Here's What Happened To The Mueller Probe's Biggest Catches In 2019
A federal judge on Monday scheduled former national security adviser Michael Flynn for a Jan. 28 sentencing date, setting up the Trump administration to start 2020 on the defense.
Flynn, who pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to investigators about talking with the Russian ambassador, was the first high-level Trump staffer to face charges as a result of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The Mueller investigation concluded in March, having led to the indictments of 34 people. Of the eight who were found or pleaded guilty ― most of the rest are Russian nationals ― Flynn will be among the last to be sentenced.
As a refresher, here’s a rundown of what happened in 2019 to the other top-level Trump associates who were indicted:
Roger Stone
Prosecutors indicted Trump’s former campaign adviser Roger Stone in January on criminal charges that included obstruction of an official proceeding, false statements and witness tampering.
Of particular interest to prosecutors were Stone’s communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. WikiLeaks boosted the 2016 Trump campaign by publishing hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, that had been obtained through Russian intelligence efforts.
At the time of his indictment, Stone predicted that he would be “fully and completely vindicated” and pleaded not guilty. A jury convicted him on all seven counts in November. Stone is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 6 and faces up to 20 years in prison.
Michael Cohen
Trump’s former attorney and right-hand man kicked off 2019 by delivering withering testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, describing his former boss as a “racist,” a “conman” and a “cheat.”
Of particular interest, Cohen detailed a 2016 conversation that Trump had with Stone, in which Stone, citing Assange, described the forthcoming “massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign.” To Cohen’s recollection, Trump responded along the lines of, “Wouldn’t that be great.”
Cohen also told lawmakers that Trump directed him to lie about the candidate’s efforts to secure a Trump Tower deal in Moscow during the 2016 campaign.
“In conversations we had during the campaign, at the same time I was actively negotiating in Russia for him, he would look me in the eye and tell me there’s no business in Russia and then go out and lie to the American people by saying the same thing,” Cohen testified. “In his way, he was telling me to lie.”
In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about the extent of his conversations with a Russian real estate company during the campaign as part of the Trump Tower project. He also pleaded guilty to making excessive campaign contributions in a scheme to silence two women who claimed they had extramarital affairs with Trump. He has been sentenced to three years in prison.
Paul Manafort
Paul Manafort rang in the new year in jail. In August 2018 in Virginia federal court, he was convicted on eight counts involving filing false income tax returns, failing to report foreign bank accounts and committing bank fraud. The next month in D.C. federal court, Trump’s former campaign chairman pleaded guilty to two more counts ― one of conspiracy against the U.S. and another of conspiracy to obstruct justice ― as part of a deal offered by Mueller. The deal also dropped 10 more counts in the Virginia case.
Manafort was ultimately sentenced to a total of about seven and a half years in prison at two different hearings in March of this year.
In November, Mueller investigation documents obtained by BuzzFeed revealed that Manafort had continued to communicate with Trump campaign staff for months in 2016 after he was supposedly fired over his links to Russian interests.
Rick Gates
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Manafort business partner and Trump deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates spent 2019 as he did much of 2018: cooperating with federal investigators. Court documents obtained by NBC show that Gates has spent more than 500 hours assisting government lawyers and federal agents in various investigations. He also served as a witness in the trials of Manafort, Stone and Greg Craig, a lawyer who did consulting work with Manafort in Ukraine.
Gates faces sentencing on Tuesday. His lawyers have pushed hard to spare him jail time based on his extensive cooperation.
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
