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Mueller's probe bears fruit | Michael Smerconish

Throughout the campaign and in the first nine months of the Trump Administration, his base has supported him - regardless of what he says or does.

In the category of “you can’t make this up”, Carter Page, pictured, texted Michael Smerconish while Smerconish was watching CNN’s breaking coverage about him.
In the category of “you can’t make this up”, Carter Page, pictured, texted Michael Smerconish while Smerconish was watching CNN’s breaking coverage about him.Read morePavel Golovkin / AP

The Russian probe has now entered a new phase, one where facts might trump spin — pun intended.

The charging of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates with tax fraud and money laundering last week, coupled with former Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser George Papadopoulos' guilty plea for lying to federal authorities, guarantees that the outcome of Robert Mueller's investigation will now be determined by the rules of evidence, not the nightly exchange of competing cable TV narratives.

Much has recently come into focus.

We now know that Papadopoulos had conversations about the "emails of Clinton" two months before there'd been any WikiLeaks release of John Podesta's emails and long before any report of the Democratic National Committee having been hacked. Carter Page is another Trump campaign representative who met with Russian representatives, according to a newly released transcript from his House Intelligence Committee interview.  Page did so during a visit to Russia in July of 2016 and reported back to the campaign about the meeting.  So let's place those events within the previously known timeline:

  1. Podesta's email was hacked on March 19, 2016.

  2. On April 26, Papadopoulos met with a professor of international relations who claimed to have substantial connections with Russian government officials, at which time he was told the Russian government had collected "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in "thousands of emails."

  3. On June 3, Donald Trump Jr. was similarly told in an email that Russian representatives wished to provide dirt on Clinton. He then took a meeting on June 9 along with Manafort and Jared Kushner.

  4. On June 14, CrowdStrike detected the DNC hack.

  5. On July 22, WikiLeaks dumped 20,000 DNC emails.

  6. On Oct. 7, within hours of the release of the infamous Access Hollywood tape, WikiLeaks dropped Podesta's hacked emails.

What's clear is that there were many interactions between the Trump campaign and Russian representatives; Papadopoulos, Page, and Trump Jr. all had some degree of contact — not to mention Jeff Sessions' and Michael Flynn's exchanges with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.  What is publicly unknown and most important to Mueller is whether the Trump campaign aided the Russian hacking effort – meaning whether there was actual coordination within the chronology.  At a minimum, the recent developments call into question President Trump's assertion, on Feb. 16 of this year, that he knew of "nobody" from his campaign who'd had contacts with the Russians.  Most interesting to Mueller might be what exactly the president was told at a March 31 meeting where Papadopoulos was present with both Trump and Sessions.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to treat the matter as a political problem, as evidenced by his Twitter storm just before departing for Asia.  Perhaps yielding to the get-tough advice his former adviser Steve Bannon offered on the day Manafort and Gates were charged, Trump dispatched the following missives:

But the only way any of that matters is if the prosecution is derailed or if Congress ignores it.

Without question, throughout the campaign and in the first nine months of the Trump administration, his base has supported him — regardless of what he says or does.  With the Russian probe it seems there will again be no impact of his words and actions — but for the opposite reason.  Because, no matter the president's bluster or tweets or capital letters or threats, Mueller's not listening.

Early last spring, on my Saturday CNN program, Page was scheduled to make his first public response to the breaking news of Russian meddling.  In the category of "you can't make this up," he texted me the night before while I was watching CNN's breaking coverage about him.  I confirmed that we would certainly discuss the story, and mentioned that at the moment, I was both watching the news and planting my summer garden vegetable seeds indoors.

Page replied with a reference to the latest news and my green thumb:

"Your vegetable seeds have a much higher probability of eventually producing something of substance, but sure — it'll be fun!  9 months of fallow ground here, yet still more of the same from the Obama/Clintonite farmer collective …"

My family feasted from the garden all summer. Now Mueller's probe is also bearing fruit.