Whodunnit
Years in the making. A cast of thousands. Follow the adventures of those with no rules, no empathy, poor impulse control, deeply unassimilated personal issues, and vast amounts of cash.
Will the Republic survive [Ha ha; No]? Will Hill-O run
again [Who Can Say]? Is the culture of corruption amongst America's political and business elite so pervasive that Wonderboy™ is a Symptom, not the Disease [Oh My Yes]?
(All timeline information courtesy
Politico,
Factcheck.org,
Mother Jones;
NBC News; Wikipedia; but, you know, I'm only a Dog, and sometimes typing mistakes occur.)
________________________________
2013
June 18: Trump writes on Twitter: “The Miss Universe Pageant [the franchise for which, Trump owns] will be broadcast live from MOSCOW, RUSSIA on November 9th. A big deal that will bring our countries together!" ... “Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow - if so, will he become my new best friend?”
October 17: In an interview with David Letterman, Trump says "I’ve done a lot of business with the Russians. They’re smart and they’re tough.” Trump adds that Putin is a “tough guy” and that he had met him “once.”
November 9: The Miss Universe pageant is held in Moscow. Trump attends.
November 10: Trump writes on Twitter: “I just got back from Russia-learned lots & lots. Moscow is a very interesting and amazing place! U.S. MUST BE VERY SMART AND VERY STRATEGIC.”
2015
March 2: The New York Times reports that while Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton used a personal email account to send and receive emails related to government business, in violation of State Department policies. This triggers an internal inquiry to determine the scope of the potential breach.
April 12: Hilary Clinton announces she is a candidate for President.
June 16: Trump formally announces his candidacy for the Republican nomination for President at Trump Tower in New York City. Trump declares that he would self-fund his campaign, and would refuse any money from donors and lobbyists. Ladbrokes offers 150:1 odds of Trump's winning.
July 23: The Inspector General for the U.S. intelligence community alerts
Congressional oversight committees that classified material had been
foundon Hillary Clinton's home email server, which she had used as Secretary of State. The FBI opens a criminal investigation.
September [ ]: A number of
Republicans officials are concerned about the
possibility of Trump's winning the Republican presidential nomination. A wealthy GOP donor finances
retaining
Fusion GPS, a private Washington D.C. opposition research firm, to investigate Trump's Russia-related activities (Curiously, two of Fusion's major clients had been the Democratic Party [opposition research on Mitt Romney during the previous presidential election] and Planned Parenthood, when it had been targeted by Alt-right activists).
Fusion hired
Orbis Business Intelligence, a private British corporate intelligence firm, to look into Trump's Russian connections. The investigation would be carried out by Orbis co-founder Christopher Steele, a retired British MI6 officer with long expertise in situations involving Russia and Russian political figures.
September [ ]: FBI Special Agent Adrian Hawkins calls the Democratic National Committee to advise their computer system may have been hacked by a cyber-espionage group known as "The Dukes". Hawkins' call is (
aber natürlich) routed to the DNC's Help Desk, and Yared Tamene, the DNC's outside contract IT technician.
Tamene is unsure whether the call is legitimate or a prank. After a cursory review of event logs for the DNC's servers, and a quick Google search of "The Dukes", he lets the FBI Agent's warning drop. Hawkins continues to follow up with Tamene for several weeks after his initial call, but the Tech assumes Hawkins is a phone prankster and ignores him.
(The cybersecurity website,
F-Secure, identifies The Dukes as "a well-resourced, highly dedicated, and organized cyber-espionage group
that has been working for the Russian government since at least 2008 to
collect intelligence in support of foreign and security policy
decision-making." Their collective name in the cybersecurity community, "The Dukes", came from the software tools used to perform their hacks, with names like 'MiniDuke' 'CosmicDuke', etc.)
October 14: Trump appears to cast doubt on the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Russian-backed separatists had shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over the Ukraine. Trump said, "That's a horrible thing that happened... but Putin and Russia say they didn't do it, the other side said they did, no one really knows who did it, probably Putin knows who did it. Possibly it was Russia but they are totally denying it... And we're going to go through that arguing for probably for 50 years and nobody is ever going to know. Probably was Russia.”
November 10: Trump says during a GOP debate that he got to know Putin “very well, because we were both on '60 Minutes', we were stablemates, and we did very well that night... If Putin wants to go and knock the hell out of ISIS, I am all for it, 100 percent, and I can’t understand how anybody would be against it.”
December [ ]: Some social media accounts apparently tied to Internet Research Agency, a Russian online
propaganda operation, start to advocate for Trump’s election. This is later covered in Director of National Intelligence John Clapper's report of January 6, 2017, which attributed its source as "a journalist who is a leading expert" on Russian Web propaganda.
December 10: Michael Flynn attends
Russia Today’s 10th anniversary dinner in Moscow. He participates in a paid speaking engagement, sitting two seats from Vladimir Putin.
December 17: Putin praises Trump, then front-runner in the Republican primary, at his year-end news conference, saying “He is a very flamboyant man, very talented, no doubt about that. But it’s not our business to judge his merits, it’s up to the voters of the United States... He is an absolute leader of the presidential race, as we see it today. He says that he wants to move to another level relations, a deeper level of relations with Russia ... How can we not welcome that? Of course, we welcome it.”
December 18: Trump responded, "It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond... I have always felt that Russia and the United States should be able to work well with each other towards defeating terrorism and restoring world peace, not to mention trade and all of the other benefits derived from mutual respect."
2016
February 17: “Putin called me a genius,” Trump says at a campaign event in South Carolina. According to
PolitiFact, Trump would repeat the claim “three times in April, in a May interview on CNN, at a June rally in California, twice in July, and at an August town hall in Ohio.”
March 19: John Podesta, Campaign Manager for Hillary Clinton, receives an email instructing him to change his password. When asked, a Clinton campaign staffer tells Podesta the email is legitimate. Podesta follows the instructions, giving hackers access to his email account.
March 19: During a campaign event in Tuscon, AZ, Trump Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski drew criticism for his rough handling of an anti-Trump protester. A video showed Lewandowski grabbing the protester by the collar; the campaign and Lewandowski denied the allegation.
March 21: In an interview with the
Washington Post, Trump is asked to name his foreign policy advisers; Trump mentions Carter Page -- an American banker who had lived in Moscow for three years, and now owns a
consulting firm, Global Energy Capital (The
Post would later report the FBI was monitoring Page’s communications as part of its Russia probe).
March 22: Billy Rinehart, a former DNC employee working for the Clinton campaign, receives what he thinks is a legitimate email telling him to change his password. Like Podesta, he follows its instructions and unwittingly gives Russian hackers access to his email account.
March 28: Trump hires Paul Manafort, longtime Republican political operative, as his manager to organize delegate support at the Republican National Convention. Manafort had worked for over ten years with pro-Russia Ukrainian groups, and as a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, an ally of Vladimir Putin who had been deposed in a popular uprising in February, 2014.
April 27: Trump delivers his first major foreign policy speech at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington; Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak is seated in the front row of the audience. “We desire to live peacefully and in friendship with Russia and China," Trump relates. "We have serious differences with these two nations, and must regard them with open eyes, but we are not bound to be adversaries. We should seek common ground based on shared interests... I intend to find out. If we can’t make a deal under my administration, a deal that’s great — not good, great — for America, but also good for Russia, then we will quickly walk from the table. It’s as simple as that. We’re going to find out.”
May 18: James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, says at a Washington event there are “some indications” of cyberattacks aimed at the presidential campaigns.
June [ ] : According to
The Washington Post, Trump adviser Carter Page praises Putin as a stronger leader than Obama, at a meeting of foreign policy experts and Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India.
June 3: Donald Trump Jr. receives an email from British music publicist Rob Goldstone: "Emin [Russian
pop star Emin Agalarov, whose father, Aras
Agalarov, is a Russian real estate developer with ties to Donald Trump
Sr.] just
called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting... The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father
Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump
campaign with some official documents and information that would
incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very
useful to your father. This is obviously very high level and sensitive
information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr.
