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ultimately pursue its plan to indict the President. But, according toa source involved in the legal strategy, the plan is "more advanced" than it was when the indictment was drafted in April. The investigation continues and new evidence or other factors might push both prosecutors and the grand jury in another direction. Just passing its first anniversary, the Mueller investigation has conducted itself with remarkable secrecy. Descriptions of the proposed indictment provide one of the few insights into its strategy and its sense of the political peril in front of it. It may be noteworthy that there appears now not to be plan for an indictment related to collusion, although, legal experts say, that could come later. The White House view is that without the underlying collusion charge, Mueller will be presenting a weak and politically-motivated case. The Mueller view seems to be that the obstruction charges go to the heart of exposing how Trump has abused his power and turned the White House into a corrupt fiefdom. The President's scheme to obstruct the FBI's investigation into connections between the Trump campaign and Russian efforts to undermine the U.S. election, according to the Mueller indictment, began on the 7th day of the Trump administration. Three days prior to this, on January 24, National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, lied to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian Ambassador, Sergey Kislyak. These were contacts, directed by an unnamed but ranking member of the Presidential Transition team. That unnamed person, in the view of several lawyers who discussed the case with me, is very likely Trump himself, and might imply that Trump encouraged Flynn to lie to the FBI, promising to protect him—using his influence or pardon powers. On January 27th, seven days after Donald Trump's inauguration, the President had the one-on-one dinner with FBI Director James Comey—recounted in Comey’s congressional testimony and in his recent book, "A Higher Loyalty"—at which the President asked Comey if he "wanted to stay on as FBI Director." The President then requested a loyalty pledge in an effort, according to Comey's testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, to "create some sort of patronage relationship"—a characterization the indictment accepts. Flynn resigned on February 13. The next day, the President HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_029167