The Beginning Of The End

While it is true that there is nothing in today's indictment of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates that connects directly to the Trump campaign's collusion with the Russians, only in today's climate of acceptance of the absolute lowest standard of behavior is the fact that the campaign manager of the Trump election effort and his right hand man have been indicted for a engaging in conspiracy against the United States, both before, during, and after their work for the campaign, not an almost existential problem for the President.

Of course, the evidence of Manafort's collusion with the Russians is already pretty convincing. There is the offer of personal briefings on the Trump campaign to the Russian oligarch that Manafort was apparently deeply in debt to. There was the inexplicable change to the Republican platform regarding support for the Ukrainians fighting the Russian invasion of their country. We now know that this came after Papadopolous emails saying the Russians had dirt on Hillary. There was the Trump Tower meeting to get dirt on Clinton. As David Atkins points out, in retrospect the only seemingly conceivable reason that Trump would hire Manafort, besides the odd fact that he would work for free, was to engage help from the Russians. There was nothing in his recent background, no familiarity with recent Republican politics, no political reasons to satisfy the establishment GOP, to select Manafort to run the campaign.

A more interesting side note, however, involves Rick Gates. Gates was Manafort's right hand man in his dealings in Ukraine and Russia and in the money laundering scheme they were both involved in. Manafort brought Gates into the campaign and Gates remained an important part of the campaign even after Manafort was forced out. The interesting note is that after the campaign, Gates apparently began working with Tom Barrack. If that name sounds familiar, it is because he is one of Trump's closest outside advisers and the man who introduced Manafort to Trump and the campaign. The fact that Barrack would continue to work with Gates after knowing his involvement in these illegal payments in Ukraine and the fact that Barrack was the primary reason Manafort got hired in the first place will now make Barrack an even more interesting man to Mueller.

As opposed to the Manafort and Gates indictments, the Papadopolous admission that he lied to the FBI about his contacts with the Russians is a direct tie to the Trump campaign. Papadopolous was clearly targeted by a Russian he knew was connected with the government within days of being announced as a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign. The Russian agent used Papadopolous as a conduit to tell senior people in the campaign that the Russians had "dirt" on Hillary in the form of thousands of emails, as well as trying to set up a meeting between the Russians and Trump. It appears that Jeff Sessions may have been at least one recipient of those emails. And, as we all know from Don Jr.'s Trump Tower meeting as well as from Trump's own words, the Trump campaign was ready, willing, and able to play ball with the Russians.

This is just the opening salvo from Mueller. The pressure on all these three is now enormous. And Mueller hasn't even charged Flynn yet. The fact that Trump's campaign manager has been charged with conspiracy against the United States should be damning enough. But it's only the beginning. As one legal analyst said today, prosecutors never lead with their best case.