Manafort Indictment Begins a Complicated Story

So now we know how this game of Clue starts: Paul Manafort with a wire transfer in the parlor. But Democrats who are getting revved up for special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation to follow the money from Russia to Donald Trump's campaign shouldn't get too excited, at least not yet.The indictment of Manafort and his associate Rick Gates means that this investigation is going deep into the weeds. Once it's there, it could become permanently entangled with arcane bank accounts, front companies with weird names and pro-Russian Ukrainians.The problem with the Manafort route, for the anti-Trump crowd, is that it may be extremely difficult to craft a clear, publicly digestible narrative of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.Sure, it's conceivable that under threat of prison, Manafort or Gates or both could testify that they carried messages from Russian officials and delivered them to Trump himself, or that they took messages back to the Russians.  Continue reading...