The following article by John Norris and Carolyn Kenney was posted on the Center for American Progress website December 7, 2017:
Introduction and summary
The scope of investigations by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and others into the activities of President Donald Trump, his campaign, and businesses is sweeping. Mueller is tasked with investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and any potential collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. This mandate gives the special counsel ample imperative to study an array of links between Trump, Trump associates, and Russia, in a list of concerns that seems to grow by the day.
The pace and intensity of this investigation was only highlighted by the recent release of the indictment and guilty plea of Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, who admitted under oath lying to the FBI about his multiple contacts with Russians during the campaign, and acknowledged that the Russians informed him that they possessed “thousands of emails” hacked from Democrats well before any public knowledge of the fact.1 Papadopoulos admitted that he shared information about his Russian contacts and desire to broker meetings with the Russians with his Trump campaign supervisors. In addition, the special counsel indicted the former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort and his business partner Rick Gates on 12 charges related to a series of complex financial crimes that are alleged to have taken place both before and during the campaign.2 The indictment charges that the pair conspired to move more than $75 million, largely from a Ukrainian lawmaker who was a supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, through offshore accounts and engaged in extensive money laundering; undertook a “conspiracy against the United States”; served as an unregistered agent of a foreign principal; and failed to file reports on their foreign financial and bank accounts.3
