Let’s look at some dates on this emerging Manafort story.

Manafort’s visit to Ecuador in May 2017 was on a key date, May 9th, 2017, according to this November 2017 AP story. That’s pretty deep into the multiple investigations of Manafort. His home was raided by the FBI two months later and he was arrested on a multi-count indictment at the end of October.

May 9th, 2017 is also the same day President Trump fired James Comey. Six days later, on May 17th, Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller as Special Counsel.