The warrant was personally approved by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and carried out by the public corruption unit of the SDNY. Geoffrey Berman, the interim head of the SDNY, was recused from the matter; a Trump appointee, he had worked as a volunteer attorney on the Trump campaign. Further, due to the sensitive nature of the raid and the attorney–client privilege, a special "taint" team is required to review the documents to carefully separate out privileged and protected documents that may have been seized in the raid to ensure those inadmissible documents are not passed on to investigators. Legal blogger and former federal prosecutor Ken White of Popehat published a New York Times op-ed giving some background on the DOJ procedures required to approve such a raid, saying the search "suggests that the prosecutors believe they can convince a judge that communications between Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen fall under the crime-fraud exception" of attorney-client privilege. It called the raid "highly dangerous" for both Cohen and Trump. White posted further analysis on Popehat, citing section 9-13.320 [sic] [recte 9-13.420] of the United States Attorneys' Manual, which sets the guidelines and regulations for searches of attorney premises.
Mueller took over an existing money laundering investigation into former Trump campaign chairman Manafort. On October 30, 2017, a federal grand jury indicted Manafort and his associate Rick Gates on charges including conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts, being an unregistered agent of foreign principal, false and misleading FARA statements, and false statements. Manafort's financial activities are also being investigated by the Senate and House intelligence committees, the New York Attorney General, and the Manhattan District Attorney.
More InfoMueller's investigators also asked about the relationship between Roger Stone and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and why Trump took policy positions favorable to Russia. Stone, a longtime Republican "dirty trickster" and Trump confidant repeatedly discussed his backchannel communications with Assange and claimed knowledge of forthcoming leaks from Wikileaks. He also exchanged Twitter private messages with Guccifer 2.0, which American intelligence connected to two Russian intelligence groups that cybersecurity analysts have concluded hacked Democratic National Committee emails. The New York Times reported on November 1, 2018, that Stone and Steve Bannon exchanged emails in October 2016 about Assange's intent to release documents, and that Bannon and other former senior Trump campaign officials told Mueller's investigators of Stone's assertions that he was a conduit to Wikileaks and seemed aware of imminent document releases, although the "top tier" of the campaign was skeptical of Stone's claims. Reuters reported on May 16, 2018, that Mueller's office subpoenaed Stone's social media strategist, Jason Sullivan, the prior week to testify before a grand jury on May 18 and to provide documents, objects and electronically stored information. Reuters reported the next day that John Kakanis, Stone's driver, accountant and operative, was also subpoenaed.
More InfoThe FBI launched an investigation of Trump for obstruction of justice a few days after the May 9 firing of Comey. The special prosecutor's office took over the obstruction of justice investigation and has reportedly interviewed Director of National Intelligence Coats, Director of the National Security Agency Rogers, and Deputy Director of the NSA Richard Ledgett. ABC News reported in June that Mueller was gathering preliminary information about possible obstruction of justice, but a full-scale investigation had not been launched. On June 16, Trump tweeted: "I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt." However, Trump's lawyer Jay Sekulow said Trump's tweet was referring to the June 14 Washington Post report that he was under investigation for obstruction of justice, and that Trump has not actually been notified of any investigation.
More InfoThe New York Times reported on April 9, 2018, that the Mueller investigation is examining a $150,000 donation Victor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian billionaire, made in September 2015 to the Donald J. Trump Foundation in exchange for a 20-minute appearance Trump made via video link to a conference in Kiev. This transaction came to light in documents the Trump Organization provided to investigators pursuant to a subpoena earlier in 2018. The donation, the largest the Foundation received in 2015 other than from Trump himself, was solicited by his attorney, Michael Cohen. The Times reported that the subpoena had demanded "documents, emails and other communications about several Russians, including some whose names have not been publicly tied to Mr. Trump".
More InfoShortly before firing him, Trump asked then-FBI Director James Comey to drop the investigation into a member of the Trump Campaign, former National Security Advisor Flynn. In March, Trump reportedly discussed the FBI's Russia investigation with Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and then CIA Director Mike Pompeo (who is currently serving as Secretary of State as of April 26, 2018), and asked if they could intervene with Comey to limit or stop it. When he was asked at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about the report, Coats said he would not discuss conversations he had with the president but "I have never felt pressured to intervene in the Russia investigation in any way." Before being appointed Director of National Intelligence by Trump, Coats had been an elected Republican politician since 1981, serving in both the House and Senate.
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