There remains much to understand about former national security advisor Michael Flynn’s plea agreement, which states that he lied to FBI agents about conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition. Who directed Michael Flynn’s conversations with Sergey Kislyak? Mueller also points out in Cohen’s plea that Cohen appears to have scuttled a trip to Russia to work on the deal on the very day that the DNC announced it had been hacked, odd timing at least. But he stops short of saying anything about how the Trump team reacted-or what instructions, if any, they gave Cohen. Michael Cohen’s plea agreement only lays out that the president’s former lawyer and fixer repeatedly briefed Trump and members of the Trump Organization’s leadership on his progress on the Trump Tower Moscow project. Who directed the campaign’s contact with Roger Stone-and what flowed back and forth? Given that foundation of knowledge, it’s worth examining some of the “known unknowns,” places where Mueller has been silent but where he presumably knows far more than he’s chosen to say. Long before the House Intelligence Committee today kicked over a few dozen transcripts, Mueller amassed some 290,000 documents from Michael Cohen, tons more from the Trump transition team, and what the White House says is 1.4 million documents it turned over voluntarily, among countless other files, documents, reports, and classified raw intelligence. In fact, the one thing that remains clear is just how much Mueller knows: He’s uncovered “track changes” in individual Microsoft Word documents, he’s referenced what specific words Russian military intelligence officers Googled three years ago, and even what the hired trolls inside the Internet Research Agency wrote to family members. The Stone indictment is the latest court filing to show two-way conversation, flowing from Trump to WikiLeaks or Trump to Moscow and back again, without ever making clear what, precisely, was flowing back or forth. Mueller presumably has far more knowledge about the “why” and the “what” of the interactions between Trump’s orbit and Russia than he’s shared so far. Trump has emerged from those conversations to spout Kremlin talking points, even, apparently, calling The New York Times from Air Force One on the way back from Hamburg to argue Putin’s point that he didn’t interfere with the 2016 election. If he’s truly advocating for the United States in these meetings, there’s no sign those conversations have translated into any action by White House or administration staff afterwards. It followed a now familiar pattern: Mueller’s court filing included voluminous detail, including insight into the internal decisionmaking process of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign-and yet the indictment stopped short of alleging that Stone was part of a larger conspiracy.
Meanwhile, Roger Stone-himself indicted, in part, because of his alleged lies to Congress and witness tampering that encouraged his associates “to do a ‘Frank Pentangeli,’” a reference to a Godfather Part II character who lied to Congress-continues his bizarre post-indictment media road show.Ī close reading of the Stone indictment shows the odd hole at the center of the Mueller investigation so far. Then, Wednesday morning, the House Intelligence Committee-in its first meeting of the new congress-voted to hand over witness transcripts from its own Russia investigation to special counsel Robert Mueller, a move widely understood to be motivated by the belief of Democratic members that various witnesses, including perhaps Donald Trump Jr., have lied to them.
News came Monday that federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York served a wide-ranging subpoena digging into the finances of the Trump inaugural committee. It’s only Wednesday, but the increasingly sprawling investigations surrounding President Donald Trump this week have already sprawled even further.
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