As you’ve likely heard, Amy Berman Jackson just released almost a year of texts between Sean Hannity and Paul Manafort, which I’m sure will end up in a series of posts.

In one exchange, Hannity asked Manafort why Rick Gates was hiring a new lawyer. Manafort promised Hannity that Gates was “totalky united with trump and m.”

Days later, of course, Gates would sign a plea deal.

These texts take place against the background of a conversation Manafort had a month earlier in which he told Gates that Trump would take care of them.

In January 2018, Manafort told Gates that he had talked to the President’s personal counsel and they were “going to take care of us.”848 Mana fort told Gates it was stupid to plead, saying that he had been in touch with the President’s personal counsel and repeating that they should ” sit tight” and “we’ll be taken care of.”849 Gates asked Manafort outright if anyone mentioned pardons and Manafort said no one used that word.850

That is, Manafort was likely certain that Gates wouldn’t flip because he had implied that he would get a pardon.

Rick Gates’ first proffers in Mueller Report took place on January 29, 30, 31, and continued into early February.

As I disclosed last July, I provided information to the FBI on issues related to the Mueller investigation, so I’m going to include disclosure statements on Mueller investigation posts from here on out. I will include the disclosure whether or not the stuff I shared with the FBI pertains to the subject of the post.