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Former Trump associate Rick Gates pleads guilty and flips in the Russia investigation

Former Trump campaign adviser Rick Gates is expected to plead guilty on Friday.

  • The office of special counsel Robert Mueller has charged Rick Gates, the former deputy chairman of President Donald Trump's campaign, on two counts
  • Gates pleaded guilty to both charges on Friday, indicating that he is cooperating with the investigation, which
  • is probing the extent of Russia's interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
  • Gates is the fourth person known to be cooperating with Mueller.

Gates said in a letter to his loved ones earlier Friday that he decided to plead guilty for the sake of his family, according to a letter obtained by ABC News.

Gates reportedly wrote: "Despite my initial desire to vigorously defend myself, I have had a change of heart. The reality of how long this legal process will likely take, the cost, and the circus-like atmosphere of an anticipated trial are too much. I will better serve my family moving forward by exiting this process."

"

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Gates' guilty plea makes him the fourth person known to be cooperating with Mueller, in addition to early campaign foreign-policy adviser George Papadopoulos, former national-security adviser Michael Flynn, and California businessman Richard Pinedo.

The new charges allege that:

When Trump hired Manafort in March 2016, Manafort was known for having worked as a top consultant to Yanukovych, and he is widely credited with helping Yanukovych win Ukraine's presidency in 2010.

Yanukovych was ousted from the presidency in 2014 amid widespread protests against his Russia-friendly positions and his decision to back out of a deal that would have promoted closer ties between Ukraine and the West and distanced Ukraine from Russia. Yanukovych fled to Russia as the demonstrations escalated and grew bloody, and he is now living under the protection of the Kremlin.

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Since then, Ukrainian prosecutors investigating the protests have said Yanukovych ordered security forces to open fire on protesters, and some are looking into whether Manafort had a hand in encouraging Yanukovych.

Manafort and Gates were also implicated in Mueller's investigation of Alex van der Zwaan, a Russia-linked lawyer who pleaded guilty earlier this week to one count of making false statements to investigators about his work for the law firm Skadden, Arps, Meagher, & Flom LLP and Affiliates in 2012.

At Yanukovych's request, Manafort asked Skadden to compile a report about the 2011 trial of the former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, an effort Van der Zwaan was involved in..

Tymoshenko, who was Yanukovych's rival in the country's 2010 election, was jailed in 2011 after the Ukrainian government convicted her of abuse of power. Her trial and subsequent conviction were criticized by human-rights groups and deemed politically motivated by the US, the UK, German, Italy, Spain, and other European countries.

Skadden was roped into the controversy over the Tymoshenko report when it emerged that the former Ukrainian Justice Minister Oleksandr Lavrynovych embezzled over $1 million to pay the law firm for its work.

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Van der Zwaan was also accused of lying to investigators about why he did not provide Mueller's office with a September 2016 email between him and another person referred to in the charge as "Person A."

The court filing says Van der Zwaan not only spoke with both Gates and the unnamed person about Skadden's report on Tymoshenko's trial but also destroyed evidence Mueller's office was seeking, including the September 2016 email.

Read Friday's full court filing here:

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