Paul Manafort was the biggest name in the indictments released Monday by Robert Mueller, but the charges announced against George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign foreign policy advisor, dealt more directly with campaign activities.
Papadopoulos, who was arrested in July and cut a deal with Mueller earlier this month, allegedly attempted to contact Russian officials in order to facilitate a meeting between Trump and high-level Russian officials.
Tony Podesta is stepping down as the head of his powerhouse lobbying firm, The Podesta Group, per Politico. The firm got pulled into Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation over public relations work it completed on behalf of Paul Manafort to promote Ukrainian interests in the United States. Podesta's brother John was Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman.
Why it matters: Podesta is a huge power player in DC lobbying, so his departure will shake up K Street in a big way. It also shows just how far-reaching the consequences of the Mueller probe might be for some big names in Washington who don't have any connection to the Trump administration.
A federal court in Washington has temporarily blocked the implementation of President Trump's order barring transgender individuals from serving in the military, per AP.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled Monday transgender members of the military who had sued over the change were likely to win their case, and that the ban cannot be enforced while the case works it way through the court. However, the judge denied the plaintiff's motion to block the ban on funds for gender reassignment surgery.
Paul Manafort and Rick Gates will appear at 1:30 p.m. before U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson at the D.C. federal courthouse, per the Special Counsel's office. Manafort is reportedly surrendering in Special Counsel Bob Mueller's probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, facing charges including conspiracy against the U.S. and tax fraud.
Be smart: Manafort's charges don't include Russian collusion — in fact, all of the charges he's facing come from before his Trump campaign days — but it's a legal development that makes Trump's claim of a "witch hunt" harder to believe. Mueller is likely trying to use these charges to leverage Manafort to reveal information about the Trump campaign, which could lead to future indictments.
Rick Gates, along with Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, has been indicted in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe. Gates has been described by the New York Times as Manafort's "protégé," and retained a central role in Trump's campaign and inaugural committee thanks to his mentor.
Get smart: "[He could] go to jail because his long-term partner decided to go work for Donald Trump," Paul Rosenzweig, former deputy secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security, told Axios. "What he did likely would not have seen the light of day...He's my Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer squared character in this drama...the man whose life is ruined by being sucked into the Trump tornado."
Roger Stone — the flamboyant on-again, off-again, Trump adviser — had his Twitter account locked this weekend after savage attacks, by name, on CNN personalities following the network's scoop on Friday that Mueller had his first indictment ready.
"Trump is likely to announce Federal Reserve governor Jerome Powell as his nominee to be the next chairman of the U.S. central bank next week," the Wall Street Journal's Kate Davidson and Peter Nicholas report. Trump said last week he had "somebody very specific in mind."
"Powell would take the helm of the central bank in early February, when Chairwoman Janet Yellen's four-year term expires."
"Powell, a Republican who served as a Treasury Department official in the George H.W. Bush administration, joined the Fed board in 2012 and was confirmed for a full term in 2014."
Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), "whose final term as governor ends in 2018 ... knows he faces a strategic imperative: He must dramatically expand his name recognition in this fallow period before the next race begins," New York magazine's Lisa Miller writes:
Why it matters: "Kasich 2020 is not just a media proposition. Kasich is a sitting governor exploring a run against a president of his own party — a starkly unusual circumstance. He retains a skeletal campaign staff, and they are helping him to think through his options: Should he run as a Republican in the primaries or as an Independent in the general election?"