Trump — helped along by Aras and Emin.”
Goldstone asks if Trump
Jr. is interested; Junior responds, “[I]f it’s
what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”
June 7: Goldstone again emails
Donald Trump Jr.: “Emin asked that I schedule a meeting with
you and The Russian government attorney who is flying over from Moscow
for this [on] Thursday.”
June 9: Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner meet with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump
Tower.
June 14: The DNC announces it has been the victim of an attack by Russian hackers.
June 15: CrowdStrike, a computer security firm hired by the DNC to investigate its hacking, says that Russia is behind the cyberattack. CrowdStrike co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch says that the
company “immediately identified two sophisticated adversaries on the
network – COZY BEAR and FANCY BEAR... both engage in extensive political and economic espionage for the benefit of
the government of the Russian Federation and are believed to be closely
linked to the Russian government’s powerful and highly capable
intelligence services.”
That same day, in a blog post, a hacker identified as 'Guccifer 2.0' takes credit for hacking the DNC servers and releases a number of purloined documents, including
the Democratic Party’s 200-page opposition research report on Donald
Trump. “The main part of the papers, thousands of files and [e]mails, I
gave to Wikileaks. They will publish them soon,” Guccifer 2.0 says.
(U.S. intelligence would later identify 'Guccifer 2.0' as a “persona” used by the GRU (Russian military intelligence) to release hacked emails to media outlets and WikiLeaks.)
June 20: Trump Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski is fired. The move reportedly occurred after Lewandowski clashed with Trump chief strategist and campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who becomes Trump's
de facto campaign manager.
June 21: 'Guccifer 2.0' posts a number of documents stolen from the DNC which discuss Clinton’s vulnerabilities, as well as potential responses to lines of attack by the Trump campaign.
June [ ]: Wealthy Democratic Party donor(s) take over from Republican donors financing the inquiry into Donald Trump's connections in Russia and Europe. Christopher
Steele of Orbis Intelligence continues his investigations.
July 5: Against a background of the upcoming election and Republican attacks on Hillary Clinton over the ongoing investigation into her use of a personal email account to send and receive classified information, FBI Director James Comey calls a unique press conference.
Comey delivers a blistering critique of Clinton,
saying her handling of classified material was, “extremely careless,”
and hackers may have compromised her emails -- but he is
recommending against charging Clinton in the case.
July 7: Director Comey testifies before Congress about his unusual decision to publicly announce the FBI's findings in the Clinton email investigation. He repeats his earlier statements that Clinton had been careless but had not engaged in criminal behavior.
In Moscow (on a trip previously approved by Trump's former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski), Carter Page delivers a speech criticizing the United States and other Western democracies: “Washington and other Western powers have impeded potential progress through their often hypocritical focus on ideas such as democratization, inequality, corruption and regime change."
July 18 (Week Of): Three of Trump's 'national security advisers' — Carter Page, J.D. Gordon, and Walid Phares — meet with Russian Ambassador Kislyak in Cleveland, OH, during the Republican National Convention, telling him they hoped to see improved relations with Russia.
July 18: The Republican National Convention adopts the official Republican Party platform, with the following language on Ukraine: “We support maintaining and, if warranted, increasing sanctions ... against Russia unless and until Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are fully restored. We also support providing appropriate assistance to the armed forces of Ukraine and greater coordination with NATO defense planning. … We will not accept any territorial change in Eastern Europe imposed by force, in Ukraine, Georgia, or elsewhere, and will use all appropriate constitutional measures to bring to justice the practitioners of aggression and assassination.”
That same day, the
Washington Post reports, “The Trump campaign worked behind the scenes ... 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.”
July 20: Senator Jeff Sessions, an early Trump endorser and leader of Trump's national security advisory committee, met with Ambassador Kislyak and a group of other ambassadors at a Republican National Convention event in Cleveland.
July 22: WikiLeaks publishes some 20,000 emails stolen from DNC mail servers. The emails, widely commented on in the American media, show a bias among the DNC leadership to favor Hillary Clinton over Senator Bernie Sanders as the party's presidential candidate.
July 24: DNC Chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigns over fallout from the release of emails.
July 25: The FBI announces it is investigating the DNC hack, advising "a compromise of this nature is something we take very seriously."
That same day,
The Daily Beast reported: “The FBI suspects that Russian government hackers breached the networks of the Democratic National Committee and stole emails that were posted to the anti-secrecy site WikiLeaks on Friday. It’s an operation that several U.S. officials now suspect was a deliberate attempt to influence the presidential election in favor of Donald Trump, according to five individuals familiar with the investigation of the breach.”
July 26: U.S. Intelligence officials inform the Obama White House that they have “high confidence” that Russia is behind the DNC hacks.
July 27: At a news conference, Trump calls on Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails from the private server she used as secretary of state. “I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Trump's running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, releases a statement (which his staffers say was drafted before Trump’s comments): "The FBI will get to the bottom of who is behind the hacking. If it is Russia and they are interfering in our elections, I can assure you ... [there would be] serious consequences,” but Pence went on to say there should be increased focus on the contents of the hacks and what they exposed about the Democratic Party.
July 31: In an interview with ABC News, Trump says of Russia’s annexation of Crimea: "But you know, the people of Crimea, from what I've heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were. And you have to look at that". Trump adds that he was not involved in efforts to defeat an amendment to the Republican platform that contained more aggressively pro-Ukraine language.
August 8: Long-time Trump friend and confidant Roger Stone tells a group of Florida Republicans that he has “communicated with [Julian] Assange... I believe the next tranche of his documents pertain to the Clinton Foundation but there's no telling what the October surprise may be.”
August 12: 'Guccifer 2.0' releases the cellphone numbers and email addresses of almost all Democrats in the House of Representatives, apparently based on documents stolen from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
That same day, the digital security firm, ThreatConnect, announces another site offering leaked DNC documents, "DC Leaks", appears to be linked to Russian intelligence services. Documents at the site primarily target Democrats, but include emails stolen from campaign staffers for noted Republican critics of Russia, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham.
August 14: The New York Times publishes an exposé on Ukrainian documents that appear to show $12.7 million in cash was earmarked to be paid to Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort by the Russia-aligned Party of Regions.
August 17: Trump receives his first classified intelligence briefing. It is later reported by NBC that Trump received information at the briefing about “direct links” between the Russian government and the email hacks.
Trump names two late 'outsider' additions to his campaign staff -- Kellyanne Conway as Campaign Manager, and Steve Bannon as Campaign Chief Executive. Paul Manafort is pushed into the background.
Conway worked on Senator Ted Cruz's presidential campaign, until he
dropped out of the race on June 20th. Her husband is George Conway
III, the litigator who wrote the Supreme Court brief for Paula Jones in
1998 during the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.
Bannon is a Harvard-educated, ex-naval officer and Goldman-Sachs investment banker, who ventured into Alt-right politics. He was a friend of Andrew Breitbart (who referred to Bannon as the "Leni Reifenstahl of the Tea Party movement"), and with him a co-founder of
Breitbart News. Bannon is a Vice President on the board of the data analytics firm,
Cambridge Analytica, operated by the Mercer family and very active in the 2016 election.
August 19: Paul Manafort resigns from the Trump campaign.
August 21: Roger Stone writes on Twitter: “Trust me, it will soon [be John] Podesta's time in the barrel. #CrookedHillary”
August 29: The New York Times reports that former Representative Anthony Weiner, forced to resign from politics in 2015 after a sexual texting scandal, had been carrying on a second sexting affair with a 15-year-old girl.
His wife, Huma Abedin, had separated from him with their children. Abedin had been a senior aide and friend to Hillary Clinton, both when she was Secretary of State and as candidate for President.
September [ ]: On his own initiative, in light of the hacking of the DNC and release of material damaging to the Democrats, ex-MI6 officer Christopher Steele decides to pass his findings about Trump's Russian connections to British and American intelligence services because he believes the findings are a matter of national security for both countries.
