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April 22 - May 14, 2019
Mueller did not find a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians—though it suggested they had a shared motive.
“The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred,”
in a town fueled by leaks, Mueller largely kept his work under wraps.
Ongoing matter redactions are indicated by [+ + + + +] Investigative technique redactions are indicated by [= = = = =] Grand jury redactions are indicated by [~ ~ ~ ~ ~] Personal privacy information redactions are indicated by [# # # # #]
The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion.
the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
The Special Counsel’s Office exercised its judgment regarding what to investigate and did not, for instance, investigate every public report of a contact between the Trump Campaign and Russian-affiliated individuals and entities.
the Office periodically identified evidence of potential criminal activity that was outside the scope of the Special Counsel’s authority established by the Acting Attorney General.
interviewed approximately 500 witnesses, including almost 80 before a grand jury.
Those communications and other correspondence between the Office and the FBI contain information derived from the investigation, not all of which is contained in this Volume. This Volume is a summary.
According to Facebook, in total the IRA-controlled accounts made over 80,000 posts before their deactivation in August 2017, and these posts reached at least 29 million U.S persons and “may have reached an estimated 126 million people.”62
. The Office is aware of reports that other Russian entities engaged in similar active measures operations targeting the United States.
Posts from these Pages were also shared, liked, and followed by people on Facebook, and, as a result, three times more people may have been exposed to a story that originated from the Russian operation.
For example, one IRA account tweeted, “To those people, who hate the Confederate flag. Did you know that the flag and the war wasn’t about slavery, it was all about money.” The tweet received over 40,000 responses.
Eli Rosenberg, Twitter to Tell 677,000 Users they Were Had by the Russians. Some Signs Show the Problem Continues, Washington Post (Jan. 19, 2019).
Unit 74455 separately hacked computers belonging to state boards of elections, secretaries of state, and U.S. companies that supplied software and other technology related to the administration of U.S. elections.
On April 25,2016, the GRU collected and compressed PDF and Microsoft documents from folders on the DCCC’s shared file server that pertained to the 2016 election.132 The GRU appears to have compressed and exfiltrated over 70 gigabytes of data from this file server.
Within approximately five hours of Trump’s statement, GRU officers targeted for the first time Clinton’s personal office. After candidate Trump’s remarks, Unit 26165 created and sent malicious links targeting 15 email accounts at the domain
The GRU stole approximately 300 gigabytes of data from the DNC cloud- based account.
the Trump Organization agreed to accept an arrangement whereby the organization received a flat 3.5% commission on all sales, with no licensing fees or incentives.295
he had conducted an internet search for Klokov’s name and concluded (incorrectly) that Klokov was a former Olympic weightlifter.
Cohen responded, “My trip before Cleveland. Trump once he becomes the nominee after the convention.”
Papadopoulos suggested to a representative of a foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign
thus, Page’s activities in Russia—as described in his emails with the Campaign—were not fully explained.
offered to provide the Trump Campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia” as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” Trump Jr. immediately responded that “if it’s what you say I love it,”
The Office could not reliably determine Manafort’s purpose in sharing internal polling data with Kilimnik during the campaign period.
Despite his resignation, Manafort continued to offer advice to various Campaign officials through the November election.
Trump was elected President on November 8, 2016. Beginning immediately after the election, individuals connected to the Russian government started contacting officials on the Trump Campaign and Transition Team through multiple channels—sometimes
Petr Aven, a Russian national who heads Alfa-Bank, Russia’s largest commercial bank, described to the Office interactions with Putin during this time period that might account for the flurry of Russian activity.
any suggestions or critiques that Putin made during these meetings were implicit directives, and that there would be consequences for Aven if he did not follow through.
According to Aven, Putin indicated that he did not know with whom formally to speak and generally did not know the people around the President-Elect.
Dmitriev said that his and the government of Russia’s preference was for candidate Trump to win,
investigators were unable to obtain the content of these or other messages between Prince and Bannon,
Kushner asked Kislyak if they could communicate using secure facilities at the Russian Embassy.
Kushner stated in an interview that he did not engage in any preparation for the meeting and that no one on the Transition Team even did a Google search for Gorkov’s name.
When asked about imposing sanctions on Russia for its alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election, President-Elect Trump told the media, “I think we ought to get on with our lives.”
During the briefing, President-Elect Trump asked McFarland if the Russians did “it,” meaning the intrusions intended to influence the presidential election.1253 McFarland said yes, and President-Elect Trump expressed doubt that it was the Russians.
Schemes involving the solicitation or receipt of assistance from foreign sources raise difficult statutory and constitutional questions.
several U.S. persons connected to the Campaign made false statements about those contacts and took other steps to obstruct the Office’s investigation and those of Congress.
An “agent of a foreign government” is an “individual” who “agrees to operate” in the United States “subject to the direction or control of a foreign government or official.”
agent of a foreign government
While the government has evidence of later efforts to prevent disclosure of the nature of the June 9 meeting that could circumstantially provide support for a showing of scienter, see Volume II, Section II.G, infra, that concealment occurred more than a year later, involved individuals who did not attend the June 9 meeting, and may reflect an intention to avoid political consequences rather than any prior knowledge of illegality.
Cohen stated that he did not recall any Russian government contact about the project, including any response to an email that he had sent to a Russian government email account.
Consideration of the project had extended through approximately June 2016 and included more than three progress reports from Cohen to Trump.
On four occasions, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) issued warrants based on a finding of probable cause to believe that Page was an agent of a foreign power.
we determined not to apply an approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the President committed crimes.
An individual who believes he was wrongly accused can use that process to seek to clear his name. In contrast, a prosecutor’s judgment that crimes were committed, but that no charges will be brought, affords no such adversarial opportunity for public name-clearing before an impartial adjudicator.1288
if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment.
while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.
Three basic elements are common to most of the relevant obstruction statutes: (1) an obstructive act; (2) a nexus between the obstructive act and an official proceeding; and (3) a corrupt intent.
(to act corruptly means to “act[] with an improper purpose and to engage in conduct knowingly and dishonestly with the specific intent to subvert, impede or obstruct” the relevant proceeding)
