Today marks the one-year anniversary of Robert Mueller’s appointment as special counsel in the investigation of the Trump campaign’s contact and relationships with Russia. For all the talk of the president’s lawyers and the vice president about how it’s time to “wrap it up[1],” the truth is that for a federal investigation, Mueller’s probe has moved with impressive rapidity—and, contrary to the president’s repeated assertions of a “witch hunt,” the validity of the investigation has gotten more solid with every passing month.
Today, the first person sentenced to prison in Mueller’s probe, a Dutch lawyer who lied about his knowledge of campaign chair Paul Manafort’s past business dealing is Inmate #35255-016, serving his prison sentence at Allenwood Federal Correctional Institution in Pennsylvania.
Mueller’s inquiry has also resulted in guilty pleas from Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, campaign aide Rick Gates, and campaign aide George Papadopoulos, as well as two others swept[2] up in the case. Manafort himself is preparing for trial on dozens of charges; if found guilty on all of them, he could face more than 300 years of prison time. Contradicting the “witch hunt” language, a judge just this week upheld[3] the charges against Manafort, saying that the former campaign chair’s work with Trump makes him a natural target for the former Mueller’s investigators. Mueller’s team of investigators[4] also charged[5] 13 Russians and three Russian companies with interfering in the election.
That’s just the formal charges. The probe—and its ever-expanding implications—has had a much wider impact on the president’s circle: It has led to the withdrawal of the president’s nominee to be ambassador to Singapore[6], as well as the withdrawal[7] of a former senior