However, Steele is frustrated with the FBI, which he believes was failing to investigate his reports, choosing instead to focus on the investigation of Hillary Clinton's handling of classified emails. According to the UK
Independent, Steele felt that there was a "cabal" inside the FBI, particularly its New York field office linked to Trump advisor Rudy Giuliani, which blocked any attempts to investigate the links between Trump and Russia.
Steele's reports were contained in a 35-page "Dossier", and stated in part: "The Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. [Its] Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance... [Trump] and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals..."
Steele's assessment was that Russian intelligence had "compromised" Trump during his visits to Moscow and could "blackmail him." The report further alleged that there were multiple in-person meetings between Russian government officials and individuals established as working for Trump.
September 5: The Washington Post reports that U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies are investigating “a broad covert Russian operation in the United States to sow public distrust in the upcoming presidential election and in U.S. political institutions.”
September 6: At the G-20 summit in China, President Obama holds what he calls a “candid, blunt and businesslike” meeting with Putin. The two meet for about 90 minutes, and Obama says afterward: "We've had problems with cyber intrusions from Russia and other countries in the past," But he declines to comment on specific investigations.
September 7: Director of National Intelligence John Clapper reiterates Obama’s point that experts believe Russia is behind the DNC hack.
Participating in a forum discussion on NBC, Trump praises Putin, saying the Russian had an 82 percent approval rating, adding: “He’s been a leader far more than our president has been a leader... I think when he [Putin] calls me brilliant, I’ll take the compliment, but it’s not going to get him anywhere.” In an interview with CNN, Mike Pence says that “it's inarguable that
Vladimir Putin has been a stronger leader in his country than Barack
Obama has been in this country.”
Later, Trump says in an interview with
Russia Today, “It’s probably unlikely” that Russia is interfering in the U.S.
elections. “I think maybe the Democrats are putting that out.”
In Moscow, Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov says they are watching the U.S. presidential campaign closely, and that Russia is willing to improve ties with the U.S., whoever wins. "We hope that after the end of the [U.S.] election campaign, we will see Washington’s political will towards building good relations."
September 8: Senator Jeff Sessions meets privately in his Capitol Hill office with Russian Ambassador Kislyak.
September 13: Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, lodged a formal complaint with the U.N. over anothere U.N. official’s condemnation of Trump and some populist leaders in Europe.
September 26: Foreign policy adviser Carter Page resigns from the Trump campaign.
September 26; First Televised Presidential Debate: Trump tries to cast doubt on reports that Russia was behind the DNC hacks: “I don't think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC. She {Clinton]'s saying Russia, Russia, Russia, but I don't — maybe it was. I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, OK? You don't know who broke into DNC. But what did we learn with DNC? We learned that Bernie Sanders was taken advantage of by your people, by Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Look what happened to her. But Bernie Sanders was taken advantage of. That's what we learned. Now, whether that was Russia, whether that was China, whether it was another country, we don't know, because the truth is, under President Obama we've lost control of things that we used to have control over.”
October [ ]: According to
The Washington Post, Christopher Steele reached an agreement with the FBI to pay him to continue his investigative work; the FBI found Steele and his information about Trump credible ("Steele was known for the quality of his past work and for the knowledge he had developed over nearly 20 years working on Russia-related issues for British intelligence").
October [ ]: Steele provides copies of his reports on Trump's Russian connections to David Corn, a reporter from
Mother Jones magazine.
October 3: Trump confidant Roger Stone writes on Twitter: “I have total confidence that @wikileaks and my hero Julian Assange will educate the American people soon #LockHerUp."
October 4: Julian Assange makes a 3:00 AM EST announcement via web video that
WikiLeaks will publish new information on the U.S. presidential election, “every week for the next 10 weeks.”
October 7: The Obama administration accuses Russia of deploying hackers to
interfere in the presidential election. A statement from Director of
National Intelligence John Clapper says hacked documents posted on the
"DC Leaks", those released by 'Guccifer 2.0' and WikiLeaks, appear
linked to Russian intelligence and accuses “Russia’s senior-most
officials” of directing the hacks.
Raw-footage video from a 2005 episode of the television program, "Access Hollywood", surfaces with an audio track of Trump joking with the show's then-host, Billy Bush, about groping women's genitals.
Just hours later,
WikiLeaks dumps a trove of emails hacked from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s personal email account. The communications are widely discussed in the American media. The Republican National Committee issues a statement, saying the emails are evidence of “who Hillary Clinton really is.”
October 9; Second Televised Presidential Debate: Trump cites material released by
WikiLeaks to accuse the DNC of rigging the Democratic primary against Sen. Bernie Sanders. Clinton is also asked at the debate about excerpts from a paid speech she gave to Goldman-Saks, part of the WikiLeaks release.
Clinton responds to debate moderator, ABC journalist Martha Raditz: “But, you know, let’s talk about what’s really going on here, Martha, because our intelligence community just came out and said in the last few days that the Kremlin, meaning Putin and the Russian government, are directing the attacks, the hacking on American accounts to influence our election. And WikiLeaks is part of that, as are other sites where the Russians hack information, we don’t even know if it’s accurate information, and then they put it out. We have never in the history of our country been in a situation where an adversary, a foreign power, is working so hard to influence the outcome of the election. And believe me, they’re not doing it to get me elected. They’re doing it to try to influence the election for Donald Trump.”
Trump responds, “She doesn’t know if it’s the Russians doing the hacking. Maybe there is no hacking. But they always blame Russia. And the reason they blame Russia because they think they’re trying to tarnish me with Russia. I know nothing about Russia. I know — I know about Russia, but I know nothing about the inner workings of Russia. I don’t deal there. I have no businesses there. I have no loans from Russia.”
October 10: At a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, Trump says, “I love WikiLeaks,” and specifically cites some of the hacked emails in making attacks on Clinton.
October 11: Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta warns there may be a tie between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks. “I think it’s a reasonable assumption to — or at least a reasonable conclusion — that [Roger] Stone had advance warning, and the Trump campaign had advance warning, about what Assange was going to do.”
October 12: Roger Stone tells a Florida TV station, “I do have a back-channel communication with [Julian] Assange, because we have a good mutual friend... That friend travels back and forth from the United States to London and we talk. I had dinner with him last Monday.” He denies ever having met or spoken to Assange personally.
October 19; Third / Final Televised Presidential Debate: Clinton comments that Putin backed Trump because he “would rather have a puppet as president of the United States.”
“No puppet, no puppet, you’re the puppet,” Trump responds.
Clinton continues: “It’s pretty clear you won’t admit that the Russians have engaged in cyberattacks against the United States of America, that you encouraged espionage against our people, that you are willing to spout the Putin line, sign up for his wish list, break up NATO, do whatever he wants to do, and that you continue to get help from him because he has a very clear favorite in this race.”
October [ ]: As part of the investigation into Anthony Weiner's cyber-affair with an underaged girl, NYPD investigators review communications on all of his digital devices. On Weiner’s laptop, they find emails sent to Hillary Clinton in her role as Secretary of State, and cc:'d to Weiner's wife, Huma Abedin, in her role as Clinton's senior aide. They advise the FBI.
FBI Agents seize the laptop, and discover that thousands of Abedin’s emails had been backed up on
Weiner’s computer, including some that had apparently moved through
Cinton’s personal email server.
FBI Director Comey learns of the Clinton emails on Weiner’s computer, and believes he is obligated to inform Congress of the circumstances.
October 28: Comey sends a letter to appropriate members of Congress, advising that in light of the Anthony Weiner / Huma Abedin email connection, the FBI is reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton's potential violation of Federal law.
October 31: The New York Times publishes a story with the headline, “Investigating Donald Trump, F.B.I. Sees No Clear Link To Russia.”
Mother Jones publishes David Corn's article, "A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump".
November 6: FBI Director Comey sends a second letter to Congress, advising no new information had been found in the Abedin / Weiner emails to alter the Bureau's July findings that Clinton had been careless in handling emails but had not violated the law. The investigation into Clinton's handling of emails and classified information was finally closed.
November 8: Trump is elected President of the United States. In Moscow, the Russian Parliament bursts into applause when news of Trump’s victory is announced.
