Indicted
Now. Manafort has been indicted.
President Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was indicted Monday on charges that he funneled millions of dollars through overseas shell companies and used the money to buy luxury cars, real estate, antiques and expensive suits.
The charges against Mr. Manafort and his longtime associate Rick Gates represent a significant escalation in a special counsel investigation that has cast a shadow over Mr. Trump’s first year in office.
Separately, one of the early foreign policy advisers to Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign, George Papadopoulos, pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about a contact with a Russian professor with ties to Kremlin officials, prosecutors said on Monday.
Separately. Separate investigation? We’re going to have our work cut out keeping track of all this, aren’t we.
The indictment of Mr. Manafort and Mr. Gates makes no mention of Mr. Trump or election meddling. Instead, it describes in granular detail Mr. Manafort’s lobbying work in Ukraine and what prosecutors said was a scheme to hide that money from tax collectors and the public. The authorities said Mr. Manafort laundered more than $18 million.
“Manafort used his hidden overseas wealth to enjoy a lavish lifestyle in the United States without paying taxes on that income,” the indictment reads.
Mr. Gates is accused of transferring more than $3 million from offshore accounts. The two are also charged with making false statements.
So Mueller is starting at the far outside edge and working his way in?
American intelligence agencies have concluded that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia launched a stealth campaign of hacking and propaganda to try to damage Hillary Clinton and help Mr. Trump win the election. The Justice Department appointed Mr. Mueller III as special counsel in May to lead the investigation into the Russian operations and to determine whether anyone around Mr. Trump was involved.
Mr. Trump has denied any such collusion, and no evidence has surfaced publicly to contradict him. At the same time, Mr. Trump and his advisers this year repeatedly denied any contacts with Russians during the campaign, only to have journalists uncover one undisclosed meeting after another.
Not to mention the fact that Trump is a flagrant, determined, repetitive liar. Birtherism anyone? His denials are worthless.
A tangled web, to be sure.
The Manafort indictment is getting most of the attention, but the Papadopolus plea agreement may end up being more significant. The stipulated facts in that document involve the Russian foreign ministry, and someone claiming to be Putin’s niece, working with Papadopolus to set up a meeting with Trump and provide helpful information. Papadopolous, in turn, was relaying these conversations to people described as senior campaign officials. And Papadopolous has stipulated to these facts and has been described as cooperative.
I seems Papadopoulos confessed to lying to FBI three weeks ago.
With this much manure around there HAS TO be a pony somewhere.
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