More charges were laid Thursday against President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman and his business associate

Dramatically escalating the pressure and stakes, special counsel Robert Mueller filed additional criminal charges Thursday against President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman and his business associate. They face charges including conspiracy to launder money, conspiracy to defraud the United States and failure to file as foreign agents for lobbying work they did on behalf of the pro-Russian Ukrainian Party of Regions. It also charges Manafort and Gates with filing false tax returns from 2010 through 2014 and in most of those years concealing their foreign bank accounts from the IRS. “Perhaps it is just that Mueller’s gambit to hit a reluctant Gates with new charges to inspire a spirit of cooperation worked far more quickly than one would expect.”

Gates, who worked with Manafort for years before helping him helm the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016, remained in contact with the White House through at least he beginning of 2017.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller files a 32-count indictment against political consultant and lobbyist Paul Manafort and his aide Rick Gates in the Eastern District of Virginia for multiple crimes including tax evasion and bank fraud.