November 10: A senior Russian diplomat, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Rybakov, tells Interfax news agency that there “were contacts” between the Russian government and the Trump campaign during the election campaign. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov later tells the Associated Press that the contacts were “quite natural, quite normal” and took place with both campaigns.
Trump spokesperson Hope Hicks tells Associated Press, "It never happened. There was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign."
November 10: Obama meets with Trump at the White House, and warns the President-elect against hiring Michael Flynn.
November 18: Trump names Michael Flynn as his National Security Advisor.
November 28: In an interview with
Time magazine, Trump says: “I don’t believe they [the Russians] interfered. That became a laughing point, not a talking point, a laughing point. Any time I do something, they say, ‘Oh, Russia interfered.’ Why not get along with Russia? And they can help us fight ISIS, which is both costly in lives and costly in money. And they’re effective and smart. It could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey. I believe that it could have been Russia and it could have been any one of many other people. Sources or even individuals.”
December [ ]: Michael Flynn and Jared Kushner met with Russian Ambassador Kislyak at Trump Tower.
December 4: Putin praises Trump again in a TV interview: “Trump was an entrepreneur and a businessman. … Because he achieved success in business, it suggests that he is a clever man.”
December 7: The November 28
Time magazine interview with Trump is published.
December 8: The New York Times reports that Carter Paige appears in Moscow. He tells a Russian state-run news agency that he is there to "meet with business leaders and thought leaders.”
December [ ]: Senator John McCain, who had been informed about the
alleged links between Kremlin and Trump, meets with former British
ambassador to Moscow, Sir Andrew Wood, in Washington.
Wood confirms the
existence of the so-called 'Trump Dossier', and vouched for the credibility of
former MI6 officer Christopher Steele: "[He is a] very competent professional operator... I take the report seriously. I
don't think it's totally implausible... The
report's key allegation – that Trump and Russia's leadership were
communicating via secret back channels during the presidential campaign –
[is] eminently plausible."
December 9: Senator McCain obtains a copy of the 35-page Dossier from David J. Kramer (former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor), and personally delivers it to FBI Director James Comey.
December 15: Putin sends Trump a letter stressing that the U.S. and Russia play an important role “in ensuring stability and security of the modern world,” and expresses his hope that Trump will “restore the framework of bilateral cooperation in different areas as well as bring our level of collaboration on the international scene to a qualitatively new level.”
December 23: Trump releases Putin's letter, adding in a statement that the letter was “very nice” and that Putin’s thoughts are “so correct... I hope both sides are able to live up to these thoughts, and we do not have to travel an alternate path."
December 26: Oleg Erovinkin, 61, is found dead in the back seat of his his car in Moscow. No cause of death is released. He was believed to have assisted former MI6 officer Christopher Steele in his research into Trump's ties to Russia and the Putin government.
A former KGB officer, in the 1990's Erovinkin had been appointed deputy head of personnel for the protection of state secrets under then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin. He was appointed chief of staff for the Russian state-owned oil company, Rosneft, by Yeltsin's successor, President Vladimir Putin, in May, 2008. Erovinkin then became a key aide to Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, and worked in a department of Rosneft that handles classified documents, receiving and forwarding them to other Russian government agencies.
December 29: Obama orders the 35
suspected Russian intelligence operatives ejected from the country and
imposes sanctions on two Russian intelligence services as retaliation
for the election-interference campaign.
December 29: National
Security Advisor-designate Michael Flynn has a series of phone calls
with Ambassador Kislyak. He later acknowledged it was possible they
discussed the newly imposed sanctions, but he “couldn’t be certain.”
According to
The New York Times, the phone calls came after Kislyak was
brought to the State Department and informed of the sanctions, where Kislyak
became “irate and threatened a forceful Russian response.”
December
30: Putin announces he will not retaliate against the U.S. expulsions.
His foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, had recommended Russia respond
similarly. Trump writes on Twitter: “Great move on delay (by V. Putin) –
I always knew he was very smart!”
December 31: Trump tells
reporters at Mar-a-Lago that "hacking is a very hard thing to prove...
So it could be somebody else. And I also know things that other people
don’t know, and so they cannot be sure of the situation.”
2017
January
3: Trump writes on Twitter: “The ‘Intelligence’ briefing on so-called
‘Russian hacking’ was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to
build a case. Very strange!”
January 4: Trump writes on Twitter:
“Julian Assange said ‘a 14 year old could have hacked Podesta’ - why was
DNC so careless? Also said Russians did not give him the info!”
January 5: Obama is briefed on intelligence findings on Russian interference in the election.
January 6: Briefings begin with Congressional members on Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.
January
6: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence releases an
unclassified report expressing the conclusion of the CIA, FBI and NSA
about Russian election interference: “We assess Russian President
Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S.
presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in
the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her
electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the
Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect
Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.
"We also assess Putin
and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s
election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and
publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.” The report
concludes that "DC Leaks", 'Guccifer 2.0' and
WikiLeaks all obtained the
emails and other documents via Russian government-backed hackers.
January
6: DNI Clapper, FBI director James Comey and CIA director John Brennan
brief Trump on the intelligence community’s findings at Trump Tower. It had been previously agreed that Comey would brief Trump privately on the contents of the 'Trump Dossier'. Trump reacts angrily.
“Based on President-elect Trump’s reaction to the briefing, and without him directly asking the question,” Comey tells Trump he is not the subject of an open counter-intelligence investigation. Returning to his car after the meeting, Comey immediately writes a memo about the conversation.
Later that day, Trump tells
The New York Times that the Russia controversy is a
“political witch hunt.” He releases a statement saying the hacks had
“absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election,” adding that
“Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are
consistently trying” to hack the U.S. government and other institutions.
That night, Trump
writes on Twitter: “Gross negligence by the Democratic
National Committee allowed hacking to take place. The Republican
National Committee had strong defense!”
January 7: Trump writes
on Twitter: “Having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not
a bad thing. Only 'stupid' people, or fools, would think that it is
bad! We..... have enough problems around the world without yet another
one. When I am President, Russia will respect us far more than they do
now and.... both countries will, perhaps, work together to solve some of
the many great and pressing problems and issues of the WORLD!”
January
10: Under oath at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Trump advisor
and Senator Jeff Sessions says, “I have been called a surrogate at a
time or two in that campaign, and I did not have communications with the
Russians.”
January 10: CNN reports that both Trump and Obama had
been briefed on claims that Russia possessed compromising personal and
financial information about Trump based on “memos compiled by a former
British intelligence operative, whose past work U.S. intelligence
officials consider credible.”
Shortly after,
BuzzFeed publishes the
Dossier compiled by
Christopher Steele, indicating that Trump associates
had colluded with Russian operatives, and that the Russian government had
compromising information about Trump. The post implied that Trump
and Obama had each been briefed about the information in the Dossier.
Trump writes on Twitter: “FAKE NEWS - A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!”
January
11: Trump writes on Twitter: “Russia just said the unverified report
paid for by political opponents is ‘A COMPLETE AND TOTAL FABRICATION,
UTTER NONSENSE.’ Very unfair! … Russia has never tried to use leverage
over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA - NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO
NOTHING! … I win an election easily, a great "movement" is verified, and
crooked opponents try to belittle our victory with FAKE NEWS. A sorry
state! … Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news
to ‘leak’ into the public. One last shot at me. Are we living in Nazi
Germany?”
At a news conference at Trump Tower, Trump calls the
reports “fake news,” and says for the first time that he believes the
election-related hacks were conducted by Russia. But he is quick to add:
“I have to say this also, the Democratic National Committee was totally
open to be hacked. They did a very poor job.”
Trump adds: “If
Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a liability,
because we have a horrible relationship with Russia. Russia can help us
fight ISIS, which, by the way, is, No. 1, tricky. I mean if you look,
this administration created ISIS by leaving at the wrong time. The void
was created, ISIS was formed. If Putin likes Donald Trump, guess what,
folks? That’s called an asset, not a liability. Now, I don’t know that
I’m gonna get along with Vladimir Putin. I hope I do.”
