Donald Trump Labeled ‘Individual 1,’ Main Subject Of Interest In Mueller Probe

President Donald Trump this week was given a legal code name as a major person of interest in special counsel Robert Mueller‘s inquiry: “Individual 1.”

Mueller continues to investigate Russian meddling during the 2016 election, including potential collusion between Trump associates and Moscow. Trump has repeatedly attacked the probe as a “witch hunt” despite the special counsel producing multiple indictments and guilty pleas. “Individual 1” is a term that is often used in criminal investigations, and it was used to refer to Trump in his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen‘s guilty plea.

According to The Washington Post, new documents reveal investigators possess evidence that Trump maintained close communication with members of his inner circle as they in turn contacted WikiLeaks, the Kremlin and other individuals and organizations over the course of the 2016 campaign.

One particular development his week that appears to have drawn further ire from the president is Cohen’s new plea deal. The “fixer” pleaded guilty in New York on Thursday to lying to Congress about a reported Trump Tower real estate deal in Moscow in 2016. After traveling to Buenos Aires, Argentina for the G20 Summit, Trump blasted Mueller yet again for preparing to investigate whether or not the former Apprentice host himself was involved in the project.

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Some legal experts have said they believe the special counsel may have already directly subpoenaed Trump as part of the Russia probe. The president recently said he would submit his written answers to Mueller’s questions about his actions in 2016 related to alleged communications with Moscow, among other issues.

Cohen had initially told lawmakers that there would be no plans for the Trump Tower Moscow building after January 2016, but it was later revealed that the project continued being developed for several more months, up until around June 2016.

The Post reported that Trump’s name also appears in a document for his ally Jerome Corsi, a conservative political commentator and conspiracy theorist who allegedly told former Trump adviser Roger Stone, an associate of Corsi’s, about WikiLeaks’ plot to publish deleterious emails and information about Hillary Clinton and other Democrats in 2016. Prosecutors unsuccessfully tried to get Corsi to plead guilty to lying about his knowledge of WikiLeaks’ plans.

Despite all this, 72-year-old Corsi said this week in an interview on MSNBC that he lied and that he is prepared to die in jail for his crimes.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who is set to become the next chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, blasted Trump for lying about his business interests in Russia. Schiff’s comments came after prosecutors’ filings demonstrated they have corroborated Cohen’s testimony with those of several witnesses.

“This is obviously a significant plea and statement. It means that when the president was representing during the campaign that he had no business interests in Russia, that that wasn’t true,” Schiff told The Post. “If the president and his associates were being untruthful in real time as they were pursuing this deal, what does it mean now about how much we can rely on what the president is saying about any continuing Russian financial interest?”

Article by Pablo Mena

Writer for uPolitics.com. NY Giants and Rangers fan. Film and TV enthusiast (especially Harry Potter and The Office) and lover of foreign languages and cultures.