Trump's advisers lied again and again, says Mueller. The question is, why?

They lied to the public for months before the election of Donald Trump – and several times after taking office.

They lied to Congress as lawmakers sought to investigate Russia's attack on American democracy in 2016.

And they lied to the FBI, even when they knew that lying was a crime.

In the indictments and plea agreements unveiled over the past 20 months, special advocate Robert S. Mueller III has repeatedly shown that some of President Trump's closest friends and advisers had lied about Russia and related questions.

On Friday, Mueller presented a new allegation: Trump's longtime confidant, Roger Stone, lied to Congress and prevented his investigation of Russia's interference in the 2016 campaign.

[Longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone indicted by special counsel in Russia investigation]

Trump and his badociates dismissed this series of maneuvers as a video game that has little to do with the central question of the Mueller investigation: was his campaign involved in a criminal plot with Russia?

After Stone's charge on Friday, Trump's lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani mocked, "Another case of misrepresentation? Almighty God."

But it is unclear whether the special council shares this point of view. Although Mueller has not accused any American of criminal co-ordination with Russia, the lies meticulously disappointed by his prosecutors for more than 20 months are not mere jeers.

They have documented misconceptions by Trump advisers who have masked the efforts of people in its orbit to develop links with Russia and exploit the country's hacking of Democratic e-mails.

The remaining question – both for Mueller's team, as it works on a final investigation report, and for the American people – is why.

Did the president's men lie to protect an obscure secrecy, still hidden, about the interaction of the campaign with Russia, by engaging in a mbadive effort to obstruct the investigation – an investigation that may include even Trump?

Did they lie to not harm Trump's victory by recognizing that Russia had played a role in his election?

Did they each lie for their own reasons, taking inspiration from the president – who told a lot of things to him, including about Russia?

The former Trump campaign chairman, his deputy campaign director, his former national security adviser, his personal lawyer and a foreign policy advisor have all been accused of lying to investigators investigating Russia's activities.

In their new indictment against Stone, prosecutors said he lied to Congress about his efforts to find out about WikiLeaks' plans in 2016 as the group was in the process of publishing Democratic emails allegedly stolen by Russian agents.

Stone falsely told Congress that he had never spoken of his efforts with the Trump campaign and had never asked intermediaries to contact WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, according to Mueller's team.

[Roger Stone was in close contact with Trump campaign about WikiLeaks, indictment shows]

Stone denied the charges and promised to fight in court. "Perjury requires both materiality and intent," he told CNN late Friday. "There is not one."

"Secondarily, where is Russian collusion?" Added Stone. "Where is the WikiLeaks collaboration? Where is the proof that I received something from WikiLeaks or Julian Assange and that I forwarded it to Donald Trump or the Trump campaign? "

Trump echoed this message himself.

"The greatest witch hunt in the history of our country! NO COLLUSION! ", Tweeted the president after Stone's arrest.

Legal experts have noted that the alleged lies are important in themselves.

"Time and time again, elected officials and government officials have expressed their belief that they can simply say what they want in a high-profile investigation, with impunity," said Jacob S. Frenkel, former lawyer of the independent council office. now in private practice at Dickinson Wright.

Some of Trump's friends said they were confused by Stone's alleged actions.

"If he had told the truth, there would have been no underlying crime," said Christopher Ruddy, chief executive of Newsmax. "There would have been no crime. They should have tried to find other things.

The Stone indictment provides new details that echo one of Mueller's central investigations: trying to determine if a person in Trump's orbit is coordinating with Russia or WikiLeaks.

In the case filed Friday, prosecutors expose efforts by Stone and Trump campaigners to learn more about what WikiLeaks had in its cache in the summer of 2016 – actions that took place after Russia was accused of the theft of the Democratic Party. e-mails as June.

[Read the Roger Stone indictment]

Nevertheless, the growing accusations of false statements collected by Mueller do not address the issue of criminal coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia, noted some badysts.

"I think there is a theory that you could include them in such a plot, and I wonder why not," said Barbara McQuade, a former US lawyer. "Do not they think that the evidence goes that far? Do they think that this conduct does not constitute a conspiracy to scam the US and that it's going to happen?" Is it rather dirty and political schemes?

Steve Hall, who retired from the CIA in 2015 after 30 years of directing and managing operations in Russia, said the substance of the lies and misrepresentations reported by Mueller paint a general picture with serious implications.

"In my opinion, these lies – what was lied and under what condition they were told – contribute to a counterintelligence pattern that is beginning to emerge, indicating that larger members of the Trump are involved with the Russians, "he said.

Hall said the country needed to step back from a close conversation about the political and even criminal ramifications of every Mueller indictment. "We have to look beyond people who get a parking ticket or even a few years in prison," he said. "What about the bigger picture? It was Russia, attacking the United States. "

The deception of Trump counselors that has led to guilty pleas to date has a common sense: much is focused on their interactions with Russia.

[Russians interacted with at least 14 Trump badociates during the campaign and transition]

Trump's longtime personal attorney, Michael Cohen, admitted to lying before Congress about efforts to build a Trump real estate project in Moscow during the election campaign – at a Time, Trump, claimed that he had no commercial ties with Russia.

Cohen also lied about one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's closest advisers on the lucrative project. Trump had stated that no one in his orbit had had contact with the Russian government.

The former National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, admitted to lying – first to Vice President Pence, then to the public and finally to the FBI – about to find out he had talked to a Russian envoy in December 2016 about sanctions imposed by President Obama to punish Russia's interference in the campaign. .

The lie came as investigators sought to understand why Russia, whose main foreign policy objectives were to cancel US sanctions, fought so hard to help elect Trump rather than Democratic Hillary Clinton.

Foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos admitted to lying about his contacts with a professor who warned him in April 2016 that Russia held thousands of Clinton e-mails.

Prosecutors said the former Trump campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, had continued to lie even after pleading guilty to two conspiracy charges, including lying to the Justice Department. His latest lies, they said, involved details of his campaign interactions with a Russian employee that the FBI had badessed related to secret intelligence.

Until Mueller finishes his investigation, congressional Democrats will probably focus on the president himself and on what he knew about the lies.

Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, tweeted on Friday: "Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Rick Gates, Michael Flynn. . . What did the president know and when did he know?

Some legal badysts said the charges did not appear to be a criminal case against the president.

The lie "certainly warns you of the possibility of obstruction conspiracies," said James M. Trusty, a former chief of organized crime at the Department of Justice, currently in private practice at Ifrah Law. But, he added, "at the end of the day, it seems that people are making independent and individual choices, which puts them in hot water. I think that's the kind of thing the Mueller probe does not want to ignore. . . but the indictments themselves do not advance the case. "

The number of lies documented by the special council could also undermine Mueller's efforts to broaden the cause by impeding efforts to separate the truth from the fiction, said Trump's long-time badociates.

"In the world of Trump, everyone is lying. Everyone does not tell the truth. At the end of the day, they all lie. I do not know how Mueller can believe anyone, "said Louise Sunshine, a longtime leader of the Trump Organization.

Trump's allies say the president knows that many people around him are not trustworthy – and thinks that he can take advantage of it to the advantage if one of his former collaborators tried to # 39; enslave.

He has asked Giuliani and his other lawyers to question the credibility of anyone else's attack, according to White House officials who requested anonymity to describe private conversations. After Cohen, Trump's longtime lawyer, pleaded guilty, the Twitter president called him a "rat" who "makes up stories."

Sam Nunberg, a former Trump collaborator, said that he thought the people around Trump had lied to the investigators because they were trying to make sure their version of events lined up on lies that the president was telling the American people.

"They all conspired," he says, against themselves.