At the
same news conference, incoming press secretary Sean Spicer calls the
BuzzFeed report “highly salacious and flat-out false” and called
BuzzFeed’s and CNN’s reporting “a sad and pathetic attempt to get
clicks.”
Vice President-elect Mike Pence labels the reports “fake
news,” and accused certain media outlets of an “attempt to demean the
president-elect and our incoming administration.”
January 13:
Spicer tells reporters that Michael Flynn’s conversations with
Ambassador Kislyak involved only the logistics of setting up an eventual
call between Trump and Putin.
January 13: Trump says in an
interview with
The Wall Street Journal that he is open to lifting
sanctions against Russia, if the country proves helpful on other fronts:
“If you get along and if Russia is really helping us, why would anybody
have sanctions if somebody’s doing some really great things?”
January
15: Vice-President-elect Michael Pence tells CBS News that, according
to his conversation with Flynn, "Flynn and Kislyak did not discuss
anything having to do with the United States’ decision to expel
diplomats or impose censure against Russia.”
January 17: Putin dismisses the Steele dossier as “false.”
January
22: The Wall Street Journal reports: “U.S. counterintelligence agents
have investigated communications that President Donald Trump’s national
security adviser had with Russian officials, according to people
familiar with the matter.”
Trump hosts an event at the White House honoring major U.S. law enforcement officers, including FBI Director James Comey. Standing on the opposite side of the room from Comey, Trump singles him out ("Oh, there's Jim"), forcing Comey to cross the room for a handshake and a brief hug. "He’s become more famous than me,” Trump jokes.
January 23: Press Secretary Spicer reiterates that Flynn’s call with Kislyak did not touch on sanctions.
January 24: National Security Advisor Michael Flynn is interviewed by FBI agents about his conversations with Russian Ambassador Kislyak.
January
26: Sally Yates, Acting U.S. Attorney General, calls White House
counsel Don McGahn and informs him they need to meet in person to
discuss “a very sensitive matter.” The two meet later that day at the
White House and Yates warns McGahn that Michael Flynn is making false
statements regarding his calls with Kislyak.
January 27: Acting A.G. Yates and McGahn meet again, at McGahn’s request.
Trump and Comey dine at the White House. Comey -- who found the dinner invitation strange -- recalled that “The President began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI
Director, which I found strange... My instincts told me that the
one-on-one setting, and the pretense that this was our first discussion
about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to
have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship.
That concerned me greatly, given the FBI’s traditionally independent
status in the executive branch…
"I added that I was not on anybody’s side
politically and could not be counted on in the traditional political
sense, a stance I said was in his best interest as the President. A few
moments later, the President said, ‘I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.’ I
didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during
the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in
silence….
"Near the end of our dinner, the President returned to the
subject of my job….He then said, ‘I need loyalty.’ I replied, ‘You will
always get honesty from me.’ He paused and then said, ‘That’s what I
want, honest loyalty.’ I paused, and then said, ‘You will get that from
me.’ ”
Comey also said he again told Trump he was not
under investigation. “He [replied] ...he was considering ordering me to
investigate the alleged incident to prove it didn’t happen. I replied that he should give that
careful thought because it might create a narrative that we were
investigating him personally, which we weren’t, and because it was very
difficult to prove a negative.”
January 27: Trump signs a Presidential Order putting a
travel ban impacting travelers and immigrants from seven Muslim
countries into effect, surprising everyone but his closest advisors. No advance notice is provided to major government agencies (Justice, Immigration, TSA) who would be expected to put the ban into action. The effect on major points of entry into the U.S. is chaotic.
January
30: Acting A.G. Sally Yates refuses to direct the Justice Department to
enforce Trump's travel ban. Trump summarily fires her.
February
2: Nikki Haley, Trump’s Ambassador to the U.N., condemns Russia’s
occupation of Crimea at a Security Council meeting and pledges that the
U.S. "Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns
control over the peninsula to Ukraine.” Haley also stated the U.S.
wants better relations with Russia.
February 4: Trump defends
Putin in an interview with Fox News, saying, “I do respect him.” When
pressed on allegations that Putin has been behind certain atrocitites,
Trump responds: “What, you think our country’s so innocent?”
February 8: The Senate confirms Senator Jeff Sessions as U.S. Attorney General in a 52-47 vote.
February
9: The Washington Post reports that Michael Flynn did, in fact, discuss
U.S. sanctions in his phone calls with Ambassador Kislyak, contrary to
his, and the Trump administration’s, previous statements.
February 13: The Washington Post reports
online that the White House has known for weeks that Flynn had misled others
about the nature of his conversations with Russian Ambassador Kislyak.
Within hours of the story's release, Flynn is forced to resign.
February
14: The New York Times reports that “members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016
presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts
with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the
election, according to four current and former American officials.”
In response to questions, Press Secretary Spicer says that Flynn was fired because he no longer had the trust of the president and vice
president.
FBI Director James Comey attends a scheduled counterterrorism briefing for the President in the Oval Office. “The
President signaled the end of the briefing by thanking the group and
telling them all that he wanted to speak to me alone….When the door by
the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone, the President began by
saying, ‘I want to talk about Mike Flynn.’
"… The President began by
saying Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong in speaking with the Russians,
but he had to let him go because he had misled the Vice President. He
added that he had other concerns about Flynn, which he did not then
specify… ‘He is a good guy and has been through a lot.’ He repeated that
Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but
had misled the Vice President.
"He then said, ‘I hope you can see your
way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I
hope you can let this go.’ I replied only that ‘he
is a good guy.’ …I
did not say I would ‘let this go.’ ” Comey writes a memo to file about the conversation directly after leaving the White House.
February
15: CNN reports: “High-level advisers close to then-presidential
nominee Donald Trump were in constant communication during the campaign
with Russians known to US intelligence, multiple current and former
intelligence, law enforcement and administration officials tell CNN.
President-elect Trump and then-President Barack Obama were both briefed
on details of the extensive communications between suspected Russian
operatives and people associated with the Trump campaign and the Trump
business, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.”
February
16: Trump again calls the Russia controversy “fake news” and said that
the
Times story from February 14 was “a joke... I have nothing to do
with Russia. I told you, I have no deals there, I have no anything. Now,
when WikiLeaks, which I had nothing to do with, comes out and happens
to give, they’re not giving classified information...
"I’m here
today is to tell you the whole Russian thing, that’s a ruse. That’s a
ruse. And by the way, it would be great if we could get along with
Russia, just so you understand that. … I didn’t do anything for Russia. …
If we could get along with Russia, that’s a positive thing. … I would
love to be able to get along with Russia. … If we have a good
relationship with Russia, believe me, that’s a good thing, not a bad
thing.”
Asked if anyone who advised his campaign had contacts
with Russia during the election, Trump responds: “No. Nobody that I know
of.”
February 20: The Russian ambassador to the U.N., Vitaly
Churkin, passes away in New York. The next day, Trump releases a
statement praising him and offering condolences.
February
28: The Washington Post reports that the FBI was still prepared to pay Christopher Steele to continue
his research work, indicating the Bureau found him credible.
March [ ] : In March, Trump separately asks Daniel Coats, Director of National Intelligence (succeeding John Clapper), and Admiral Michael S.
Rogers, Director of the National Security Agency, to help him in pushing back
against the FBI investigation into ties between his presidential campaign and the Russian government.
Trump urged them to publicly deny the
existence of any evidence of collusion during the election. Both officials believed the request was inappropriate and refused.
March 1: The
Washington Post reports that Attorney General Jeff Sessions, while acting as a
national security advisor to candidate Trump during the campaign, did
speak with Russian Ambassador Kislyak, in contradiction of Sessions' past statements.
March 2: As congressional Democrats call for Sessions
to resign, and even some Republicans say he should recuse himself from
an investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, Trump
announces he has “total confidence” in the AG.
Sessions
announces he will recuse himself from any investigation into ties
between Russia and the Trump campaign.
