Timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections

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It has been suggested that this article be split into multiple articles. (Discuss) (April 2018)

This is a timeline of major events related to election interference that Russia conducted against the U.S. in 2016. It also includes major events related to investigations into suspected inappropriate links in 2016 between associates of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian officials.^[1]

Glossary of relevant individuals[]

• Aras Agalarov, Azerbaijani-Russian oligarch and President of the Crocus Group (ru)
• Emin Agalarov, son of Aras and Russian pop singer
• Rinat Akhmetshin, Russian-American lobbyist who emigrated to the U.S. in 1993
• Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks
• Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels' attorney
• Stephen K. Bannon, former Breitbart News chairman (2012–2016), Trump campaign CEO (August–November 2016), and White House Chief Strategist (January–August 2017)
• John O. Brennan, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) (2013–2017)
• Richard Burr, Senator (R-NC), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee
• James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) (2010–2017)
• Hillary Clinton, 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, former Secretary of State (2009–2013)
• Dan Coats, Director of National Intelligence (since March 2017)
• Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's personal attorney
• James B. Comey, 7th Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) (2013–2017)
• Dianne Feinstein, California Senator (D), member of the Senate Intelligence Committee (former chairwoman, 2009–2015) and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee
• Michael T. Flynn, former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (2012–2014), former National Security Advisor (January–February 2017)
• Rick Gates, deputy to Manafort during the campaign
• Rob Goldstone, British publicist of Russian singer Emin Agalarov
• Chuck Grassley, Iowa Senator (R), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee
• Hope Hicks, press secretary for the Trump campaign and White House Communications Director (August 2017–February 2018)
• Konstantin Kilimnik, Paul Manafort's right-hand man in Kiev, alleged Russian Intelligence operative^[2]
• Sergey Kislyak, former Russian ambassador to the United States (2008–2017)
• Jared Kushner, real estate investor, son-in-law and Senior Advisor to President Trump
• Corey Lewandowski, former campaign advisor
• Paul Manafort, political consultant, former chairman of Trump's primary election campaign
• Donald McGahn, White House Counsel to President Trump
• Joseph Mifsud, Maltese academic connected with Russian politicians and George Papadopoulos
• Robert S. Mueller III, 6th FBI Director (2001–2013), appointed special counsel for the Russian interference investigation
• Devin Nunes, Congressman (R-CA), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee
• Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States (2009–2017)
• Carter Page, oil industry consultant, former Trump campaign advisor on foreign policy
• George Papadopoulos, former advisor to the Trump campaign
• Mike Pompeo, CIA director (January 2017–March 2018), nominated to Secretary of State (from April 2018)
• Reince Priebus, Trump's first White House Chief of Staff, former chairman of the Republican National Committee
• Erik Prince, chairman of Frontier Services Group, and founder of private military company Academi (formerly known as "Blackwater")
• Vladimir Putin, 2nd and 4th President of Russia
• Susan Rice, former National Security Advisor (2013–2017)
• Michael S. Rogers, Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) (since 2014)
• Rod Rosenstein, Deputy Attorney General, acting Attorney General for Russia–Trump investigations
• Paul Ryan, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives
• Adam B. Schiff, Congressman (D-CA), ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee
• Keith Schiller, former Deputy Assistant and concurrent Director of Oval Office Operations, and longtime personal body guard to Trump
• Jeff Sessions, United States Attorney General the head of the United States Department of Justice (DoJ), former Alabama Senator (R) (1997–2017)
• Cody Shearer, political activist and former journalist, author of the "Shearer memo/dossier" that Steele passed on to the FBI
• Glenn R. Simpson, co-founder of Fusion GPS, who hired Steele to compile damaging information on Trump and Russia
• Sean Spicer, former White House Press Secretary (January–July 2017)
• Christopher Steele, former British MI6 intelligence officer, author of an unverified dossier on Trump and Russia
• Jill Stein, Green Party nominee in the 2016 United States presidential election
• Roger Stone, political consultant, former staffer to President Richard Nixon (1972–1974), former business partner of Manafort (1980s)
• Peter Strzok, FBI agent removed from the investigation in August 2017
• Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States (2017–present), former real estate developer (1971–2016)
• Donald Trump Jr., Executive Director of The Trump Organization, son of Donald Trump
• Natalia Veselnitskaya, Russian attorney, best known for lobbying against the Magnitsky Act
• Michael Wolff, journalist and author of Fire and Fury about the Trump White House
• Christopher A. Wray, 8th and current Director of the FBI (since August 2017)
• Alex van der Zwaan, Dutch attorney guilty of making false statements to the FBI

