After 5½ months of speculation, anticipation and, in some cases, dread, Americans on Monday learned of the first charges in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 campaign. Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s onetime campaign chairman and a longtime Republican strategist, along with Rick Gates, Manafort’s business associate and deputy on the Trump campaign, were indicted on 12 counts, including money laundering, operating as unregistered foreign agents, failing to disclose overseas bank accounts and making false statements to federal authorities. (The two men pleaded not guilty on Monday afternoon.) Separately, Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his interactions with a professor with ties to the Russian government.

What does all this mean for Mueller’s ongoing investigation—and for President Trump himself, who has called the probe a “witch hunt”? What’s more significant: Manafort’s and Gates’ charges or Papadopoulos’ plea? And who might be Mueller’s next target? We asked legal experts—former federal prosecutors, law professors, practicing attorneys—to consider what Monday’s developments portend, and while all said the president is so far in the clear, many suggested Mueller’s probe could close in further on his inner circle.




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‘This is just the bottom of the second inning in a long game’

Paul Rosenzweig, former deputy assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security and founder of Red Branch Consulting

Everyone who sails into Trump’s orbit eventually gets burned. Today it is Manafort and his colleague Gates. If the Manafort allegations are true, he and Gates engaged in an extensive scheme to launder Ukrainian money and avoid taxes. And possibly none of it would have come to light if Manafort had never gone to work for Trump’s campaign.

Now the game changes in two ways. First, all eyes will be on Manafort. Will he cooperate with the investigation? Or will he hold out hope of a presidential pardon? If he were to choose to cooperate, the special counsel would now have the testimony of a Trump campaign insider, and that would be the quickest way possible to get to the bottom of what (if anything) happened during the election cycle involving Russian interference and allegations of cooperation.

Second, the Papadopoulos charges make it clear that the collusion investigation has potential substance. Although Papadopoulos appears to be a relatively minor player, the charges are littered with references to senior campaign officials, whose identities are obviously known to the special counsel. They, in turn, are now also subjects of his investigation.

In short, the game has just begun. Don’t expect a resolution anytime soon—this is just the bottom of the second inning in a long game.



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‘I wouldn’t bet on these being the last charges’

David Sklansky, professor at Stanford Law School

This is obviously a major development. We’ve known that Manafort ran Trump’s campaign during a critical period, after working for years in Ukraine for the pro-Russia strongman Viktor Yanukovych. The indictment charges that Manafort and Gates concealed their ties to Ukraine and to pro-Russia Ukrainian politicians, illegally operated as foreign agents inside the United States without making the disclosures required by law, laundered more than $18 million, evaded taxes, personally enriched themselves through the scheme and then lied about it to the Justice Department.

The charges will make it a good deal harder for Trump and his supporters to dismiss the allegations of Russian involvement with his campaign. It looks like some of those supporters are already beginning to pivot to the argument that the collusion began and ended with Manafort. The Fox News website this morning was reporting that Mueller got “his man.” But that went up before Papadopoulos’ guilty plea was unsealed. And this is an ongoing investigation; I wouldn’t bet on these being the last charges. For one thing, the charges put considerable pressure on Manafort and Gates to cooperate with Mueller and his team. Papadopoulos may already be cooperating. And with or without any of that cooperation, the developments this morning suggest that the prosecutors and agents working on this case know what they are doing: They can follow money trails designed not to be followed, they can unravel complicated webs of deceit and collusion crossing international borders, and they can do this relatively rapidly.



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‘If this isn’t evidence of collusion … it is hard to see what is’

Samuel Buell, law professor at Duke University and a former federal prosecutor who led the Justice Department’s prosecution of Enron Corporation

The stories so far today are burying the lede. Yes, Manafort has been indicted for very serious felonies, and the details in the indictment suggest that his legal situation is very bleak, maybe even dire. Those allegations do not, so far, directly relate to the issue of Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

However, the special counsel also revealed today that he has entered a cooperation agreement with, and obtained a guilty plea from, a former Trump campaign official who appears prepared to testify—with extensive documentary corroboration—about efforts to obtain information from Russian officials to use against Hillary Clinton, including attempts to link the provision of that information to the fostering of a relationship between Trump and the Russian government. If this isn’t evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians to help Trump secure the White House, it is hard to see what is. Why isn’t this a bombshell?



