‘Secret life’: Rick Gates forced to reveal affair, as Manafort’s lawyers hammer at his credibility
Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort denies fraud, and is trying to pin blame on his aide Gates
A former campaign aide to Donald Trump lived a “secret life” that included an extramarital affair in London, a court heard on Tuesday.
Rick Gates, under cross examination at the tax evasion and bank fraud trial of his former boss Paul Manafort, admitted that he had “another relationship” involving first-class flights and luxury hotels, but denied these were funded with money embezzled from Manafort.
Manafort, a former Trump campaign chairman, has pleaded not guilty to 18 counts of bank and tax fraud and failing to disclose foreign bank accounts. His defence team is seeking to pin the blame on Gates, who they say was responsible for day-to-day operations of the business.
In a dramatic moment before the jury, Manafort’s defence counsel, Kevin Downing, put it to the government’s star witness: “There’s another life, right, the other Rick Gates? The secret Rick Gates?”
With a nod to linguistic differences for what Americans refer to as an apartment, Downing pressed: “As part of your secret life did you maintain a flat – is that what they call it? – in London?”
I had a period of time when I had another relationship
Gates acknowledged that he did for two months and that he took first-class flights and stayed in “fancy hotels” around Europe, but said the money came from bonuses rather than illicit gains. “I had a period of time when I had another relationship,” he added.