By now, Robert Mueller surely knows why former Trump guru Steve Bannon has decided to talk. The rest of us are left to wonder why Bannon has chosen to place his faith in Mueller and not Rep. Devin Nunes, the chairman of the committee and loyal Trump lapdog. We can only speculate about why Bannon and the White House say that “executive privilege” constrains him on Capitol Hill but does not similarly restrain him at the special counsel’s office. Let me share with you at least one of the primary theories floating around Washington these days.

Norm Eisen, the former White House Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform, told me Monday that Bannon’s dissonant tactics are the result of a White House strategy that mirrors the conflict that exists between White House lawyer, Ty Cobb, who wants to cooperate with Mueller, and John Dowd, the president’s personal lawyer, who wants to fight back. It’s a strategy that “highlights deep contradictions,” Eisen says, “but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad strategy.”

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“Ultimately, their gamble is that whoever else goes down can be protected with presidential pardons," Eisen says. "They are gambling [with Bannon’s full cooperation with Mueller] that there will be no evidence implicating the president with collusion in the Russia attack and that an obstruction case will be no slam-dunk for the special counsel." The White House, in other words, is betting that whatever else Bannon may do, he won’t provide Mueller with a “smoking gun” that makes a case against the president.

That could explain why Bannon is talking to Mueller, but it doesn’t explain why Bannon won’t cooperate with the House Intelligence Committee. Eisen's guess? Leaks. The White House reckons that Nunes will leak Bannon testimony that is favorable to the president and that Committee Democrats will leak Bannon testimony that is unfavorable to the president, and that, on the whole, that’s a bargain that won’t benefit the administration in the court of public opinion.

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Stephen Vladeck, another expert who has written extensively about the Trump investigation, signs onto the leak theory. He told me over the weekend that Bannon likely doesn’t trust lawmakers to keep his testimony secret—and has little reason to given the committee’s record over the past few years.

I agree. If I’m Bannon, and I am candidly answering questions about life on the Trump campaign and in the Trump White House, and those answers don’t portray a pretty picture, I sure don’t want the president and his fellow travelers getting daily rushes about what I’m saying, even if the White House lawyers keep saying it’s all going to work out for Trump in the end.

What about last week's Russian indictments?

After Friday's sweeping indictment of Russian nationals and Russian corporations implicated in a scheme to interfere with the 2016 election, the question is not if, but when, a similar indictment will be handed down charging Americans with related crimes. And the question right after that is: how many of those names will be familiar to us? The president’s silly and self-defeating protestations notwithstanding, Friday’s indictment does not rule out any “collusion” or conspiracy between the Trump team and the Russians. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, at his uncomfortable press conference Friday, never claimed otherwise.

Count me among those who believe last week's indictment was limited to Russian nationals and companies for strategic and tactical reasons, and that the worst is yet to come (and sooner rather than later) for the president and his defenders. The charges against the Russians don’t include violations of the Federal Campaign Election Act, for example, even though it’s obvious from the pleadings that the statute plays a role in the story here. Over at Just Security, Bob Bauer explains why Mueller appears to have pulled a punch:

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“Foreign nationals are plainly prohibited from spending in the manner detailed in the indictment,” Bauer says. “But how the law reaches American co-conspirators is less certain, and the special counsel’s theory of the case, pleading the campaign finance aspect of the case through conspiracy-to-defraud, may allow more securely for the prosecution of American actors.” In other words, American actors like the president’s son. Bauer continues: “Any U.S. citizen who intentionally supported the Russian electoral intervention could be liable. Examples would include U.S. citizens engaged in conversations like those in Trump Tower in summer of 2016, or Don, Jr.’s communications with WikiLeaks about the timing of the release of stolen emails.”

Remember, the “C” word that matters here is “conspiracy,” not “collusion.” And, remember, too, that the president’s latest tweets about Russian interference aren’t just deceptive based on his own past comments. They also are contradicted by actual facts that link the trolling Mueller has identified to the Russian government, itself. The people who know what’s about to happen aren’t talking and the people who are talking don’t know what’s about to happen.

Are the dominoes falling faster?

There’s another reason why the president was so cranky this past weekend. Former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates reportedly is set to turn over state’s evidence, make a deal with Mueller’s team, and incriminate former Trump campaign official Paul Manafort. That’s obviously bad news for Manafort, and it immediately raises the question of whether the pressure he’ll feel from Gates means he’s going to flip, too. And that raises the question of what, precisely, a Manafort plea deal and cooperation agreement with Mueller would mean for President Trump. It certainly wouldn’t be good news.

Even today's news, of the indictment of Alex van der Zwaan, an attorney at a prominent New York-based law firm, should cause worry for Trump and his fellow travelers in and out of the White House. Van der Zwaan has been charged by Mueller with making false statements when asked by investigators about Gates. Maybe this attorney’s statements were so over-the-top false that Mueller had to make an example of him. But if Mueller indicts everyone involved here whom investigators believe made false statements at one point or another, we're going to need a bigger boat.

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Manafort's testimony, alone, could support an obstruction of justice case against the president or Donald Trump, Jr. (or Jared Kushner). Manafort, alone, could incriminate the president and others in a conspiracy case. Friday’s indictment mentioned “unwitting” Americans caught up in the Russian election conspiracy. But that doesn’t mean that Mueller thinks that every American involved here was an “unwitting” accomplice. There already are enough documented contacts between the Russians and the Trump team to create the foundation for a claim that Americans in the Trump camp knowingly and willingly accepted Russian help.

Remember: Gates and Manafort are not charged with helping the Russians undermine our democracy. They are charged with money laundering and bank fraud relating to their activities for the Ukraine. But we see here how Mueller is doing what good prosecutors do in mob cases, or in other cases in which a grand conspiracy may be afoot. Each indictment, each plea deal, each public expression of the private work of the special counsel’s office, is a reminder we are in the midst of an exhaustive, historic investigation into misconduct, and perhaps worse, at the highest levels of American governance.

Andrew Cohen Andrew Cohen, a legal analyst and commentator, is a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice and a senior editor at the Marshall Project.

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