Republicans divided on how to respond to Mueller investigation and indictments

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Former Trump campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and his business partner, Rick Gates, appeared in federal court Monday in Washington and pleaded not guilty after being indicted on charges of money laundering and conspiracy against the United States.

The charges are the first from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into allegations of collusion between members of Trump's campaign and Russia. 

Related: The 'dossier' and the uranium deal: A guide to the latest allegations

"To some degree, I had been expecting this," says Mica Mosbacher, a member of the 2020 Trump Campaign National Advisory Board.

"Once they appointed Mueller several months ago, we were awaiting an outcome and after the raid on Paul Manafort's home in Alexandria, Virginia, it was just a matter of time before I felt he could possibly be charged."

Mosbacher told The Current's Anna Maria Tremonti that she has known Manafort through political circles for over 20 years and says "many people who had worked with him was very surprised."

"But the most significant thing is the fact that in this 31-page indictment that the charges and the timeline are prior to his five-month involvement in the Trump campaign. It dates all the way back to ... President Obama's administration."

Mosbacher pointed to a direct mention in the indictment that mentions "the fact that the Gates/Manafort lobbying teams should be prepared to brief the president. And this would be in November 2012."

As news broke on Monday about Manafort and Gates, George Papadopoulos, a foreign adviser to the Trump campaign,  pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about having contact with a professor who has ties to the Kremlin. 

Related: Paul Manafort's indictment was big. Trump 'volunteer' George Papadopoulos's plea may be even bigger 

Tremonti asked Mosbacher if she was concerned Papadopoulos was an informant in the Mueller investigation, but Mosbacher denied this is the role he played.

"The typical role in these types of investigations is to bring in the smaller fish and literally go on a fishing expedition to see what you can find, possibly on someone else," Mosbacher told Tremonti.

"George Papadopoulos was a volunteer, an unpaid campaign volunteer, with a limited role and his job was to help advise on Greece, by the way, not Russia."

Trump denied any collusion with Russia, and the White House said the Mueller probe had "nothing to do with the president."

But many conservatives are concerned by President's Trump handling of the Mueller investigation. 

"I think we're headed to a moment of a real constitutional crisis in the United States," said senior editor for The Atlantic David Frum. He's urging Republican senators to speak publicly on this issue. 

"The Trump defence on the facts is flimsy to nonexistent," he told Tremonti.

Related: Staying Silent May Backfire Spectacularly on Republican Lawmakers

The administration will defend itself by arguing "even if Donald Trump fired James Comey ... the head of the FBI in order to shut down an investigation to operate into the president's own wrongdoing, that was within the president's power," according to Frum.

"That's a fundamental attack on the applicability of law to the office of the presidency."

Republicans need to stand up and support the Mueller investigation to continue, said Frum. Otherwise "they are going to be borne along and the whole party is going to be pulled after Trump into the deep blue sea."

If Republicans don't take a step back and focus on the party, there's "a decade of disgrace" ahead, said Frum.

"This party could be headed to a cataclysmic event in 2018."

Listen to the full segment above.

This segment was produced by The Current's Willow Smith, Mary-Catherine McIntosh and Amra.