KEY PLAYERS IN THE PROBE

PAUL MANAFORT

The former chairman of Trump’s campaign has been convicted of crimes related to years of Ukrainian political consulting work, including allegations he concealed his foreign government work and failed to pay taxes on it. He is now serving a more than seven-year prison sentence

MICHAEL FLYNN

Trump’s former national security adviser pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI just days after Trump took office by telling agents that he had never discussed sanctions with the then Russian ambassador to the US. The White House said Flynn had misled officials about the conversation and ousted him weeks later

MICHAEL COHEN

Trump’s longtime lawyer and fixer is at the centre of not only Mueller’s investigation but also a separate, and rapidly mushrooming, investigation into hush-money payments. In Mueller’s investigation, Cohen has admitted lying to Congress about a proposed real estate development in Moscow

GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS

The former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser served a 14-day prison sentence after admitting lying to the FBI about a 2016 conversation with a Maltese professor who told him that Russia had ‘dirt’ on Hillary Clinton in the form of stolen emails

ROGER STONE

A longtime Trump confidant, and self-proclaimed

‘dirty trickster’ of Republican politics, Stone is charged with witness tampering and lying to Congress about his efforts to gain advance knowledge of WikiLeaks’ plans to release damaging information on Clinton during 2016

JULIAN ASSANGE

The WikiLeaks founder, under Justice Department scrutiny for years for the group’s role in publishing government secrets, has been an important figure in the Mueller investigation as investigators examine how WikiLeaks obtained emails stolen from Clinton’s campaign and Democratic groups

DONALD TRUMP JR.

The president’s eldest son has attracted scrutiny for his role in arranging a Trump Tower meeting in June 2016 — also attended by Manafort and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner — at which he expected to receive damaging info on Clinton. He has said the meeting was a waste of time