WATCH: White House addresses first charges in Mueller investigation

The White House is distancing itself from the indictment of former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates, as well as a plea agreement involving a former Trump campaign official.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders says most of the alleged activities for which Manafort and Gates have been indicted took place before the 2016 campaign.

Sanders says the alleged misdeeds have nothing to do with Trump.

But she says it “has everything to do” with Hillary Clinton’s campaign and a research firm that produced the dossier of allegations about Trump’s ties to the Kremlin.

Sanders was asked about the guilty plea by former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos. She says Papadopoulos was a “volunteer.”

READ MORE: Manafort and Trump’s former business associate told to surrender in Mueller probe, NYT reports