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One theory is that Mueller deliberately waited to charge Manafort until Trump his lawyers finished his take home open book interview.  CNN just reported on two major categorical statements Trump made on the test:

To the best of his recollection. Presumably these weasel words are there to allow him to do what Corsi is doing once evidence emerges that he’s lying-I lied but didn’t realize I was lying.

Trump’s claim that Stone didn’t tell him about Wikileaks doesn’t seem terribly plausible especially with the clear evidence Stone got the goods on the dump-both the target-Podesta-as well as the timing-(Chapter A). During the campaign Stone asserted the opposite-that he was in contact with the Trump campaign.

As for Trump not knowing about the Trump Tower June 9, 2016 meeting with the Russians as Bannon himself said, it’s not at all plausible that Don Jr. didn’t tell his father about it-it’s about as plausible as Stone not telling Trump about what he knew from Corsi about the coming Wikileaks email dump. And Michael Cohen-(Chapter C)-reportedly saw Jr tell his father about the Russia meeting.

In addition Cohen publicly testified  before Congress in March 2019 to hearing Stone tell Trump over speakerphone about the coming DNC email leaks on July 18 or 19 of 2016. He had previously testified the same to Mueller-for more see Chapter A.

So logically neither of these denials by Trump are very plausible. And that’s a real problem. This isn’t Twitter or a an interview with Maggie Haberman this is Mueller’s Special Counsel. If Trump is caught in intentional lies that’s perjury and it’s a crime.

And, indeed, it does appear that Mueller himself thinks Trump’ committed perjury-or that’s the implication of what Mueller put in the Corsi plea.

As I note, Trump really DOES have reason to be concerned by language in Corsi plea.

GRU indictment, Stone was described as "in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump." Corsi plea adds "including with then-candidate Donald J. Trump."

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) November 28, 2018

Logically, that’s game-set-match on collusion. Mueller clearly believes that Corsi was Stone’s backchannel to Wikileaks. On July 24, we have Stone asking Corsi to get the emails from Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy. On August 2-just eight days later-Corsi emails Stone with not just Wikileaks hack-John Podesta-but the timing-October. Stone represented himself as being in the loop with the Trump campaign and that’s how Mueller describes him here: in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump including then-candidate Donald J. Trump.’ 

Of course, it now emerges that both Manafort and Corsi were leaking information to Trump. It’s no wonder the Trump legal team were so rocked by the language that implicitly implicates Trump.

And if Mueller has evidence that contrary to what Trump wrote in his take home exam, he did speak to Stone about Wikileaks then Trump is guilty of criminal perjury-what Clinton was impeached for-though that was about a consensual affair with an intern not colluding with the Russian government to rig the election.

Indeed, apparently seeing the reference to Stone’s regular contact with Trump during the campaign in Corsi’s draft statement was one of the reasons for the delay in Trump’s handing in his written interview.

According to an updated NYT story on this week’s Paul Manafort and Jerome Corsi developments, the delay in Trump’s submission of his open book test came in response to two things: Seeing a reference to Roger Stone’s regular contact with then-candidate Trump in Corsi’s draft statement of the offense and learning that Mueller had informed Manafort he had caught him lying.

Mr. Corsi’s dealings with Mr. Mueller’s prosecutors have caused alarm among the president’s legal team, who were informed of developments by Mr. Corsi’s lawyer. President Trump’s lawyers were especially troubled by a draft statement of offense against Mr. Corsi that was passed on to them, according to people familiar with the situation. In it, prosecutors claimed that Mr. Corsi understood that Mr. Stone was “in regular contact with senior members of the Trump campaign, including with then-candidate Donald J. Trump” when he asked Mr. Corsi in late July 2016 to “get to” Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.

The reference to Mr. Trump coincided with other events that so disturbed the president’s lawyers that they delayed turning in his responses to written questions after negotiating over them with the special counsel for nearly a year. At roughly the same time, the Justice Department inadvertently released a secret criminal complaint against Mr. Assange and Mr. Trump’s legal team learned that prosecutors were accusing Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman, of lying. Only after Mr. Mueller’s team reassured Mr. Trump’s lawyers that they were not trying to lure the president into a trap did they forward his answers on Nov. 20.

Unsurprisingly, CNN has already confirmed that Trump denied culpability in his answers to the two questions that address those topics.

President Donald Trump told special counsel Robert Mueller in writing that Roger Stone did not tell him about WikiLeaks, nor was he told about the 2016 Trump Tower meeting between his son, campaign officials and a Russian lawyer promising dirt on Hillary Clinton, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

One source described the President’s answers without providing any direct quotes and said the President made clear he was answering to the best of his recollection.

“Remember, the GRU indictment described Stone as “a person who was in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump,” so the inclusion of “including with then-candidate Donald J. Trump” reflects language added since July. Recall, too, that Stone at first complained about that description, insisting that “My contact with the campaign in 2016 was Donald Trump. I was not in regular contact with campaign officials,” only to backtrack to, “I certainly acknowledge that I was in touch with Trump campaign officials,” when he realized the implications of that. As CNN notes, in recent weeks Mueller’s team asked for records of Stone’s calls and visits to Trump Tower. So it’s possible a recent witness — Michael Cohen and Steve Bannon could both be possibilities — suggested that Stone had conveyed WikiLeaks information directly to Trump, leading to the request for more records.”

And (as I used as a hypothetical last night on Chris Hayes’ show), we know that Manafort and Trump met on June 9, 2016, just before Trump announced an attack on Hillary Clinton in coming days.”

FN: Of course-as discussed in Chapters A and B-Mueller seems to have backed off a live interview for Trump in March 2018. As for Corsi his lies and destruction of evidence-deleted his email communications prior to Oct 7, 2016-harmed Mueller’s ability to establish beyond reasonable doubt on coordination. Clearly Corsi’s leaking his draft statement also aided the effort in harming Mueller’s case.

Michael Cohen testified publicly before Congress in March that he believes he heard Jr tell his father about it in advance-though he admits he’s hypothesizing that’s what the reference was too.

He also testified that he heard Stone tell Trump about the coming DNC email leaks by speakerphone on July 18-19 of 2016. As for Manafort Marcy Wheeler has pointed out that Manafort’s texts to Sean Hannity show that he had believed Kushner would be indicted-which opens up all kinds of interesting lines of inquiry.

So it is quite likely Mueller has evidence that both of Trump’s claims are lies.

Indeed, Marcy Wheeler argues that this evidence will make it easier for Mueller to demand an actual in person interview with Trump-assuming that’s a priority for Mueller.

At a minimum it seems pretty clear at this point that the so-called ‘President’ just committed perjury on at least two counts.

Actually, you can now make that three with the new Michael Cohen plea for committing perjury regarding Trump Tower Moscow it shows that Trump also lied about knowing nothing about the deal that Cohen and Felix Sater were pursuing in Moscow during the 2016 election but this is the story for the next chapter.