The Gates deal

"Rick Gates is going to change his plea to guilty,'' said a person with direct knowledge of the new developments, adding that the revised plea will be presented in federal court in Washington "within the next few days.''

[...]

The change of heart by Trump's former deputy campaign manager, Richard W. Gates III, who had pleaded not guilty after being indicted in October on charges similar to Manafort's, was described in interviews by people familiar with the case.

  LA Times

The caged rats turn on each other.

Gates "understands that the government may move to reduce his sentence if he substantially cooperates – but it won't be spelled out."

Yeah, I'd trust the government. He must be facing some serious shit that he's pretty sure can be proved in order to make this deal.

Gates, 45, who is married with four children, does not appear to be well positioned financially to sustain a high-powered legal defense.

"He can't afford to pay it,'' said one lawyer who is involved with the investigation. "If you go to trial on this, that's $1 million to $1.5 million. Maybe more, if you need experts'' to appear as witnesses.

[...]

The indictment alleged that both [Gates and Manafort], who for years were unregistered agents of the Ukraine government, hid millions of dollars of Ukraine-based payments from U.S. authorities.

According to the indictment, Gates and Manafort "laundered the money through scores of United States and foreign corporations, partnerships and bank accounts'' and took steps to evade related U.S. taxes.

If nothing else, Trump knew both of these men well enough to know they were up to their eyeballs in dirty money when he brought them on his campaign. How stupid would you have to be to do that? Or how implicated? Or both.

If Manafort maintains his not-guilty plea and fights the charges at a trial, the testimony from Gates could provide Mueller's team with first-person descriptions of much of the allegedly illegal conduct. Gates' testimony, said a person familiar with the pending guilty plea, would place a "cherry on top'' of the government's already-formidable case against Manafort.

So Manafort himself is not under even greater pressure than before to make his own deal, yeah?

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.