Longer read but lays out Mueller's strategy and shows the stupidity of Nates & SD20s comments.
These are just a few quotes.
First, the indictment makes clear that some Trump campaign workers unwittingly worked with the Russian conspirators advancing this scheme, which is already a disturbing development. It also says that on repeated occasions the indicted individuals conspired with “persons known and unknown to the Grand Jury,” explicitly leaving open the possibility that others were involved.
More to the point, as elaborate as the charged scheme was, it is limited to one particular disinformation operation. The indictment does not even address many of the areas in which knowing cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russia would most likely have occurred if it did occur. For instance, the indictment does not address the hacking of accounts belonging to the Democratic National Committee and others, nor does it address those who participated in the now infamous summer 2016 meeting in Trump Tower, apparently set up to obtain negative information about Hillary Clinton. The steady stream of pleas and indictments we have seen so far makes it only logical to conclude that there is more to come. We don’t know yet where it will all lead, but the trajectory seems to be closer and closer to the Trump campaign.
Adding all of this together, one thing is clear about this week’s developments: They leave the president in substantially more peril. His longstanding efforts to cast doubt on the idea that Russia interfered in the election are in tatters. His campaign now appears to have at least unwittingly furthered the efforts of Russian saboteurs to wreak havoc in our election. And this latest indictment, together with a likely Gates plea, very much leaves the door open to future findings of Trump campaign cooperation with Russian election interference. We all should hope that Mueller is successful in getting to the bottom of this debacle; his track record so far suggests he will.
Even among some of Donald Trump’s allies, there is a sense of astonishment at the White House’s handling of Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. “It’s like no one took down the Gambino family,”Steve Bannon told Chris Whipple in a book adaptation the Hive published this week. “Mueller’s doing a roll-up just like he did with the Gambinos. [Paul] Manafort’s the caporegime, right? And [Rick] Gates is a made man!”
But news of his cooperation should still worry the White House. As he did in the Gotti case, Mueller has moved systematically through the lower ranks of Trumpworld up through the president’s inner circle in his efforts to shake out the truth.
All the while, Mueller is presumably gathering evidence he can leverage higher up the food chain, and potentially against Trump. While Gates may only flip on Manafort, it is entirely possible that Manafort might then be compelled to give up something better
Mark Corallo was one of the president’s defenders—until he became disgusted on ‘a moral and professional level.’ Now, he’s talking to the man looking into Trump’s Russia ties.
Mark Corallo, former spokesperson for President Donald Trump’s legal team, spoke with Special Counsel Bob Mueller earlier this week for over two hours, two people familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast.
The New York Times reported last month that Corallo’s conversation with Mueller would likely involve topics related to potential obstruction of justice.
One moment that might be of particular interest to the special counsel: a now-infamous flight back from the G-20 summit, when Trump and his close aides –– including his daughter Ivanka, Jared Kushner, and Communications Director Hope Hicks –– drafted a deceptive statement regarding Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with Kremlin-linked Russian nationals. According to the Times, Corallo was in a position to tell Mueller that Hicks once claimed the president’s sons emails about that meeting would “never get out.”
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/2/17/1742090/-HOLY-FORKING-SHIRTBALLS-That-Was-the-Craziest-Infrastructure-Week-EVER-Saturday-s-Good-News
