Two stunning developments in the special counsel’s investigation shed light on investigators’ focus on President Trump as a main subject of interest. (Video: Jenny Starrs /Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
As special counsel Robert S. Mueller III moves toward the summation of his investigation — and whatever his eventual report produces — there is no escaping the sleaze factor that existed around President Trump before and during his campaign for the White House in 2016.
It was there in the presence of Paul Manafort, who arrived at the campaign in the spring of 2016 and lasted until embarrassing and continued disclosures about his past work with pro-Russian officials in Ukraine forced him to step aside, and whose recent plea agreement was tossed outthis past week because prosecutors say he has continued to lie to them.
It was there in the presence of Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime personal lawyer and fixer, who did the deals and arranged the payoffs that were designed to suppress damaging allegations about Trump and other women during the final months of the campaign and whose new guilty plea about lying to Congress has put renewed focus on the president’s words and actions.
View the complete December 1 article by Dan Balz on The Washington Post website here.