Article snippet: Special counsel Robert Mueller on Monday revealed the first charges in his investigation of Russia’s election interference, dramatically escalating a probe that had been kept tightly under wraps. In back-to-back bombshells, Mueller indicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on nine criminal counts, including money laundering and tax fraud, and announced that another Trump aide, George Papadopoulos, had pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators about his contacts with Russians. The 12-count indictment against Manafort, 68, also includes charges against Richard Gates, a long-time business associate who also worked on the Trump campaign. Both Manafort and Gates pleaded not guilty at their arraignment on Monday afternoon. The White House on Monday downplayed the charges against Manafort and Gates, saying they had nothing to do with the campaign and did not show collusion with Russia. Yet the court documents unsealed Monday morning represented a clear warning shot at other potential targets of Mueller’s investigation. The documents related to Papadopoulos, the 30-year-old foreign policy adviser, provide perhaps the most concrete evidence yet that the campaign may have been aware of the Russian government’s attempts to help Trump win the White House. Papadopoulos in January insisted during an interview with the FBI that he was not part of the Trump campaign when he spoke with a professor known to have connections to the Kremlin. The professor told hi... Link to the full article to read more