--- title: Manafort Lawyer Suggests Rick Gates Had 4 Affairs description: Gates finished his testimony at the Manafort trial after admitting that his secret life of cheating on his wife included four affairs. canonical: https://time.com/5361289/manafort-trial-rick-gates-admits-mistakes-four-affairs/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-08-08T17:54:22.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T21:05:52.180Z article:section: Politics og:title: Manafort Witness Gates Admits to 'Many Mistakes' After Lawyer Suggests He Had 4 Affairs og:description: Gates also acknowledged he had an affair aided by money he stole from his boss og:url: https://time.com/5361289/manafort-trial-rick-gates-admits-mistakes-four-affairs/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaf884d4ea2c3a14e/6989375286f68ed5a46e9d86/rick-gates-affairs-mueller-manafort-trial.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4500 og:image:height: 2531 og:image:alt: Rick Gates og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Manafort Witness Gates Admits to 'Many Mistakes' After Lawyer Suggests He Had 4 Affairs twitter:description: Gates also acknowledged he had an affair aided by money he stole from his boss twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaf884d4ea2c3a14e/6989375286f68ed5a46e9d86/rick-gates-affairs-mueller-manafort-trial.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Manafort Witness Rick Gates Admits to 'Many Mistakes' After Defense Lawyer Suggests He Had 4 Affairs > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=1a0f8a5b-21c6-445e-b7c8-448f4807699a&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) by [David Voreacos, Andrew Harris, Daniel Flatley and Sydney Maki / Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## David Voreacos, Andrew Harris, Daniel Flatley and Sydney Maki / Bloomberg Contributor Aug 8, 2018 5:54 PM UTC  In this file photo, former Trump campaign official Rick Gates leaves Federal Court on December 11, 2017 in Washington, DC. In this file photo, former Trump campaign official Rick Gates leaves Federal Court on December 11, 2017 in Washington, DC. Brendan Smialowski—AFP—Getty Images by [David Voreacos, Andrew Harris, Daniel Flatley and Sydney Maki / Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## David Voreacos, Andrew Harris, Daniel Flatley and Sydney Maki / Bloomberg Contributor Aug 8, 2018 5:54 PM UTC Rick Gates, the star witness in Paul Manafort’s fraud trial, concluded his testimony Wednesday, with a defense attorney suggesting that his “secret life” included multiple extramarital affairs. Defense attorney Kevin Downing questioned him for only eight minutes before a prosecutor asked him questions designed to restore his credibility in the eyes of the jury. Downing then dropped a bombshell question. Gates finished his testimony Wednesday after admitting that his secret life of cheating on his wife was more extensive than he had indicated earlier. Gates, Manafort’s right-hand man in the consulting business and in the Trump campaign, acknowledged Tuesday that he had an affair aided by money he stole from his boss and that he rented an apartment in London for two months. Gates said it was a mistake a decade ago that he regretted. But on Wednesday, Downing suggested that Gates had withheld the extent of his philandering from prosecutors working for Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Downing asked Gates whether he had told prosecutors that he had four extramarital affairs. Prosecutor Greg Andres immediately objected and U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III met in a sidebar conference with lawyers. The judge appeared to sustain the objection because Gates never answered the question. Downing had made his point. Downing then asked whether Gates’s “secret life” spanned the four-year period from 2010 to 2014, when he was embezzling from Manafort. “I’ve made many mistakes over many years, and I regret them,” Gates said. Downing pressed again on whether that secret life covered those four years, Gates said it did. After questioning Gates for two hours on Tuesday, Downing finished in less than 10 minutes on Wednesday. Andres sought to rehabilitate Gates with a series of rapid-fire questions about financial machinations underpinning the tax- and bank-fraud case against Manafort. He also asked Gates about his initial admission of the affair in London. Gates said that relationship lasted five months and that he told his wife and Manafort about it. On Tuesday he had indicated that the affair lasted just two months. “Was he supportive?” Andres asked, referring to Manafort. Gates said yes. “Did he fire you?” Andres asked. Gates said he didn’t. Gates, who pleaded guilty and is cooperating with Mueller’s prosecutors, spent less than 70 minutes on the witness stand on Wednesday. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5361289/manafort-trial-rick-gates-admits-mistakes-four-affairs/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5361289/manafort-trial-rick-gates-admits-mistakes-four-affairs/"},"headline":"Manafort Witness Rick Gates Admits to 'Many Mistakes' After Defense Lawyer Suggests He Had 4 Affairs","datePublished":"2018-08-08T17:54:22.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T21:05:52.180Z","description":"Gates also acknowledged he had an affair aided by money he stole from his boss","url":"https://time.com/5361289/manafort-trial-rick-gates-admits-mistakes-four-affairs/","keywords":["Courts","Bloomberg","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaf884d4ea2c3a14e/6989375286f68ed5a46e9d86/rick-gates-affairs-mueller-manafort-trial.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"David Voreacos, Andrew Harris, Daniel Flatley and Sydney Maki / Bloomberg"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaf884d4ea2c3a14e/6989375286f68ed5a46e9d86/rick-gates-affairs-mueller-manafort-trial.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Rick Gates","caption":"Rick Gates wears a suit and red tie","creditText":"Brendan Smialowski—AFP—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/courts/","name":"Courts"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5361289/manafort-trial-rick-gates-admits-mistakes-four-affairs/","name":"Manafort Witness Rick Gates Admits to 'Many Mistakes' After Defense Lawyer Suggests He Had 4 Affairs"}}]}] ```