Court filing: Ex-Trump aide Gates continues to cooperate

Former Trump campaign adviser Rick Gates is not ready to be sentenced because he's continuing to cooperate with "several ongoing investigations"

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/court-filing-trump-aide-gates-continues-cooperate-61709506

So according to this article Weissmann was the one working on the Manafort case in Mueller probe.

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Court filing: Ex-Trump aide Gates continues to cooperate

Former Trump campaign adviser Rick Gates is not ready to be sentenced because he's continuing to cooperate with "several ongoing investigations"

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WATCH | House Republicans and Democrats vote for public release of Mueller report, pressuring Justice Department

By CHAD DAY Associated PressWASHINGTON — Mar 15, 2019 12:45 PM ET

Rick Gates, a former Trump campaign aide and key cooperator in the special counsel's Russia probe, is not ready to be sentenced because he continues to help with "several ongoing investigations," prosecutors said in a court filing Friday.

Gates is a central figure in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian election interference and possible coordination with the Trump campaign. But he is also helping federal authorities in New York who are looking into Trump's inaugural committee as well as lobbying on behalf of foreign interests by prominent Washington insiders.

The joint filing by Mueller's office and Gates' attorneys comes amid signs the Russia investigation is winding down. But it's unclear if Friday's delay is an indication that Mueller may submit his confidential report soon or if it's related to the status of the other investigations.

The filing asked for another 60 days to update U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson on whether Gates can proceed to sentencing. The judge granted the request later Friday.

Gates pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy and false statement charges related to Ukrainian lobbying and political consulting he carried out with former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison.

Gates helped the government in obtaining a trial conviction of Manafort last year. Prosecutors have noted that he continues to provide information about Manafort's time on the Trump campaign, though neither man has been charged with any crimes related to Russian election interference.

Still, Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who led the Manafort case, told a federal judge earlier this year that a meeting Gates attended with Manafort in August 2016 went to the "heart" of the Russia investigation. The meeting at the Grand Havana Room cigar club in New York was with Konstantin Kilimnik, a longtime Manafort associate who the FBI says has ties to Russian intelligence.

Prosecutors have not revealed exactly what piqued their interest in the meeting, though court papers show it involved a discussion of a possible Russia-Ukraine peace plan.

Separately, federal prosecutors in New York are investigating the Presidential Inaugural Committee, where Gates served in a senior role. Investigators are looking into whether foreigners illegally contributed to the committee, which raised $107 million for Trump's inaugural events, and how that money was spent.

The same office is also investigating lobbying for Ukraine in which Gates was involved.

>>5718953

Review:

Re_review important.

Who signed?

Who signed pg 380?

Who signed pg 389?

Who signed pg 390?

Who signed pg 391?

Who signed pg 392?

Pg 389 - Andrew McCabe

Pg 391 - Rod Rosenstein

Pg 271 - Dana Boente

Pg 269 - James Comey

Pg [ ] - Sally Yates

'KNOWINGLY' used FALSE intelligence?

Think HRC [paid for] FAKE DOSSIER [bulk].

Think Steele BO [post FBI firing] intel collection.

Think DOJ/FBI classified leaks to FAKE NEWS insert into FISA app in effort to provide 'new sources'.

Think PDB placement by BRENNAN to AUTHENTICATE source as credible.

Think BO >>WEISSMANN 'regular updates' re: Steele [Firewall][Mueller]

………………….

"I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing information regarding Carter W. Page is TRUE and CORRECT."

https://vault.fbi.gov/d1-release/d1-release/view📁

Q

Why Were Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Google Allowed to Get So Big?

http://fortune.com/2019/03/16/google-amazon-antitrust-laws/

By David McLaughlin and Bloomberg 9:00 AM EDT

The rise of global technology superstars like Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google created new challenges for the competition watchdogs who enforce the nation’s antitrust laws. Those companies dominate markets in e-books and smartphones, search advertising and social-media traffic, spurring a global debate over whether it’s time to rein in such winner-take-all companies. The U.S. has largely been hands off, but that may be changing.

1. Are the tech giants monopolies?

They’re powerful, for sure. Google and Facebook Inc. together control almost 60 percent of digital ad revenue in the U.S. and 64 percent of mobile ad revenue, according to eMarketer. Apple Inc. has about 45 percent of the U.S. smartphone market. About 47 percent of all U.S. e-commerce sales go through Amazon.com Inc. But under modern antitrust enforcement, those percentages alone aren’t enough to alarm regulators in the U.S., which long ago stopped equating big with bad. (For comparison’s sake, Standard Oil’s market share got as high as 88 percent late in the 19th century.) What’s illegal is for a monopoly to abuse its market power to prevent rivals from threatening its dominance. Federal courts ruled Microsoft Corp. did so in the 1990s.

1. How often does the U.S. go after monopolies?

The Microsoft lawsuit was the last major monopolization case brought by the U.S. The ensuing 20-year dry spell is often cited by those who argue enforcement has been too timid. President Barack Obama’s administration vowed to get tough on dominant companies in 2009, but it didn’t follow through. The number of monopoly cases brought by the U.S. dropped sharply from an average of 15.7 cases per year from 1970 to 1999 to less than three between 2000 and 2014.

1. Is antitrust thinking outdated?

>>5719050

Some lawyers and economists think it’s time to move past conventional antitrust enforcement to consider harmful effects from increased concentration such as lower private investment, weak productivity growth, rising inequality and declining business dynamism, or the rate at which firms enter and exit markets. They’ve gained a high-profile backer in Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat who is seeking her party’s 2020 presidential nomination and who has proposed dismantling tech giants like Facebook and Google.

1. Have the tech giants abused their power?

As the middlemen for today’s essential products and services, platforms like Amazon and Facebook have leverage over both producers and consumers. Amazon used its power over the book market in 2014 to block pre-orders for some Hachette Book titles during a dispute with the publisher over pricing. The tech giants are also growing by snapping up potential rivals that might threaten market share. Data compiled by Bloomberg show the big five — Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft — have made 431 acquisitions worth $155.7 billion over the last decade, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The companies also have control over vast amounts of data about their customers, raising concerns about threats to privacy.

1. What would actually worry regulators?

In the U.S., they’re primarily focused on the harm to consumers from reduced competition. When two companies want to merge, for example, could the deal result in higher prices? That’s usually not an issue in high-tech tie-ups, because big firms are often gobbling up much smaller rivals or buying companies for the purpose of entering new markets. The European Union has been more aggressive, as evidenced by the $2.7 billion fine against Alphabet Inc.’s Google in 2017 for favoring its shopping-comparison service over those of its rivals. Google was hit with an additional $5 billion fine by the EU last year.

1. Why is the EU tougher on tech companies?

EU law sets a lower bar for finding dominance by a company, so it’s easier to run afoul of anti-monopoly law. (The U.S. chose not to bring charges against Google for the same conduct the EU found illegal.) EU enforcers also have been more wary of big companies collecting consumers’ personal data. Strict new privacy rules that took effect in the EU last May under the General Data Protection Regulation gave regulators unprecedented powers to protect people from having their data misused by companies doing business there. Already, Google has been fined 50 million euros ($56.8 million) for privacy violations — the highest such penalty ever in the EU. (Google has appealed.)

1. What do the companies say?

They argue that their dominance is hardly durable because barriers to entry are low for new competitors. As Google is fond of saying, competition is just “one click away.” Due to the nature of competition in the digital marketplace, tech platforms benefit from network effects: As more people use them, the more useful — and dominant — the platforms become. Network effects can give a company scale quickly and create what investor Warren Buffett calls competitive moats.