Last Friday, former Trump campaign deputy Rick Gates plead guilty to financial fraud and lying to investigators. For agreeing to testify in Special Counsel Mueller’s ongoing investigation, the other pending charges (like money laundering) against Gates were dropped.
In much the same way a football player yells, “I’m going to Disney World” after winning the Super Bowl, Gates’ attorneys immediately filed a motion asking the judge to make an exception to his travel restrictions. A copy of that motion can be read here. Gates was released from house arrest in January, but still needs the judge’s permission to travel outside D.C./Virginia area where he lives. The judge approved, but today, a terrified Gates canceled the trip.
gates knows it is not paranoia if they really are out to get you
Gates motion specified that he and his family would be traveling to Boston during his children’s spring break vacation, which begins March 2nd. He would return to Virginia March 8th. Per the motion his attorney filed:
“The purpose of the trip is for Mr. Gates to show his children around the Boston area to learn about American history in general, and the Revolutionary War in particular. This proposed trip cannot take place in Richmond because it is intended to expose Mr. Gates’s children to historical sites that can only be visited in Boston.”
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Now it turns out history might not be all he and his family would have been exposed to in Boston. On Thursday, Gates gave the court a “thanks, but no thanks” on the trip. Specifically, he said that he no longer felt it “prudent” to take his four children to Boston. He felt threatened by comments on the Boston Globe article which has referenced his approved vacation. Specifically, he was spooked by comments invoking the Russian mafia. As his attorney told Judge Amy Berman in an updated motion, the Globe story “generated comments on the internet, some of which were of a threatening character.”
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On one hand, as a parent myself, I understand Gates apprehension to risk his children’s safety. But what would he and his family have to worry about if he were clean? Specifically, if he were not already afraid the Russian mob was going to seek revenge, the threat would be meaningless. It would be taken as just another case of internet trolls posting stupidity to get a rise out of the audience. But he IS taking the threats seriously. And that just might mean they are? Maybe he should have asked for entrance to the witness protection program as part of his plea deal?
Featured image photo by Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images
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