller is really investigating, which is whether or not the Trump campaign, for example, was trying to work with Russian agents on June 9th, 2016, when they agreed to take a meeting to find dirt on Hillary Clinton.
So, it’s mostly garden-variety money laundering, although fairly spectacular garden-variety money laundering. Manafort was charged of laundering a million dollars through the local antique rug shop. There’s also a scheme going back to 2012 where Manafort and Gates were both pretending not to be lobbying on whether or not Ukraine was democratic and pro-EU, and getting, incidentally, Tony Podesta, John Podesta—Hillary Clinton’s campaign adviser’s brother—to lobby on his behalf, while hiding that they were actually lobbying. And that’s the big thing that gets Gates. But again, the idea is to get them to make a plea deal so that then Mueller can get them to provide more evidence on the case in chief, on the way in which the Trump administration—the Trump campaign was trying to reach out to the Russians.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Marcy Wheeler, the issue of Gates also being indicted? And as you have pointed out in some of your articles, Manafort was only a chair of the campaign for a short period of time in 2016, but Gates stayed on and actually was involved in the Trump campaign even through the inauguration, his inauguration as president. The significance of Gates being included in this indictment?
MARCY WHEELER: Well, I made a joke this morning. Mueller’s deputy, Andrew Weissmann, is fairly well known for indicting the target and the target’s family member. Manafort has had some marital problems recently, so I joked this morning that rather than indicting Manafort’s wife, who legitimately could have been tied to some of these, because her name is on the business, as well, he instead indicted Manafort’s long-term business partner, Gates, to make him feel like he was dragging somebody else into the dirt.
And so—but you’re right. Gates—in the Papadopoulos plea deal, there is an interchange between Manafort and Gates pertaining to whether or not the campaign was going to try and set up a meeting with Vladimir Putin. And Gates will have been in a lot of these conversations all the way through the inauguration, so he knows some stuff that—Manafort was ousted in August, although he’s stayed close to Trump and has—you know, was speaking to Trump as recently as February.
<snip>
So, in addition to Manafort and Gates, who aren’t named but we know from other reporting that they’re included, Corey Lewandowski, who was also a campaign chair and remained on the campaign, a guy by the name of Sam Clovis, who has a confirmation hearing coming up on November 9th for the Ag Department. And then, most importantly, on March 31, Papadopoulos was in a meeting—there’s a picture of this—with both—with a bunch of foreign policy advisers, but it includes Jeff Sessions, now the attorney general, and Trump. And at that meeting, he said, “My job is to set up a meeting with Vladimir Putin.” And as you said, Trump got really silent yesterday after this was released.- DemocracyNow.org
Get that last part? Click on their link for the video of this. Some great journalistic insight on where this could all be heading.
