Robert Mueller releases the Kraken on Paul Manafort and Donald Trump
Even as the foreground of the investigation into Donald Trump’s criminal antics has shifted this past week to the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York and its investigation into Michael Cohen, Special Counsel Robert Mueller is still plugging ahead with his own investigation. In fact, after Paul Manafort made a desperate legal maneuver to try to get himself off the hook today, Mueller decided to release the Kraken on Manafort and Trump.
Paul Manafort and his legal team are continuing to try to convince the judge that Robert Mueller exceeded his authority with his investigation into Manafort, which went back several years before the election cycle. In response, Mueller disclosed that the Department of Justice believes Manafort was the Trump campaign’s backchannel with the Kremlin during the election. Although the Feds have not yet brought these specific charges against Manafort, this is a sign that they will once they’re done fleshing out what all really happened.
In the short term, this will help Mueller to defeat Manafort’s latest argument. It’s already a bad sign for Manafort that he’s reduced to arguing about whether Mueller was allowed to expose his crimes, as opposed to arguing that he didn’t commit those crimes. Now that the judge is aware that Mueller’s case against Manafort does in fact include alleged crimes committed between the Trump campaign and Russia, it all but guarantees that she’ll rule against Manafort’s motion. But the real trouble here is for Donald Trump himself.
This new revelation means that Robert Mueller and the Department of Justice believe there was in fact a criminal conspiracy between the Donald Trump campaign and Russia. Trump keeps yelling “NO COLLUSION” and in fact he tweeted that term earlier today. But what Mueller and the DOJ are describing is far worse than mere collusion. In addition, now that we know the Feds are criminally pursuing Manafort for being a Trump-Russia backchannel during the election, it’s a sign they’re pursuing others for the same crime. Donald Trump Jr, Jeff Sessions, and several others had meetings with the Russians during the election.
