Rick Gates’s guilty plea and cooperation with special counsel Robert Mueller (pictured) started paying off Tuesday when Mueller asked a federal court in Virginia to dismiss a series of criminal charges against him. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo Mueller approves Gates’ request to end GPS monitoring

Special counsel Robert Mueller has signed off on giving additional freedoms to Rick Gates in exchange for the former Donald Trump campaign deputy’s cooperation in the wider Russia investigation.

In a court document filed Wednesday in federal district court, Gates’ attorney, Thomas Green, said Mueller did not oppose his client’s request to remove the electronic GPS monitoring device that Gates was forced to wear after his indictment last October on multiple charges, including money laundering and making false statements.


Noting Gates “is now obliged to coordinate certain activities” with Mueller as part of the plea deal, Green also requested that U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson end court-imposed restrictions on Gates’ travel from his home in Richmond, Virginia, to court proceedings and other legal meetings in Washington.

“These obligations require his presence in Washington, D.C., often on short notice, and also require frequent consultation” with Mueller and his Washington-based investigators, Green told the court. “In the past these arrangements have been delayed and made more complicated by the need to obtain permission to travel.”

Gates agreed to a plea deal last Friday with Mueller that stipulates he must cooperate “in any and all matters” that the special counsel’s office decides are “relevant.” In his motion on Wednesday, Green explained that Gates faces “very serious consequences” if he violates that agreement or skips any court proceedings.

“The advantages that attach to strict compliance with that agreement, and the extraordinary disincentives to violating that agreement, are more than sufficient to guarantee Mr. Gates’ appearance at any scheduled proceeding to include the date of sentencing,” Green wrote, noting that Mueller’s office “does not oppose this motion.”

Gates’s guilty plea and cooperation with Mueller started paying off on Tuesday when Mueller asked a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, to dismiss a series of criminal charges against him, including tax and bank fraud.

In a separate ruling Tuesday, Berman also granted Gates’s request to take his children to Boston next week for their spring break “to show his children around the Boston area to learn about American history in general, and the Revolutionary War in particular.”

