Understanding the Russia Investigations: Manafort and Gates

On Oct. 31, it was revealed that Paul Manafort and Rick Gates had been indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller. Paul Manafort was a member of the Trump campaign from March 29 through August 19, 2016. During this time, he was campaign chairman from May 19 until his departure. Rick Gates was Manafort’s protege and associate prior to his involvement with the Trump campaign; he joined the Trump campaign...

While the majority of these indictments do specifically relate to events that happened pre-Trump, it is nonetheless important that two alleged foreign agents of Ukraine did have a favorable impact on the campaign of a now-elected president. The indictment document itself also reads, “Between at least 2006 and 2015,” which contradicts the notion that this was, as President Trump puts it, “yea...

Many politically left-leaning news sources, such as CNN, have been focusing on the conspiracy charges over the monetary charges (such as failure to report). While these are incredibly important charges, specifically the charge of conspiracy against the United States, it is important to note that the conspiracy charge does not equate to collusion or to treason, which are separate crimes. (Conspirac...

The bias for right-leaning reporting isn’t necessarily an exaggeration of the importance of some facts, but is instead a near-complete turning away these events. In the case of these two prominent indictments, many right-leaning outlets, such as Fox News, have been choosing to not cover the developments. One example of this issue has been the consistent coverage of supposed collusion between the ...

In the case of these indictments, many center news outlets, such as BBC News and PBS, have been reliable in their reporting and interpretations. However, there is nonetheless a constant issue with drawing conclusions on the significance of political developments like these that plagues all media outlets.