They'll be sweating bullets in the White House

The one-two punch of the Manafort and Gates indictment, followed by the Papadopoulos plea deal just over an hour later, [...] suggested that Mueller was taking the hostile political climate into consideration. Before Monday, many observers thought Manafort was the likeliest subject of an expected indictment. But the Papadopoulos revelations came as a complete surprise and undermined conservative talking points.

“Not only does this suggest that Mueller is taking into account the optics and the politics of the moment, but that he’s actually trying to take advantage of them to maximize the clout of the investigation and to control the narrative,” Vladeck said.

Other filings released Monday revealed Papadopoulos was actively cooperating with Mueller’s investigation as part of his plea deal. “One assumes that the plea deal was in exchange for something” on Papadopoulos’s part, Vladeck said. “And the ‘something’ is clearly not related to the Manafort indictment. So the real question is, what exactly did Papadopoulos give up?”

Papadopoulos’s plea agreement was initially sealed. According to a motion filed in July, were its particulars publicly known at the time, they would have hampered his ability to work on behalf of investigators as a “proactive cooperator.” According to Barrett, that phrase could refer to Papadopoulos “having law enforcement-monitored meetings,” including wearing a wire or arranging “calls or emails with other subjects of the investigation who are unaware that he is cooperating with the government.”

[...]

“[Mueller]’s setting up the scene,” said Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who now runs a security firm called the Soufan Group. He noted that the special counsel could file additional charges in the future. “This indictment is a living document,” Soufan explained. “It’s going to continue to change based on the evidence and on the investigative strategy of the special counsel.”

Most importantly, the filings and indictments signified that Mueller’s wide-ranging investigation is nowhere near over.

  The Atlantic

Starting on the outer edge and tightening the noose. The hunter encircles the prey.

“Manafort might be a bigger fish, but Papadopoulos is a bigger story,” said Steve Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor. “To me, this is the kind of plea deal that puts the c-word—collusion—back on the table.”

It's the first time I've thought it might be an actual claim to be litigated.  More and more interesting.