Robert Mueller’s week of stunning Trump-Russia revelations just became even more remarkable

| 1:01 pm EDT March 31, 2018
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Every time we think we have the full story, or anything close to it, Special Counsel Robert Mueller reminds us that we’re not even close to seeing all the pieces of his Trump-Russia puzzle. Through a series of events and revelations this week, we were reminded of this more keenly than ever. Headlining names in the investigation have been playing different roles all along than we thought. Names we’ve never heard of have been exposed as key players.

After it was revealed midweek that Donald Trump had privately dangled a potential pardon in the face of Paul Manafort last year in the hope of preventing Manafort from cutting a plea deal, Mueller struck back roughly a day later with a court filing which revealed he doesn’t even need Manafort. He cut a plea deal with Manafort’s sidekick Rick Gates, not because he wanted Gates to help him take Manafort down, but because he wanted Gates to help him take Trump down. The clear message to Trump: “Go ahead and try to pardon Manafort if you like, because he doesn’t matter to me.”

Now comes this latest news that Mueller had FBI agents detain and subpoena Ted Malloch. Wait, who? He’s closely connected to Donald Trump, Roger Stone, Brexit, you name it. In fact his name had already been in the press when Trump considered naming him the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union. But Malloch wasn’t a name that any pundit following the Trump-Russia scandal had identified as being a potential key witness.

It was already stunning enough to learn that Robert Mueller has seen Rick Gates as a more important witness than Paul Manafort all along. It makes sense in hindsight. Gates continued as a senior Trump campaign official long after Manafort was fired. But Mueller made such a big deal out of targeting Manafort last year, we all bought into it, without realizing it was a misdirect to get Trump to focus on Manafort even as Mueller was convincing Gates to flip. Imagine how much more we don’t yet know, but Mueller does.