March 3: CNN reports on
additional meetings that took place between Trump associates and
Kislyak. Meanwhile, Trump posts an old picture on Twitter of Democratic Senator
Chuck Schumer eating doughnuts with Vladimir Putin, saying: “We should start an immediate investigation into @SenSchumer and
his ties to Russia and Putin. A total hypocrite!”
Trump later
tweets an article about Nancy Pelosi having met with Kislyak, who she
said she hadn’t met, and writes: “I hereby demand a second
investigation, after Schumer, of Pelosi for her close ties to Russia,
and lying about it.”
Kislyak cancels plans to attend the March 4 annual Gridiron Dinner of the Washington press corps in Washington. Trump likewise will not appear.
March
4: Trump tweets: “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires
tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is
McCarthyism! … Just out: The same Russian Ambassador that met Jeff
Sessions visited the Obama White House 22 times, and 4 times last year
alone. … Is it legal for a sitting President to be "wire tapping" a race
for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW
LOW! … I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact
that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to
Election! … How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during
the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick)
guy!”
FBI
Director James Comey asks the Justice Department to reject Trump's
claim, but no rejection is issued. Former President Obama denied the allegations through a spokesman.
Trump ally Roger Stone writes
on Twitter that he “never denied perfectly legal backchannel to Assange
who indeed had the goods on #CrookedHillary.” He later deletes the
tweet.
March 5: The White House calls on Congress to investigate Trump's claims of wiretapping and says it will not comment further.
March
6: In a press gaggle, Press Secretary Spicer declines to say what the
source was for Trump’s wire-tapping allegation and presents no evidence
to back it up. The claims appeared to be based on a talk radio segment,
and a Breitbart article about that radio segment.
March 7: Christopher Steele, who had been in hiding after the U.S. elections, reappears publicly on camera
in London, saying "I'm really pleased to be back here working again at the
Orbis's offices". Some members of Congress express interest in meeting with or hearing testimony from
ex-MI6 officer.
March 8: When
asked if Trump is the target of a counter-intelligence investigation,
Spicer responds: “I think that’s what we need to find out.” He later
says: “There is no reason to believe that [Trump] is the target of any
investigation.”
March 9:
CNN reports that the FBI’s counter-intelligence team continues to
investigate “computer server connection between the Trump Organization
and a Russian bank.”
When asked if Trump agrees with Senator
Ben Sasse’s declaration that Assange belongs in jail, Spicer demurs and
suggests reporters speak with the Department of Justice.
March 10: Senior administration officials
discussing German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s upcoming visit decline to
comment on allegations that the Russians are interfering in European
elections.
March 20: FBI Director James Comey confirms in
testimony to the House Select Committee on Intelligence that the FBI is
investigating possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. “The
FBI, as part of our counterintelligence effort, is investigating the
Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 president
election,” Comey states.
Representative Devin Nunes, Republican Chairman of the Committee, appears to brush Comey's notable revelation aside and instead focus on what the FBI is doing to identify and prosecute "leaks to the media" from those in government.
When asked, Comey indicates he had been cleared by the Justice Department to say there
is “no information” to support Trump’s claim of being wiretapped during the 2016 campaign.
The Washington Post reports Trump's separate requests to DNI Coats and NSA Director Admiral
Rogers to help him 'push back'
against the FBI's Russian investigation, and their refusals.
Trump writes on Twitter: “James
Clapper and others stated that there is no evidence Potus colluded with
Russia. This story is FAKE NEWS and everyone knows it! … The Democrats
made up and pushed the Russian story as an excuse for running a terrible
campaign. Big advantage in Electoral College & lost! … The real
story that Congress, the FBI and all others should be looking into is
the leaking of Classified information. Must find leaker now! … What
about all of the contact with the Clinton campaign and the Russians?
Also, is it true that the DNC would not let the FBI in to look?”
March 21: The Daily Beast reports that in the early evening, House Intelligence Committee Chairman, Devin Nunes, was traveling in an Uber ride with
a senior committee staffer when he received a text message on his phone. Nunes had the driver stop the car, got out abruptly and walked away without any explanation to his staffer.
March
22: In the morning, Chairman Nunes calls a news conference, telling reporters “The intelligence community incidentally collected
information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition.” Nunes claimed to have reviewed “dozens
of reports” produced by U.S. intelligence, provided by a source he would not name, proving it. While the surveillance was legal, Nunes was “alarmed” that information about Trump's transition team had been widely
disseminated throughout the government.
Immediately
after the press conference, Nunes goes to the White House to brief Trump on the information he had reviewed. After, Trump says he felt “somewhat” vindicated by the
briefing for his false claim that President Obama “wiretapped” him
during or after the election.
Associated Press reports that former Trump Campaign Manager,
Paul Manafort, had previously worked secretly on behalf of a Russian
billionaire to enhance the image of Putin and the Russian government in
the West.
At the White House, Spicer downplays Manafort’s role
in the Trump campaign, declaring “to be clear, the President has no
personal financial dealings with Russia. His ties are limited to
hosting a contest in Russia once, and selling a Palm Beach home to a
businessman in 2005. That's it.” When asked if Manafort ever encouraged
the campaign to take a more pro-Russian position, Spicer responds: “Not
that I’m aware of.”
CNN reports that “The FBI has
information that indicates associates of President Donald Trump
communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate
the release of information damaging to Hillary Clinton's campaign, US
officials told CNN. This is partly what FBI Director James Comey was
referring to when he made a bombshell announcement Monday before
Congress that the FBI is investigating the Trump campaign's ties to
Russia, according to one source.”
At a White House meeting, Trump asks Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats if he could intervene with then-FBI Director James B. Comey
to "get the bureau to back off its focus on former national security
adviser Michael Flynn in its Russia probe.” Coats' response is not known.
March 23: Spicer mocks the CNN
report, saying the use of the term “associates” is too broad. Trump
writes on Twitter: “Just watched the totally biased and fake news
reports of the so-called Russia story on NBC and ABC. Such dishonesty!”
Devin Nunes appears on Fox with Sean Hannity, saying he had gone to the White House to brief Trump on his claims of surveillance of his transition team by U.S. intelligence because "... I would be concerned if I was the president, and that’s why I
wanted him to know, and I felt like I had a duty and obligation to tell
him because... he’s taking a lot of heat in the news media." Nunes says he will provide the House Intelligence Committee with documents supporting his allegations soon.
Trump tells Fox News that he would “be submitting things before the [House Intelligence] committee very soon” supporting claims the Obama administration had placed his transition team under surveillance.“We will be submitting certain things, and I will be, perhaps, speaking about this next week.”
March
27: Trump writes on Twitter: “Trump Russia story is a hoax. #MAGA!” He
also questions why people do not focus on whether Hillary Clinton has
ties to Russia.
March 29: The New York Times reports that
National Security Council senior director for intelligence Ezra
Cohen-Watnick and White House national security lawyer Michael Ellis
provided Nunes the intelligence documents, indicating a direct thread
between the administration and the original news conference. At his
daily press briefing, Press Secretary Sean Spicer declines to comment,
saying he chooses to focus more on the "substance" than the "process."
March 30: Trump calls FBI Director Comey at his FBI office. “He
described the Russia investigation as ‘a cloud’ that was impairing his
ability to act on behalf of the country. He said he had nothing to do
with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had
always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia. He asked what we
could do to ‘lift the cloud.’
"… I explained that we had briefed the
leadership of Congress on exactly which individuals we were
investigating and that we had told those Congressional leaders that we
were not personally investigating [Trump]. I reminded him I had
previously told him that. He repeatedly told me, ‘We need to get that
fact out.’… The President went on to say that if there were some
‘satellite’ associates of his who did something wrong, it would be good
to find that out, but that he hadn’t done anything wrong.” Comey writes a memo to file immediately after the call ends.
March 31: Trump writes on Twitter: “Mike Flynn
should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big
election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!”
The New York Times reports that the 'classified reports' provided to House Intelligence Committee
Chairman Devin Nunes -- which he claimed had come from an unnamed source -- proving the Trump transition team had been under surveillance, had actually come from the Trump White House. Nunes is unable to provide any the reports to members of his committee.
