“President Donald J. Trump has been fully briefed on this matter and is glad to see the Special Counsel’s investigation further indicates—that there was NO COLLUSION between the Trump campaign,” declared a statement from the office of Press Secretary Sarah Sanders.
Indeed, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in announcing the charges stated: “There is no allegation in this indictment that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity.”
That’s true. The president’s extrapolation that no allegation of collusion being “in this indictment” proves “NO COLLUSION” occurred has no basis in reality, though. The indictment itself offered a number of potential clues about where special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation might be going next.
Bloomberg News, in fact, reported that the indictment “should be seen as a limited slice of a comprehensive investigation,” according to a person with knowledge of the probe.
Here are some of the other potential slices that have emerged in the past 24 hours, including key portions of the indictment itself:
• In conjunction with Friday’s indictment, Mueller’s office unsealed a guilty plea for identity fraud by Richard Pinedo of Santa Paula, California, making Pinedo the third known cooperator in Mueller’s probe. Between 2014 and November of last year, Pinedo used his company “Auction Essistance” to sell access to fraudulently obtained bank account numbers using stolen identities. This would dovetail with how the Russians allegedly funded their illicit campaign efforts.
• On Thursday evening, CNN reported that Rick Gates was likely nearing his own plea deal with Mueller’s investigators. Gates was the deputy to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and both men were indicted last year by Mueller. If Gates flips, he will have to either testify against Manafort—tightening the noose around the neck of Trump’s heavily Russia-connected former deputy—or provide new and damning information against the campaign.
• The indictment says that the Russians sought to infiltrate the Trump campaign: “Some Defendants, posing as U.S. persons and without revealing their Russian association, communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities.”
• The indictment mentioned that there are unnamed co-conspirators “known and unknown to the Grand Jury.” Pinedo might be one of these figures, but that leaves an open question as to who the others are.
• The Russians were not initially sophisticated in their knowledge of American politics, to the point that they sought out American political actors to learn the basics:
Source: Slate News
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