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May 9 - September 30, 2019
Officials were told that George Papadopoulos, a young energy consultant chosen to advise Trump on foreign policy, had bragged to an Australian diplomat that he had been told Russia had dirt on Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. Papadopoulos’s boasts had come in May 2016, before the public even knew that the Democratic National Committee had been hacked. In late July, the FBI opened “Crossfire Hurricane,” a formal counter-intelligence investigation of Russia’s efforts that was focused in part on Papadopoulos. In October, as WikiLeaks published more stolen Democratic emails, a federal
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The dossier had been commissioned by Fusion GPS, a Washington opposition research firm, and was funded by the Clinton campaign.
the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.
we applied the framework of conspiracy law, not the concept of “collusion.”
collusion is not a specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in federal criminal law.
Like collusion, “coordination” does not have a settled definition in federal criminal law. We understood coordination to require an agreement—tacit
investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.
Candidate Trump signed a Letter of Intent for Trump Tower Moscow by November 2015, and in January 2016 Trump Organization executive Michael Cohen emailed and spoke about the project with the office of Russian government press secretary Dmitry Peskov. The Trump Organization pursued the project through at least June 2016, including by considering travel to Russia by Cohen and candidate Trump.
“to investigate Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election and related matters.”
including: (i) any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and (ii) any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation; and (iii) any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a).
further clarified the scope of the Special Counsel’s investigatory authority in two subsequent memoranda.
“worded categorically in order to permit its public release without confirming specific investigations involving specific individuals.”
Sanders and Trump – we support them).”
U.S. media outlets also quoted tweets from IRA-controlled accounts and attributed them to the reactions of real U.S. persons.71 Similarly, numerous high-profile U.S. persons, including former Ambassador Michael McFaul,72 Roger Stone,73 Sean Hannity,74 and Michael Flynn Jr.,75 retweeted or responded to tweets posted to these IRA-controlled accounts. Multiple individuals affiliated with the Trump Campaign also promoted IRA tweets
Assange and WikiLeaks made a number of statements about Seth Rich, a former DNC staff member who was killed in July 2016. The statements about Rich implied falsely that he had been the source of the stolen DNC emails.
Assange continued to deny that the Clinton materials released by WikiLeaks had come from Russian hacking. According to media reports, Assange told a U.S. congressman that the DNC hack was an “inside job,”
Within approximately five hours of Trump’s statement, GRU officers targeted for the first time Clinton’s personal office.
The Trump Organization and the Crocus Group, a Russian real estate conglomerate owned and controlled by Aras Agalarov, began discussing a Russia-based real estate project shortly after the conclusion of the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow.291 Donald J. Trump Jr. served as the primary negotiator on behalf of the Trump Organization;
In December 2013, Kaveladze and Trump Jr. negotiated and signed preliminary terms of an agreement for the Trump Tower Moscow project.294 On December 23, 2013, after discussions with Donald J. Trump, 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 The parties negotiated a letter of intent during January and February 2014.
Ivanka Trump met with Emin Agalarov and toured the Crocus City site during a visit to Moscow.
last communication is dated November 24, 2014.303 The project appears not to have developed past the planning stage, and no construction occurred.
In the late summer of 2015, the Trump Organization received a new inquiry about pursuing a Trump Tower project in Moscow.
September 2015, Cohen obtained approval to negotiate with I.C. Expert from candidate Trump,
Cohen provided updates directly to Trump about the project throughout 2015 and into 2016,
completed a letter of intent (LOI) for a Trump Moscow property. The LOI, signed by Trump
Under these terms, the Trump Organization stood to earn substantial sums over the lifetime of the project, without assuming significant liabilities or financing commitments.
Lana Erchova emailed Ivanka Trump on behalf of Erchova’s then-husband Dmitry Klokov, to offer Klokov’s assistance to the Trump Campaign.
the investigation did not identify evidence that Cohen brought Klokov’s initial offer of assistance to the Campaign’s attention or that anyone associated with the Trump Organization or the Campaign dealt with Klokov at a later date. Cohen explained that he did not pursue the proposed meeting because he was already working on the Moscow Project with Sater, who Cohen understood to
have his own connections to the Russian government.
Cohen had received (and recalled receiving) a response to his inquiry, and he continued to work on and update candidate Trump on the project through as late as June 2016.
he understood from the conversation that Russia would be an important aspect of the Campaign’s foreign policy.
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
Papadopoulos kept campaign officials apprised
Manafort forwarded the message to another Campaign official, without including Papadopoulos, and stated: “Let[’]s discuss. We need someone to communicate that [Trump] is not doing these trips.
disclosures raised questions about whether Papadopoulos informed any Trump Campaign official about the emails.
No documentary evidence, and nothing in the email accounts or other communications facilities reviewed by the Office, shows that Papadopoulos shared this information with the Campaign.
Sergei Millian—remained out of the country since the inception of our investigation and declined to meet with members of the Office
Millian, an American citizen who is a native of Belarus,
Millian sent a Facebook message to Papadopoulos promising that he would “share with you a disruptive technology that might be instrumental in your political work for the campaign.”
In 2015, Podobnyy and two other Russian intelligence officers were charged with conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign government.532 The criminal complaint detailed Podobnyy’s interactions with and conversations about Page,
Page acknowledged that he understood that the individuals he had associated with were members of the Russian intelligence services,
senior representatives of the Trump Campaign met in Trump Tower with a Russian attorney expecting to receive derogatory information about Hillary Clinton from the Russian government.
the Office found no documentary evidence showing that he was made aware of the meeting—or its Russian connection—before it occurred.
She claimed that funds derived from illegal activities in Russia were provided to Hillary Clinton and other Democrats. Trump Jr. requested evidence to support those claims, but Veselnitskaya did not provide such information.
The Office spoke to every participant except Veselnitskaya and Trump Jr., the latter of whom declined to be voluntarily interviewed by the Office
Veselnitskaya’s press interviews and written statements to Congress differ materially from other accounts.
Manafort instructed Rick Gates, his deputy on the Campaign and a longtime employee,839 to provide Kilimnik with updates on the Trump Campaign—including internal polling data,
Kilimnik requested the meeting to deliver in person a message from former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was then living in Russia. The message was about a peace plan for Ukraine that Manafort has since acknowledged was a “backdoor” means for Russia to control eastern Ukraine.
require U.S. support to succeed:
slight push) from [Donald Trump].”
