Shadows lengthen over Donald Trump's presidency with December pleas and sentences

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Kevin Johnson, Bart Jansen and Brad Heath, USA TODAY Published 8:29 a.m. ET Dec. 30, 2018

Less than a month after declaring his long-shot candidacy for president in 2015, Donald Trump told a Las Vegas gathering he would get along “very nicely” with Russian President Vladimir Putin and there was no need to continue U.S. sanctions against Russia. “I know Putin,” Trump said at the FreedomFest libertarian conference. “I’ll tell you what: We get along with Putin.”

The encounter meant little in the early days of a campaign that many regarded as another Trump exercise in personal vanity. But three years later, the episode involving young Russian gun-rights activist Maria Butina marks one of the earliest known and most direct efforts in the Russian government’s campaign to probe the U.S. political system and Trump's unlikely ascendancy within it.

Earlier this month, Butina pleaded guilty to serving as an unregistered agent of the Kremlin. Although her case was not brought by Russia special counsel Robert Mueller, the disclosures in Butina's case were among several recent developments that have brought a series of federal investigations closer into focus.

The fast-moving events in the final weeks of 2018 also included documents outlining a wide range of criminal conduct implicating some of the president's former closest aides.

Together, these cases have offered vivid accounts of the forces that now threaten Trump's presidency.

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https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/12/30/forces-threaten-donald-trumps-presidency-robert-mueller/2347032002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatodaycomwashington-topstories

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