April
1: Trump writes on Twitter: “When will Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd and
@NBCNews start talking about the Obama SURVEILLANCE SCANDAL and stop
with the Fake Trump/Russia story? … It is the same Fake News Media that
said there is "no path to victory for Trump" that is now pushing the
phony Russia story. A total scam!”
April 6: Due to an ethics complaint, Devin Nunes steps down from his leadership
of the Russia investigation by the House Intelligence Committee into
Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
President Xi Jinping of China arrives for an
official visit to the United States, and is entertained at Trump's
Mar-a-Lago Florida estate.
During dinner with Jinping, Trump is informed that air strikes he had ordered against Syrian
government forces, following a chemical weapons attack which killed and injured civilians, had been carried out with 60 cruise missiles launched from the Mediterranean. Russia denounces the
strikes.
April 11: Trump calls FBI Director Comey at his FBI office. "[He] asked what I had
done about his request that I ‘get out’ [i.e., communicate] that he is not personally under
investigation. I replied that I had passed his request to the Acting
Deputy Attorney General, but I had not heard back.
"[Trump] replied that ‘the
cloud’ was getting in the way of his ability to do his job…. I said the
White House Counsel should contact the leadership of DOJ to make the
request, which was the traditional channel. He said he would do that and
added, ‘Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that
thing, you know.’ I did not reply or ask him what he meant by ‘that
thing.’ I said only that the way to handle it was to have the White
House Counsel call the Acting Deputy Attorney General. He said that was
what he would do and the call ended.” Comey immediately writes a memorandum about the conversation.
April 13: Trump says during a press conference at
the White House with the NATO secretary general, “We’re not getting along with Russia at all …
we may be at an all-time low".
At almost the same time, Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson and Vladimir Putin meet in Moscow. Later, Trump says on
Twitter: “Things will work out fine between the U.S.A. and Russia. At
the right time everyone will come to their senses & there will be
lasting peace!”
April 25: The Senate votes 94-6 to confirm Rod Rosenstein as Deputy Attorney General.
May
2: Trump writes on Twitter: “FBI Director Comey was the best thing that
ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for
many bad deeds! The phony...Trump/Russia story was an excuse used by
the Democrats as justification for losing the election. Perhaps Trump
just ran a great campaign?”
May 5: Hackers release a trove of
emails purportedly from French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron’s
campaign. Intelligence experts link the hack to Russia.
May 7:
Trump writes on Twitter: “When will the Fake Media ask about the Dems
dealings with Russia & why the DNC wouldn't allow the FBI to check
their server or investigate?”
May 8: Former Acting Attorney
General Sally Yates, and former Director of National Intelligence James
Clapper testify before a Senate subcommittee on Russian interference in
the election. Yates confirms that she informed the White House that
Michael Flynn was “compromised” weeks before news broke that Flynn had
misled the vice president and was fired.
Trump tweets: “Director
Clapper reiterated what everybody, including the fake media already
knows- there is ‘no evidence’ of collusion w/ Russia and Trump... The
Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer
funded charade end?”
May 9: Trump fires FBI Director James Comey.
In the letter announcing his termination, Trump writes: “While I
greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I
am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of
the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the
Bureau.”
The White House’s official explanation is that Deputy
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein recommended the termination in a memo
(dated May 9), and that AG Sessions affirmed the recommendation in a letter to
Trump.
May
10: Trump meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who had earlier met with Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson and joked about Comey’s firing. “Was he fired? You’re kidding,
you’re kidding,” Lavrov said sarcastically in response to a reporter's shouted
question.
While meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak in the Oval Office, Trump tells them,
"I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a
real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's [been] taken off."
The Russian government's Twitter accounts post
pictures of Trump with Ambassador Kislyak and Lavrov in the Oval
Office. It's later reported that Trump divulged classified national
security information to Lavrov and Kislyak during the course of the
meeting which could easily reveal an intelligence source for an American action against ISIS in Syria.
The Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation into Russian influence on the 2016 election issues a subpoena to Michael Flynn for documents related to the inquiry.
May
11: Trump writes on Twitter: “Russia must be laughing up their sleeves
watching as the U.S. tears itself apart over a Democrat EXCUSE for
losing the election.”
In an interview, Trump tells NBC’s
Lester Holt: “When I decided to just do it [i.e., fire Director Comey],
I said to myself, I said you know, this Russia thing with Trump and
Russia is a made up story, it's an excuse by the Democrats for having
lost an election that they should have won."
May 12: Trump writes
on Twitter: ““James B. Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” And later, "Again, the story that there was collusion between the
Russians & Trump campaign was fabricated by Dems as an excuse for
losing the election. … When James Clapper himself, and virtually
everyone else with knowledge of the witch hunt, says there is no
collusion, when does it end?”
May 16: Trump writes on Twitter:
“As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H.
meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts
pertaining.......to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian
reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS
& terrorism.”
May 17: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein
appoints former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to
investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and possible
collusion with the Trump campaign.
Trump releases a statement
saying the investigation “will confirm what we already know – there was
no collusion between my campaign and any foreign entity.”
May 18:
Trump writes on Twitter: “This is the single greatest witch hunt of a
politician in American history!... With all of the illegal acts that
took place in the Clinton campaign & Obama Administration, there was
never a special counsel appointed!”
At a White House press
conference that afternoon, Trump criticizes the appointment of a special
counsel and declares, "There was no collusion.” He also denies telling
Comey to drop the investigation into Michael Flynn.
May 19: The
New York Times reports Trump's comments to Lavrov and Kislyak at their May 10 Oval Office meeting.
The
Washington Post reports that federal investigators have “identified a current White House
official as a significant person of interest” in the Russia
investigation.
May 22: The
Washington Post reports that “Trump made separate appeals to the director of national
intelligence, Daniel Coats, and to Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the director
of the National Security Agency, urging them to publicly deny the
existence of any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election.” The
paper says the meeting happened in March and that Coats and Rogers
denied the president’s request.
May 23: Coats appears at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing and is asked if the
Post report
on Trump’s request to help him push back against the FBI
investigation is accurate. Coats declines to answer. “It’s not
appropriate for me to comment publicly on any of that,” Coats said.
Former CIA Director John Brennan testifies before
the House Intelligence Committee about the federal investigation into
possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. Brennan says he does not know if any
“such collusion existed,” but was concerned about contacts between
Russian officials and people involved in the Trump campaign.
“I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that
revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and U.S.
persons involved in the Trump campaign... I was concerned about
because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals and it
raised questions in my mind, again, whether or not the Russians were
able to gain the cooperation of those individuals.
“I don’t
know whether or not such collusion — and that’s your term, such
collusion, existed. I don’t know. But I know that there was a sufficient
basis of information and intelligence that required further
investigation by the bureau to determine whether or not U.S. persons
were actively conspiring, colluding with Russian officials.”
May 25: The Washington Post reports that the "current White House
official" who is "a significant person of interest" to investigators in the Russia inquiry is Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner.
May 26: The
Washington Post reports that Jared Kushner and Russian ambassador Kislyak discussed setting up a
secure communications channel between Trump’s transition team and the
Kremlin at a meeting in early December 2016.
May 27: National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster downplays
reports of Kushner discussing back-channel communications
with Russia. McMaster says the U.S. has “back-channel communications
with a number of countries. So, generally speaking, about back-channel
communications, what that allows you to do is to communicate in a
discreet manner.”
May 31: The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence issues subpoenas for testimony, documents and business records from Michael Flynn and Michael Cohen, a personal attorney to the President.
June 5: NSA contractor Reality Winner is charged with leaking classified information about Russia’s hacking activities. It is reported
that Winner gave
The Intercept an NSA report dated May 5 detailing
how the Russian military intelligence operation carried out cyberattacks
in 2016 on a U.S. election software company.
June 6: CNN reports that Michael Flynn provides more than 600 pages of documents to the Senate Intelligence committee in response to their May 10 subpoena.
The
Washington Post reports Trump's March 22 request of Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats to intervene with then-FBI Director James Comey over the Russian investigation. The
Post's report was based on
“officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive
internal matters.”
