The figures in the story have emerged in recent months and inhabit an unmapped but potentially vast new territory in the investigation. Prince, George Nader -- a lobbyist for various Middle Eastern interests -- and the Gulf States have had some role in the financial and political nexus between Trump and Russia. The figures convened in a suspicious meeting in the Seychelles before the inauguration, which Mueller is investigating as an attempt to set up a back channel to Russia.

Just why would this back channel be needed? After all, Trump was about to become president. He presumably did not need to conduct secret negotiations when he was poised to assume control of an entire governmental apparatus to communicate for him. A possible explanation is that the meetings were designed to facilitate a corrupt deal that needed to evade detection by American law enforcement -- either payoffs to the Trump Organization, some return to Russia for its help in the campaign, or both. The Gulf States (as the Times reports) developed a strong preference for Trump to win the election and seem to have played a role. [...]

Trump's furious lashing out, including his reckless escalation of a crisis with the Department of Justice this weekend, provides interesting clues. Trump has no poker face, no chill. The closer the investigators get to incriminating evidence, the more intensely he rages. He resembles a suspect at a crime scene screaming at the police not to go into the attic. And now that attic is looking awfully interesting.