It is a huge irony of U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry into alleged collusion between U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s 2016 election campaign and the Kremlin, that the biggest fish caught to date is charged with the doing the opposite of colluding with Russia: Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager, has pled guilty to charges of (undeclared) lobbying for Ukraine in 2012-2013 to sign a political and trade association agreement with the European Union that would rescue it once and for all from the Kremlin’s grasp.

Not that you would be aware of this from the media coverage around the trials of Manafort (he has already stood trial and been found guilty of tax fraud in Virginia in August). Among the huge amount of noise about Manafort, the basic facts about his activity in Ukraine 2010-2015 have been obscured.