Russia probe

A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia –notably not in DC–has returned a new indictment against former Trump campaign aides Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, Special Counsel Robert Mueller announced in a court filing a short time ago.

The 32-count indictment is separate and apart from the pending case against the two men in federal court in Washington, D.C. Mueller told the DC court in the filing that the allegations in the indictment did not give rise to venue in DC and that the defendants had declined to waive venue, forcing Mueller to proceed in Virginia.

The new indictment alleges assorted financial misdeeds involving tax returns, bank fraud, and foreign banks and accounts.

Over the weekend, several prominent news media figures announced themselves as Trump/Russia skeptics. Politico’s Blake Hounshell seemed to kick off the discussion with this essay. This isn’t “fake news” type skepticism. It’s much more focused and I think reasonable. These folks fully grant the extensive and multi-pronged Russian effort to interfere in the 2016 election. That involved fake news, email hacking, and multiple approaches to Trump associates to gauge interest in working together. The skepticism is whether we’ll ever find a proven and explicit agreement between President Trump and Vladimir Putin or some other similarly high-level Russian official to collaborate in subverting the 2016 election. If not documented proof of such an agreement then at least well-attested evidence of the same. Read More