A former business partner of Paul Manafort's, who started as a protégé and went on to handle big-time clients of a major Washington,D.C., lobbying firm, prepared to surrender Monday as he and Manafort became the first suspects indicted in the federal Russia probe, CNN reported.
Rick Gates, 45, of Richmond, Virginia, started with the once high-powered lobbying firm of Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly, which represented top U.S. political clients and controversial foreign strongmen, when he was in his 30s.
"Nearly everywhere Paul Manafort went, it seemed, Rick Gates followed, his protégé and junior partner," The New York Times reported in a profile of Gates.
Gates joined Manafort at a new company formed with Republican lobbyist Rick Davis, in 2006. Gates took over operations in Eastern Europe when Davis left the firm to manage Sen. John McCain's 2008 president campaign against Barack Obama.
One of the firm's clients was Viktor Yanukovych, the former pro-Moscow president of Ukraine. The firm also pursued business deals with wealthy Russians, including Oleg Deripaska, a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Gates also followed Manafort to the Trump campaign and later reportedly helped prepare Melania Trump's speech at the Republican presidential nominating convention. Critics claimed the speech plagiarized portions of a speech by Michelle Obama in 2008.