it s a far flung web of charges that so far does not in any way implicate the president himself. the new york times reports mueller could be trying to leverage that information to get closer to the white house. his friends said his indictment is an effort to pressure him into providing him to provide information to the campaign. i want to bring in jennifer rogers, and ben wittes, nbc legal analyst and editor-in-chief of law fair blog. a must read always. ben, what do you make of this? well, so there s a lot of confusing aspects of it. first of all, i think it is an effort to ratchet up the pressure on both manafort and gates. the new charges are much more focused on financial crime which was a significant element of the previous set. and less focused on you know, on things like foreign agents
previous set. and less focused on you know, on things like foreign agents registration violations. it s a more money-based indictment. and i think it, you know, there s some confusion today about you know, this case was brought across the river from the other one in virginia, not in washington. and there are conflicting reports this evening abouting whether rick gates is or is not in a near a plea agreement and who his counsel is going to be at this point. so there s a fair bit of confusion but i think it s clearly you know, a ratcheting up of pressure by the special prosecutor against two people who are already in a world of trouble. i agree. i agree. it s clearly ratcheting up the pressure. it s also in some ways a fairly typical move because as a case goes on and gets closer to