It is well known that one method of taking down a powerful person is to pick off the low hanging fruit first — their less powerful underlings. The “little people” don’t always have the connections or the wealth to fight back as hard. Months of bad press can taint their reputations, which then taint the reputation of the big guy. Prosecutors can offer the targets plea deals for lighter sentences in exchange for relaying negative info about the boss.

Trump’s enemies are doing this to those around him, mainly under the guise of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Mueller’s team includes 17 attorneys, multiple staff members and the unlimited pockets of the taxpayers. Roughly 13 of the 17 attorneys on Mueller’s team have donated to Democrats.

David Rivkin, who worked in the Department of Justice, calls it a “fishing expedition.” “It’s obvious that it has morphed into an open-ended investigation that is way beyond the Russian collusion,” he said, “and the only unifying principle seems to be that it covers people who are close to Trump or worked with Trump,”

Flynn and Papadopoulos

Lacking resources to fight back, some facing criminal charges have given up and taken plea deals. Former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn pled guilty to lying to the FBI about whether he’d talked to Russians. George Papadopoulos, who volunteered on the Trump campaign’s foreign policy advisor team, did the same.

According to sources, Papadopoulos has privately said he did not collude with the Russians. Former FBI Director James Comey says the FBI doesn’t believe Flynn lied to them. Both Flynn and Papadopoulos, however,  are facing up to six months in jail. Flynn’s brother Joseph has started a legal defense fund for him. Flynn sold his house to pay legal bills.

Gates and Page

Rick Gates, a former Trump campaign deputy, pled guilty to multiple charges brought by Mueller. Jack Burkman, a GOP lobbyist, has hosted events to raise legal defense money for both Flynn and Gates.

The FBI is looking into Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page over ties to Moscow. He told The Washington Post that he has no income and is burning through his savings. In August of last year, Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, reported having trouble paying his legal bills. The FBI is looking into him for financial dealings unrelated to Russian collusion. He left his original lawyers in part because he was having a hard time paying his legal bills.

Caputo

Michael Caputo worked on the Trump campaign as a press advisor from November of 2015 to June of 2016. He lived in Russia for two decades. The Senate Intelligence Committee began looking at his Russian ties. It’s cost him $125,000 in legal fees so far. He was forced to sell his home. He exploded at Senate staffers. “I want to know who cost us so much money, who crushed our kids, who forced us out of our home, all because you lost an election.” In his statement to the committee, he said he is going to have to leave his small town and move to a big city to earn more money to pay all the legal fees.

Caputo believes he became a target after Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) characterized him as “Putin’s image-consultant” during a House Intelligence Committee hearing in March of 2017. Since then, he’s been labeled a “witness” in the probe into alleged Russian collusion. He’s received multiple threats.

“I think the establishment that’s been entrenched in Washington for so very, very long on both sides of the aisle, they can’t have another Donald Trump pop up in 10 years, another billionaire populist who wants to make things right in Washington,” Caputo told Fox News Channel’s Martha MacCallum last September 19. “So they have to punish Donald Trump, his family, destroy his businesses, his friends — where I guess I fit in — just to make sure that this never happens again.”

Caputo says even if he’s innocent, they will destroy him financially. “If you’re not going to be investigated, if you’re not going to be indicted, if you’re not going to jail, they’re going to break you financially because it’s about ruining every single one of us.”

Caputo noted this is happening to other Trump associates as well, “There are another dozen or more people, middle-class families, whose dad or mom has been dragged into this and they’re racking up legal fees,” he said.

A friend of Caputo’s started a legal fund for him to raise the $125,000. It has raised about $300,000 so far.

Cohen

Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal attorney, just mortgaged his condo in Manhattan as part of a $9 million loan deal related to his taxicab business. The FBI is looking into whether he failed to pay taxes on the business. It was part of a raid on his office looking for details related to his $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. She alleges she was paid to keep quiet about an affair with Trump.

Democrat partisans and the Deep State are digging deep to get something on Trump. Mueller’s probe seems to be expanding, not coming to a close. This isn’t even an exhaustive list of the Trump associates who are being looked into and suffering financially. Mueller is now looking into political consultant Roger Stone.

Vice President Mike Pence says it’s time to end the probe. “It’s been about a year since this investigation began,” Pence told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Thursday. “Our administration has provided more than a million documents, we’ve fully cooperated in it, and in the interest of the country, I think it’s time to wrap it up.”

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