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‘Does not bode well for others associated with Trump’s campaign who have allegedly made similar false statements’

Lori E. Lightfoot, attorney at Mayer Brown and former assistant U.S. attorney in the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois

The special prosecutor’s indictment against Manafort and Gates reflects a very comprehensive investigation into the two men’s activities over many years and demonstrates a detailed analysis of foreign entities and banking transactions, interviews with an array of witnesses, as well as extensive analysis of domestic and foreign bank records and email correspondence. The indictment alleges a range of criminal conduct on their part, namely the extent of the alleged fraud to (1) hide Manafort’s direct involvement in being a foreign agent of the Ukrainian government and its former president; (2) the extensive network of offshore entities created to allegedly launder money and shield Manafort’s earnings from U.S. tax laws; (3) the various methods allegedly used to repatriate the allegedly ill-gotten gains; (4) the blatant fraud against the banks that were induced to provide mortgages to properties in New York, Florida and Virginia; and (5) the foolish attempt to lie to the Justice Department when it began to investigate in 2016 and create a false narrative, which appears to have been memorialized in writing to third parties.

The fact of failing to properly register as a foreign agent, as well as making false statements to the government when inquiries were made, does not bode well for others associated with Trump’s campaign who have allegedly made similar false statements and potentially criminal omissions in their work on behalf of foreign agents and governments.

Another interesting aspect of the indictment is the level of detail laying out the prosecution’s case against Manafort and Gates. There are approximately 23 pages of narrative before the substantive counts are set forth. This is not necessarily unusual in complex white-collar fraud cases, but the risk that every prosecutor takes in making such detailed disclosures is that they must be able to back up the detail with facts. Some prosecutors would opt to shrink the size of the target for the defense to attack by presenting a bare-bones true bill to the grand jury, but here, these very experienced prosecutors chose to lay out the scope of the fraud in expansive detail. One can only wonder if they are responding to the repeated comments from Trump that the special prosecutor’s investigations are “fake news.” To some extent, the indictment is the detailed “statement” from the prosecution that Mueller and his team could not otherwise give under the constraints of DOJ ethics rules.

Note, however, that the indictment makes no mention of Manafort or Gates vis-à-vis the Trump campaign or leveraging the campaign to revive contacts with the former Ukrainian president or anything connected to Russia. This guilty plea by Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos potentially has more importance than the Manafort-Gates indictment in making the direct connection between Trump campaign. Papadopoulos is obviously small fish, but that’s how larger cases are built, step by step.

A couple of final small points. The Manafort-Gates indictment shows a judge assignment date of October 27, which means the indictment was likely returned by the grand jury on the 26th or 27th and presumably kept under seal. So, the fact that the grand jury voted to charge the defendants was not immediately disclosed to the public, as would usually happen. It is also interesting that the indictment was brought by a grand jury sitting in Washington, D.C., and not Northern Virginia, where previous reporting suggested the case was being run. There has to be some factual connection between the alleged criminal conduct and the jurisdiction where the grand jury sits. It would have been easy enough to establish that in the northern district of Virginia, since that’s where Manafort has a home. One has to wonder whether Washington was chosen not so much because of the Manafort case, but because of the larger investigation, and particularly the obstruction investigation.



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‘The real story here is Papadopoulos’

Peter Zeidenberg, partner at Arent Fox who served as assistant special counsel in the prosecution of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby

Manafort is a distraction. He is potential evidence of collusion, and the bright, shiny object everyone will be chasing in the short term. The real story here is Papadopoulos. He is the key. He is going to take down multiple campaign officials and advisers.



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‘A lot will depend on Trump’s eventual interview with Mueller about obstruction of justice’

Norman Eisen, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, chief White House ethics lawyer from 2009 to 2011, and ambassador to the Czech Republic from 2011 to 2014

The investigation is proceeding full steam ahead, with reference to both the Manafort and Gates indictment and the revelation that Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty. Trump is feeling the heat, as shown by his and his allies increasingly hysterical efforts to discredit the special counsel, and to gin up stale and unpersuasive alternative scandals like Uranium One. Trump is stuck: If he fires Mueller, he will only make things worse (as happened when he fired FBI Director James Comey); if Trump lets Mueller stay, the indictments and pleas will pile up. The wisest course is to let Mueller proceed and hope that he at least concludes that Trump himself did nothing wrong. A lot will depend on Trump’s eventual interview with Mueller about obstruction of justice—the president will have to convince this indomitable special counsel that he had no corrupt intent, and that won’t be so easy, as I have previously argued.



