Gates admits affair as Manafort lawyers attack credibility

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Rick Gates, the star witness in the trial of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, on Tuesday admitted to an extramarital affair and stealing money as defense attorneys attacked his credibility.

Manafort is on trial for tax and bank fraud, in the first court battle brought by Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.

Gates has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and is cooperating with the government. Manafort has pleaded not guilty to 18 counts of bank fraud, tax fraud and failing to disclose foreign bank accounts containing tens of millions of dollars earned from work for Russian-backed politicians in Ukraine

Undercutting the credibility of Gates, his former deputy, is the foundation of Manafort's defense.

Rick Gates and Paul Manafort /VCG Photo

Manafort's lawyers forced Gates to admit he had stolen hundreds of thousands of US dollars from his former boss by filing bogus personal expenses claims and that he had engaged in an extramarital affair and kept an apartment in London for that purpose.

"Were these payments for your secret life?" defense attorney Kevin Downing asked.

"I acknowledge I had a period of time when I had another relationship," said Gates, who is married and has four children. "I already admitted on the record that I took unauthorized funds from Mr. Manafort."

"In essence, I was living beyond my means," Gates added. "I'm taking responsibility for it. I made a mistake."

"After all the lies you told you expect this jury to believe you?" Downing asked Gates. "I'm here to tell the truth," Gates shot back. "Mr. Manafort had the same path. I'm here."

Paul Manafort leaves Federal Court in Washington, DC, Feb. 28, 2018. /VCG Photo

The 46-year-old began the day by running the jury through how he helped Manafort, a veteran Republican operative, evade US taxes on millions of dollars earned from political consulting work they did in Ukraine.

While Gates and others have pleaded guilty, Manafort has refused to strike a deal with Mueller and legal experts say he may be holding out hopes of a pardon from Trump.

Gates was hired by Manafort to serve as deputy campaign chairman and later had a role on Trump's inaugural committee. Asked if he had also claimed unauthorized personal expenses from the inaugural committee, Gates replied: "It's possible."

Earlier on Tuesday, Gates told the court that Manafort would frequently pay for clothing, landscaping and other personal expenses using wire transfers directly from his bank accounts in Cyprus and others in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Gates also said that when their political work in Ukraine dried up in 2015, Manafort had difficulty paying his bills and had no other clients. He also said Manafort had asked him to disguise income as loans.

"The idea of exchanging income for loans reduced his overall tax liability," Gates said.

Manafort, who helped Republicans Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan reach the White House, was Trump's campaign chairman from May to August 2016. He was forced to step down amid questions about his lobbying work for Ukraine's former pro-Russian leader Viktor Yanukovych.

Mueller, a former FBI director, has indicted more than 30 people in connection with his probe into whether members of Trump's campaign colluded with Russia to help get Trump elected.

Trump has denounced the probe as a politically motivated "witch hunt" and denied there was any collusion with Moscow to defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton.

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