Both the White House and the Kremlin are now "freaking out"

Putin's 'dyed-in-the-wool' Soviet foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, yesterday entered into the fray regarding Special Counsel Robert Mueller recent indictment of Paul Manafort on a number of serious charges , including money laundering, by mantaining that,

“ ...  there is no evidence of a Russian role in the cyberattacks and email leaks that dominated the news in the final weeks of the campaign. “Without any evidence, we have been blamed for interfering not only in elections in the U.S., but in European states too,” Lavrov said. “Fantasy has no limits”. (Joel Gehrke : Washington Examiner : 30 Oct. 2017) (my emphasis)

Unfortunately for Lavrov, as reported by Doina Chiacu, Mark Hosenball, Jonathan Landay and Karen Freifeld,

"George Papadopoulos (right), who joined the Trump presidential campaign in March 2016, lied in January about communicating with those individuals to arrange a meeting between then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Special Counsel Robert Mueller said in the documents.
.....
Papadopoulos pleaded guilty on Oct. 5 [to lying in January], according to a court statement by Mueller’s office. As part of a plea deal, Papadopoulos agreed to plead guilty to making a “materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statement” to FBI agents. " (Reuters : October 30, 2017) (my emphasis)

Like Trump's White House Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who,

"..... played down Papadopoulos’ campaign role, saying it was “extremely limited” and that he was a volunteer." (cf Doina Chiacu et al), (my emphasis)

Putin's mouthpiece, Lavrov, is also desperately trying to protect Manafort in the face of mounting evidence detailing the collusion between Trump and Putin during the 2016 US presidential elections.

Let us also remind ourselves that in July of 2016, when Manafort was in charge of running Trump's presidential campaign, Josh Rogin (left) reported that,


"The Trump campaign worked behind the scenes last week to make sure the new Republican platform won’t call for giving weapons to Ukraine to fight Russian and rebel forces, contradicting the view of almost all Republican foreign policy leaders in Washington." (Washington Post : July 18, 2016) (my emphasis)

He further reported that,

"Trump’s view of Russia has always been friendlier than most Republicans. He’s said he would “get along very well” with Vladimir Putin and called it a “great honor” when Putin praised him. Trump has done a lot of business in Russia and has been traveling there since 1987. Last August, he said of Ukraine joining NATO, “I wouldn’t care.” He traveled there in September, and he told Ukrainians their war is “really a problem that affects Europe a lot more than it affects us.” (ibid Josh Rogan) (my emphasis) 

Neither Putin's mouthpiece Lavrov, nor Trump's mouthpiece Sarah Huckabee Sanders, can loosen Trump and Putin from the scarlet thread of Maidan that continues to bind them tightly together.

Everyone now, in Trump's White House is, in the words of MSNBC's Lawrence O' Donnell, "freaking out".

If Putin's Lavrov is now forced to try to denigrate the growing mountain of evidence of the Putin-Trump collusion during the 2016 US presidential elections as, "Fantasy", one can only assume that Putin and his 'siloviki' cohorts in the Kremlin are also "freaking out".

(to be continued)