The noose is tightening
The charges unsealed today against former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort fulfill many expectations. He was a key adviser to Russian President Putin’s favored president of Ukraine, he was known to have moved a lot of money around the world, and he had failed to register as an agent of a foreign government. His financial sidekick Rick Gates has also been charged. The charges relate in particular to undeclared, laundered income of more than $18 million from the Putin-friendly government of Ukraine
How all this relates to collusion with Russia during the campaign is however not yet clear. At the least, it suggests that Donald Trump was incautious to a fault in making Manafort his campaign chair, just as he was foolhardy in naming Michael Flynn as his national security adviser. But stupidity is not the same as perfidy. Special Counsel Mueller’s job is to nail the highest levels of illegal behavior, not to prove how dumb people are.
The charges against Manafort and Gates will help. Both will presumably be willing to exchange information for lesser charges or at least lesser sentences. But it is not clear how much information they have on perfidy by Kushner or the Trumps, both of whom are involved in what appear to be shady real estate deals in the US and abroad. Were they also laundering money or failing to declare it as income? Have the Russians blackmailed key administration officials by threatening to withdraw their investments or stop their real estate purchases? Trump is always keen to deny having any projects in Russia, but he has not denied having Russian financing in his projects in the US and elsewhere.
Mueller still has a long way to go to get to anyone important still in the Administration. He has however been savvy in these first indictments: Trump isn’t likely to risk pardoning Manafort and Gates, to whom he presumably owes nothing at this point. The only conceivable reason to do so would be to prevent them from talking, which would pretty much confirm Trump’s own malfeasance. Nor can Manafort be described as small fry, or his alleged crimes pooh-poohed by an administration that claims to be serious about law enforcement.
Trump can still try to fire Mueller, but that too would be a de facto admission of guilt. Trump will squirm, but I doubt he can escape. The noose is tightening.
PS: The guilty plea of George Papadopoulos, also made public today, relates much more directly to collusion with the Russians than the charges against Manafort and Gates. The noose is tightening more.
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