The top Trump-Russia suspects have begun racing each other to Robert Mueller’s door
There’s always a feeding frenzy just before last call. If this keeps up, it may end up looking more like a stampede. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is close to finishing the obstruction of justice portion of the Trump-Russia probe, meaning that anyone who has been thinking about seeking a plea deal had better hurry up and make it happen. Sure enough, multiple top Trump-Russia suspects have begun racing each other to Mueller’s door.
Today we learned that Donald Trump’s former right hand man Steve Bannon has spent twenty hours speaking with Mueller and his team over the past week, according to an NBC News report. This isn’t some congressional dog and pony show; this is real testimony with a prosecutor. If Bannon were being anything less than forthcoming, Mueller wouldn’t have wasted his time continuing to ask questions; he would have simply decided whether or not to charge Bannon and then moved on. Twenty hours tells us that Bannon gave up everything. He’s not the only one.
Today we also learned that former Trump campaign adviser Rick Gates has already conducted his proffer interview with Mueller, and is finalizing his plea deal, according to a CNN report. This means that within a span of days, Mueller has gained every bit of knowledge that Bannon and Gates have. Furthermore, now that Gates has flipped, it leaves Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort with essentially no choice but to do the same. There’s more.
These are just the moves that we can see in plain sight. We still know what was triggered by Michael Flynn’s plea deal back in early December. In order to get that deal, he must have provided compelling evidence against bigger and smaller fish in the Trump-Russia scandal. How many of them have since cut deals that haven’t become public? Keep in mind that Mueller kept the George Papadopoulos plea deal a secret for four months while he used that evidence in other cases. Now that we’re near the end, it’s about to all come out.
