Unfortunately for President Trump, major new steps in the special counsel’s Russia investigation are slated to take place ahead of November’s midterm elections. In addition to his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s two criminal trials in Virginia and D.C., Mueller has now set a Sept. 7 sentencing date for former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos. He has also subpoenaed Andrew Miller, an aide to Roger Stone who helped arrange interviews for Stone during the campaign.

Mueller is reportedly “accelerating” the collusion and obstruction of justice portions of his probe in order to issue reports on those topics by the fall.

On the Manafort front, we learned that Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska helped fund Manafort’s years-long lobbying work for Ukraine’s Party of Regions. Manafort also received a previously undisclosed $10 million loan from Deripaska, who he offered “private briefings” to while leading the Trump campaign.

Virginia Judge T.S. Ellis declined to dismiss the charges Mueller brought against Manafort in his district, but his ruling was full of swipes at the special counsel and prospect of “partisan prosecutions.” At a Friday hearing in Ellis’ courtroom, an FBI agent revealed that the bureau first learned from Associated Press reporters that Manafort was keeping information relevant to their probe at a storage unit.

Manafort also filed motions to appeal two rulings in D.C. revoking his pretrial release and throwing out his civil suit challenging Mueller’s authority to bring charges against him.

Concord Management, the Russian firm that allegedly funneled money to Russia’s bogus social media messaging campaign during the election, made a similar argument about Mueller’s mandate in court filings this week. In their own filings, Mueller’s team cautioned that Concord’s head Yevgeny Prigozhin, known as “Putin’s chef” could get access — via the discovery process in the criminal case against his firm — to sensitive materials.

Mueller’s team is seeking additional information from Blackwater founder Erik Prince, who has turned over his computer and phones. They’re also honing in on the access granted to several Russian oligarchs, including Putin ally Viktor Vekselberg, at Trump’s 2017 inauguration events.

A New York judge has extended until July 5 the final deadline for the Trump Organization to complete its privilege review of documents seized from Michael Cohen. Prosecutors working the Cohen case canceled a scheduled interview with Stormy Daniels after news of the sit-down leaked to the media.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was grilled by GOP lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee about his supposed reluctance to turn over documents; he adamantly denied threatening committee staffers who pressed him to do so. Rosenstein suggested that the furious Republican lawmakers may not have the best understanding of the law, and that he’d done nothing to be held in contempt of Congress.

Disgraced FBI official Peter Strzok was also interviewed about anti-Trump texts he exchanged in an 11-hour closed-door congressional testimony. Congress is expected to continue interviewing Strzok and his texting companion, Lisa Page, in July.