Brian Hale, a spokesman for the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence, issues
a statement saying Coats “never felt pressured by the President or
anyone else in the Administration to influence any intelligence matters
or ongoing investigations.”
June 7: At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Senator Marco Rubio asks National Intelligence Director Coats if he were ever asked “by
the President or the White House to influence an ongoing investigation.”
Coats declines to comment, saying it would be inappropriate to answer in an open forum.
At the same hearing, Admiral Michael Rogers, director of the National Security Agency, also declines
to discuss any conversations he has had with the president, but adds, “In the three-plus years that I have been the Director of the
National Security Agency, to the best of my recollection I have never
been directed to do anything I believe to be illegal, immoral, unethical
or inappropriate.”
Trump announces
his intention to nominate Christopher Wray, an assistant U.S. attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s criminal
prosecutions division during the the George W. Bush
administration, to replace James Comey as the FBI
director.
James Comey submits written testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee in advance of his appearance before the committee
June 8: Former FBI Director Comey testifies under oath before the Senate Intelligence Committee (the previously quoted descriptions of his meetings with and calls from Trump are from his testimony).
June 9: At a joint press conference
with the President of Romania, Trump denies that he told Comey
to drop the Flynn investigation. “I didn’t say that,” Trump says, and adds that he never asked Comey to pledge loyalty to him. “I hardly
know the man,” Trump says. “I’m not going to say, 'I want you to pledge
allegiance.' ”
Trump also says he is “100 percent” willing to testify
under oath about his conversations with Comey. “No collusion, no
obstruction, he’s a leaker.” When a reporter begins to ask a question about Trump hinting that he
may have tape recordings of his conversations with Comey, Trump says, “I’m not hinting at anything. I’ll tell you about it over a very short period of time... Oh, you're going to be very disappointed when you hear the answer. Don't worry.”
The House Intelligence Committee sends a latter to White House Counsel McGahn, asking if any such tapes exist and, if so, to turn them over to the committee by June 23.
June 12: Christopher Ruddy, CEO of the conservative Newsmax Media and a friend of the president, tells PBS
NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff that Trump is considering firing Mueller. “I
think he’s considering perhaps terminating the special counsel,” Ruddy
said. “I think he’s weighing that option.”
June 13 – Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the
president has the “right” to fire Mueller, but won’t. “While the
president has the right to, he has no intention to do so,” Sanders tells reporters aboard Air Force One.
Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosenberg testifies before
the Senate Judiciary Committee that he alone has the authority to fire
the Special Counsel, and that he has not seen any evidence of good cause
for doing so.
Attorney General Sessions also testifies
before the Senate Intelligence Committee. “[T]he suggestion that I
participated in any collusion, that I was aware of any collusion with
the Russian government to hurt this country, which I have served with
honor for 35 years, or to undermine the integrity of our democratic
process, is an appalling and detestable lie,” he says.
Sessions, who had acknowledged meeting the Russian ambassador on two occasions, says he did not recall
meeting Kislyak a third time at Trump’s foreign policy speech at the
Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., on April 27, 2016. “I don’t recall
it,” Sessions says. “Certainly I can assure you nothing improper — if
I’d had a conversation with him and it’s conceivable that occurred — I
just don’t remember it.”
Sessions declines to answer any questions about his conversations with the president
regarding Comey’s firing or any other matter. “[C]onsistent with
long-standing Department of Justice practice, I cannot and will not
violate my duty to protect confidential communications with the
President.”
June 14: The
Washington Post reports
that Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the special counsel heading the Russia investigation, has
widened his inquiry to include “an examination of whether President
Trump attempted to obstruct justice.... Five
people briefed on the interview requests, speaking on the condition of
anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter
publicly, said that Daniel Coats, the current director of national
intelligence, Mike Rogers, head of the National Security Agency, and
Rogers’s recently departed deputy, Richard Ledgett, agreed to be
interviewed by Mueller’s investigators as early as this week... it is unclear how many
others have been questioned by the FBI.”
June 15: Trump tweets:
“They made up a phony collusion with the Russians story, found zero
proof, so now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story.
Nice”.
The
Washington Post reports that Special Counsel Mueller is investigating “the finances and business dealings” of
Kushner. It also writes that the FBI and federal prosecutors have been
“examining the financial dealings of other Trump associates,” including
Flynn, Manafort and Page.
In an email to the
Post, Kushner’s attorney,
Jamie Gorelick, says, “It would be standard practice for the Special
Counsel to examine financial records to look for anything related to
Russia.”
Pence hires Virginia lawyer Richard Cullen a partner at McGuireWoods and former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern
District of Virginia under President George H.W. Bush, to serve as his
personal lawyer during the Russia investigation.
June 16: Trump writes on Twitter: “I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt.”
June 18: Trump’s lawyer Jay Sekulow says on CBS'
Face The Nation
that the president is not under investigation. “The fact of the matter
is the president has not been and is not under investigation,” Sekulow
says. “So this was his response, via twitter, via social media was in
response to the
Washington Post piece with five anonymous sources.”
June 22: The day before the The House Intelligence Committee's deadline to provide any recordings of conversations with James Comey, Trump tweets that he did not record his contacts with the former
FBI director. “With all of the recently reported electronic
surveillance, intercepts, unmasking and illegal leaking of information, I
have no idea whether there are ‘tapes’ or
recordings of my conversations with James Comey, but I did not make, and
do not have, any such recordings.”
July 8: The
New York Times breaks the story of the June 9, 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort with Russian
lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower.
In a statement to the
Times,
Donald Trump Jr. says it was a “short introductory meeting” and, “We
primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children
that was active and popular with American families years ago and was
since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue
at the time and there was no follow up.”
July 9: Donald
Trump Jr. says in a statement,
“the woman [Veselnitskaya] stated that she had information that individuals connected
to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting
Mrs. Clinton. Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No
details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It
quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information. ..It became clear
to me that this was the true agenda all along and that the claims of
potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting.”
July 11: The
New York Times obtains copies of the email chain between Goldstone and Trump establishing the context for the meeting -- but before they can publish the story, Trump Jr. tweets screenshots
of the emails. He says Veselnitskaya “was not a government official”
and that “[t]he information they suggested they had about Hillary
Clinton I thought was Political Opposition Research.”
Junior appears on Fox 'News', describing the "nothingburger" meeting with Veselnitskaya to Sean Hannity as being attended only by Junior, music publicist Goldstone, Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort. The Russian attorney apparently had no information about Hillary Clinton, but instead wanted to make arguments against the Magnitsky Act (allowing the U.S. to withhold visas and freeze assets of Russians believed to have violated human rights). Jared Kushner was supposed to have left the meeting early, and Junior politely brought it to a close in short order.
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MEHR, MIT DA IST HIER NOCH IMMER MEHR:
July 14: The Associated Press reports that the June, 2016 meeting between Donald Trump, Jr., and Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya was also attended by Russian lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin, who works with Veselnitskaya and like her is well-known in Washington as a lobbyist with connections to the Russian government.
Akhmetshin claimed the meeting was "nothing substantive", and (aside from the fact that Donald, Jr., had not mentioned his presence there) was surprised it was being treated as a "big deal". His recollection was that, along with Veselnitskaya, Trump Jr., Manafort, Kushner, Bob Goldstone and himself, an unnamed translator was present.
July 15: CNN reports that the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower included at least eight people: Trump Jr., Kushner, Manafort, Russian
lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, Rinat Akhmetshin; music publicist Rob Goldstone; a
translator; and a representative of Aras
Agalarov, Russian real estate developer with ties to Donald Trump
Sr., who had asked
Goldstone to set up the meeting. This new report differs, again, from Junior's earlier descriptions.
Later, Trump tweets: “HillaryClinton can illegally get the questions to the Debate &
delete 33,000 emails but my son Don is being scorned by the Fake News
media? With all of its phony unnamed sources & highly slanted & even
fraudulent reporting, #Fake News is DISTORTING DEMOCRACY in our
country.”
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