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November 23, 2019 - March 10, 2020
The FBI, already deep into its investigation of election interference, now feared that the most powerful man in the country was trying to obstruct its work.
the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities,”
Mueller made clear that prosecutors did not consider "collusion" a legal term and never performed an analysis of that issue. They instead looked to see whether campaign aides made any agreements with Russians to assist in their effort to interfere in the election. Using that standard, they found no signs of coordination between the campaign and Russia.
Trump’s aides essentially saved their boss from his worst impulses by ignoring his directives to interfere with the Mueller investigation.
“Accordingly, while this report does not conclude the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
His prosecutors charged thirty-four people, including twenty-six Russian nationals. They secured guilty pleas from seven people, including a former national security adviser and the chairman of Trump’s campaign.
They documented the Russian attack on American democracy in breathtaking detail, even tracing individual keystrokes of Russian military officers in Moscow.
Trump surrounded himself with campaign aides who had long-standing financial ties to Moscow.
Mueller, after all, was not an independent counsel, and thus not truly independent of Trump.
the best legal defense was a political offense in the form of an unrelenting public campaign to undermine Mueller’s credibility and convince voters that impeachment based on his findings would be unfair and unpalatable. Giuliani’s strategy had the added benefit of convincing Trump that there was no need to appear cooperative and sit for an interview.
None were accused of criminally coordinating with the Russians. But over and over again, they were accused of lying about efforts to develop inroads with Russia and leverage that country’s hacking of Democratic emails.
A statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts.
Like collusion, “coordination” does not have a settled definition in federal criminal law.
the investigation did not establish that the Trump Campaign coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.
The IRA’s operation also included the purchase of political advertisements on social media in the names of U.S. persons and entities, as well as the staging of political rallies inside the United States.
The investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons conspired or coordinated with the IRA.
WikiLeaks began releasing Podesta’s stolen emails on October 7, 2016, less than one hour after a U.S. media outlet released video considered damaging to candidate Trump.
The social media campaign and the GRU hacking operations coincided with a series of contacts between Trump Campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government.
The written communications setting up the meeting showed that the Campaign anticipated receiving information from Russia that could assist candidate Trump’s electoral prospects,
the Office learned that some of the individuals we interviewed or whose conduct we investigated—including some associated with the Trump Campaign—deleted relevant communications or communicated during the relevant period using applications that feature encryption or that do not provide for long-term retention of data or communications records.
While certain campaign volunteers agreed to provide the requested support (for example, agreeing to set aside a number of signs), the investigation has not identified evidence that any Trump Campaign official understood the requests were coming from foreign nationals.
WikiLeaks’s release of the stolen Podesta emails on October 7, 2016, the same day a video from years earlier was published of Trump using graphic language about women.
Within approximately five hours of Trump’s statement, GRU officers targeted for the first time Clinton’s personal office.
In addition to targeting individuals involved in the Clinton Campaign, GRU officers also targeted individuals and entities involved in the administration of the elections. Victims included U.S. state and local entities, such as state boards of elections (SBOEs), secretaries of state, and county governments, as well as individuals who worked for those entities.
In particular, the investigation examined whether these contacts involved or resulted in coordination or a conspiracy with the Trump Campaign and Russia, including with respect to Russia providing assistance to the Campaign in exchange for any sort of favorable treatment in the future. Based on the available information, the investigation did not establish such coordination.
