Robert Muellers Distinctly American Indictments

Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating possible Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election, has lately been moving so fast that it is becoming difficult to keep track of the intricate levels of deception, and self-deception, described in the indictments that he brings. Last Thursday, Mueller charged Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, with a multimillion-dollar fraud related to, of all things, mortgages. The indictment also names Manafort’s associate Rick Gates, the former deputy campaign chair; both men had earlier been charged with laundering millions of dollars that they had collected as lobbyists for the government of Ukraine, and had said that they would fight the charges. By Friday, though, Gates had pleaded guilty to two counts: conspiracy with regard to the financial crimes, and lying to investigators—a lie that he had apparently told, recklessly enough, in prior plea talks—and prosecutors had unsealed a revised indictment, directed, this time, only at Manafort.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/05/robert-muellers-distinctly-american-indictments/amp