This is just what I was thinking (from the Post) …
Away from the podium, Trump staffers fretted privately over whether Manafort or Gates might share with Mueller’s team damaging information about other colleagues. They expressed concern in particular about Gates because he has a young family, may be more stretched financially than Manafort, and continued to be involved in Trump’s political operation and had access to the White House, including attending West Wing meetings after Trump was sworn in.
Rick Gates is 45, 23 years younger than Manafort. He was also with Trump much longer than Manafort. Any guesses about whether he saw anything bad when he was in the Trump orbit? Read More
Will Fischer is a nationally recognized progressive leader. A decorated Marine Corps veteran of the war in Iraq, he is the director of government affairs for VoteVets, which, with more than 500,000 members, is the largest progressive veterans organization in America (and was also blocked on Twitter by President Donald Trump in June). Prior to his work at VoteVets, Will spent nearly a decade working at the national AFL-CIO and in a variety of political, legislative, and organizing campaigns across the country.
Will will be in the Hive to discuss veterans, military, and foreign policy. Post your questions and join us on Thursday! If you’d like to participate but don’t have TPM Prime, sign up here.
TPM’s iDesk reporter Tierney Sneed was inside the court room today after the Manafort indictment dropped. Here’s her report.
Here’s a short backgrounder on what I think is the major revelation of the day (sub req).
Here are some other points to note in the Papadopoulos plea deal … Read More
From a TPM Reader …
As a former federal prosecutor, it seems to me that there are several angles to Mueller’s strategy with the timing of these announcements.
We can’t know these things for sure. But it certainly seems like Mueller was sending a message and sending a shock to the Trump White House by releasing the Papadopoulos charges mid-morning. The Manafort/Gates charges are very serious as crimes and bring heavy punishments. They’re a big deal. But they do not connect directly to the campaign’s ties with Russia or even the campaign itself. The White House can accurately say that these are crimes that do not relate to them, as they have. (Set aside for the moment that they are serious crimes undertaken by the campaign chairman while the campaign was underway and that they provide Mueller with immense leverage to extract more information from Manafort.) Read More
George Papadopoulos, another of those first five campaign advisors announced in March 2016 (Carter Page was another), pleaded guilty on Oct. 5, 2017, to making false statements to FBI. Unsealed this morning.
More soon.
Remember, days after being appointed, Papadopoulos went to work trying to set up meetings between the Trump campaign and “Russian Leadership – Including Putin.”
We’re reading through the Papadopoulos charges now. They are pretty bad and go directly to the Russia issue. More soon.
It was an extremely bad idea for Paul Manafort to get involved in a presidential campaign on the way to the nomination when he was sitting atop so much dirty laundry.
Unless of course, he had no choice. Read More
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s first charges are reportedly against Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, who were told to surrender Monday morning, according to the New York Times.
Late Update: Everything we know so far.