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‘A potentially devastating message to Trump and his inner circle’

Mark S. Zaid, national security attorney in Washington, D.C.

The indictments today of Manafort and Gates, along with Papadopoulos’ unsealed guilty plea, sends a potentially devastating message to Trump and his inner circle. During criminal investigations of this scope, particularly when they involve individuals who have wide-ranging foreign enterprises or endeavors, there are often peripheral matters that come to light that can raise criminal culpability that has little or nothing to do with the initial allegation that started the investigation in the first place. Not surprisingly, the indictment contains charges of false and misleading statements to the government, which is often where individuals create liability for themselves. Even though this first salvo from the special counsel’s office does not directly relate to Russia or activities of the campaign, if this action today says anything, it is a warning to the president’s lawyers to somehow make sure Trump is never interviewed by investigators, or to delay that as long as possible. Given Trump’s history with legal matters, especially depositions, the danger for him to create criminal liability for himself seems astounding.



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‘It is still not clear whether this will ever lead to charges against Trump’

Laurie L. Levinson, professor at Loyola Law School

This is a pretty classic investigation, and the case against Manafort looks pretty solid based on the details in the indictment. It is always best if prosecutors can rely on the defendant's own words and documents, rather than just a cooperating witnesses. Here, they may have both—Papadopoulos and a mountain of documents, tapes and lies.

However, it is still not clear whether this will ever lead to charges against Trump. It appears that only Papadopoulos may have made a deal, and he may not know enough to directly link Trump to the activities of others in his campaign. Manafort and Gates may be betting on a pardon or feel that they can challenge the prosecution on other grounds. The stakes are high for everyone, and the big question is: Who will be next? Jared Kushner? Others involved in the campaign? Michael Flynn? The indictment certainly undermines Trump's claim that this is a witch hunt, but the biggest question still has not been answered: What did Trump know and when?



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‘Mueller will try to use leverage to obtain evidence against other ‘dominoes’”

Alan Dershowitz, emeritus professor of law at Harvard University

Mueller now has leverage against Manafort and Gates. He will try to use that leverage to obtain evidence against other “dominoes,” which he hopes may lead to the Big Domino in the Oval Office. Trump could cut this off by pardoning Manafort and Gates. But while the president has the constitutional power to pardon anyone, it would be politically costly.



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‘Whatever Papadopoulos lied about is more likely to be directly connected to the campaign’

Robert Weisberg, professor at Stanford Law School

I am somewhat more interested in Papadopoulos’ guilty plea than in the charges against Manafort and Gates. Whatever Papadopoulos lied about is more likely to be directly connected to the campaign than what is now being charged against the others. And whatever possible contingencies are built into Papadopoulos’ plea, in terms of expectations to testify, those could evolve in interesting ways.



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‘There will be lots of speculation today … but at this stage it can only be speculation'

Alex Whiting, professor at Harvard Law School focusing on domestic and international criminal prosecution issues, and a former federal prosecutor

The question on many people’s minds today upon hearing the news that Manafort and Gates have been charged will be: Where is this headed? And the answer is, we (the public) do not know, and Mueller may not know either. We do not know whether we are at the beginning, middle or end of this story, and we won’t know until the investigation has had a chance to fully play itself out.

At the moment, Manafort and Gates have been charged with serious financial crimes, including money laundering, related to their work as unregistered agents of the government of Ukraine. Will these charges lead to further charges against them and others related to collusion with Russians in the campaign? Complex investigations such as these unfold and develop over time, and it remains to be seen whether today’s charges will encourage others to come forward with information, either because they see the seriousness of the investigation or because they are concerned that they could face criminal charges themselves.

The charges against Manafort and Gates suggest that they themselves are not cooperating with the investigation, but that too could change. The news that Papadopoulos pleaded guilty and is cooperating with prosecutors is more significant, because there is a tie to the collusion investigation, but we do not yet know what he is telling the investigators. So, there will be lots of speculation today about what these first criminal charges mean, but at this stage it can only be speculation. Only after the investigation progresses will we know whether this is a story about fraud and corruption (like the case charged today) or about a larger story of collusion with the Russians, and will we know whether it is a story about criminal charges against small and medium fish, or against the bigger fish.