Preet Bharara says Donald Trump’s advisers are in even deeper trouble than we thought
Former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara didn’t become a household name until the day Donald Trump controversially fired him, as part of a convoluted effort at impeding various criminal investigations that might have led back to Trump. Bharara has since gone on to become an expert political and legal commentator, even as Trump and his regime get picked apart by the long arm of the law. Now Bharara is pointing to just how much trouble Trump’s advisers are in.
On Monday, Special Counsel Robert Mueller revealed that former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos has already pleaded guilty to having lied to the FBI, and confessed to having conspired with a Russian government representative during the election to try to acquire emails stolen from Hillary Clinton. In the court of public opinion, this demonstrates to the American public that Trump is lying when he keeps insisting there was “no collusion” with Russia. In the court of law, Bharara sees this as being the breaking point for a number of Trump campaign advisers who now have to worry about what comes next.
Preet Bharara tweeted “Special Counsel Mueller already has one criminal conviction. And this plea portends more charges to come.” He then quoted a portion of the filing against George Papadopoulos, which reads “Through his false statements and omissions, Papadopoulos impeded the FBI’s ongoing investigation into the existence of any links or coordination between individuals associated with the campaign and the Russian government’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.”
That’s a legalese way of saying that the Feds have been in the midst of a full scale investigation of Trump-Russia election collusion since at least January, when Papadopoulos lied to the FBI. His confession appears to have incriminated senior campaign advisers Paul Manafort and Sam Clovis, and implicated Jeff Sessions – who is now Attorney General. Which other Donald Trump campaign advisers are getting arrested next, now that the first collusion domino has fallen?