Before Trump's candidacy[]

2005–2012[]

• June 2005: Manafort proposes a plan to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska under which Manafort will influence news coverage, business dealings, and politics in the former Soviet Union, Europe, and the United States "to benefit President Vladimir Putin's government." Manafort and Deripaska eventually sign a $10 million contract that starts in 2006.^[3]
• October 15, 2007: Trump praises Putin in an interview on CNN.^[4]
• 2007-2012: Manafort receives $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments from Viktor Yanukovych’s pro-Russian Ukrainian Party of Regions.^[5]
• July 2008: Trump sells the Palm Beach estate Maison de L'Amitie to Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev for a record $95 million. Trump bought the property for $41.35 million three years earlier and made only minor improvements.^[6]
• September 2008: Donald Trump Jr., then an executive vice president of The Trump Organization, states, "Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets, say, in Dubai, and certainly with our project in SoHo and anywhere in New York. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia."^[7][8]
• 2010: The Trump International Hotel and Tower in Toronto receives timely financing from Vnesheconombank, a Russian state-run investment bank.^[9]
• 2011–2013: Russians protest against the legislative and presidential election processes. Putin accuses then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of interfering in Russian politics.^[10]
• 2012: The FBI warns Representative Dana Rohrabacher that he is being targeted by Russian agents to recruit him as an "agent of influence", i.e. someone who can affect Washington policy.^[11]
• December 14, 2012: President Barack Obama signs the Magnitsky Act into law to punish Russian officials responsible for the death of Russian tax accountant Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009.^[12]

2013[]

• January: Carter Page passes documents to Victor Podobnyy, a Russian intelligence agent. He later claims the documents were public information. Podobnyy is charged with being an unregistered foreign agent in 2015.^[13]
• March 13: Paul Manafort is interviewed by the FBI about his offshore business dealings.^[14]
• March 19: Paul Manafort has dinner with Rohrabacher as part of Manafort‘s unregistered lobbying efforts for the government of Ukraine. Vin Weber, a partner at Mercury Affairs, is also in attendance.^[15] Three days later, Manafort gives Rohrabacher a $1,000 campaign contribution.^[16] Richard Gates, Manafort's deputy, pleads guilty in 2018 to lying about the meeting to the FBI.^[15]
• April 13: Two Russian Foreign Intelligence Service agents discuss recruiting Carter Page.^[17][18]
• June 15–18: Attending the Miss USA 2013 pageant, Trump dines with Aras Agalarov, Emin Agalarov, and Rob Goldstone in Las Vegas.^[19] The next day he announces that Miss Universe 2013 will be held in Moscow.^[19] He sends Putin a letter inviting him to the pageant,^[20] and ponders on Twitter whether the Russian president will be his "new best friend".^[21]
• August: Eric Trump tells author James Dodson, "We don’t rely on American banks [...] We have all the funding we need out of Russia", and says, "We go there all the time". In May 2017, Eric Trump calls this "fabricated" and an example of why people distrust the media.^{[22][7][23][24][25]}
• August 25: Carter Page sends a letter to an academic press in which he brags about being an adviser to the Kremlin.^[26]
• October 17: In an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman, Donald Trump says he has conducted "a lot of business with the Russians" and that he has met President Vladimir Putin.^[27][28]
• November 9: The Trump-owned Miss Universe pageant is held in Moscow, sponsored by VTB Bank.^[22] According to various reports, the event’s $20 million licensing fee is paid by a Moscow real estate development firm called the Crocus Group, whose president is Aras Agalarov and vice president is his son, pop singer Emin Agalarov.^[29][30] While Putin does not attend, the event is attended by Vladimir Kozhin,^[31] the head of the Kremlin's property department,^[32] which is responsible for development projects.^[33] After the event, Trump tells Real Estate Weekly, "the Russian market is attracted to me. I have a great relationship with many Russians".^[7][34]
• November 12: The Moscow Times reports that Trump is in talks with Russian companies to build a new Trump Tower in Moscow.^[35]

2014[]

• February 10: In a Fox and Friends phone interview, Trump says Putin contacted him while he was in Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant.^[36]
• March 6:
  • President Barack Obama initiates international sanctions on certain Russian individuals, businesses and officials, in response to the Russian military intervention in Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea.^[37]
  • Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump says, "You know, I was in Moscow a couple of months ago, I own the Miss Universe Pageant and they treated me so great. Putin even sent me a present, a beautiful present."^[38]
• April: The Russian Internet Research Agency creates a department called the "translator project." The department's focus is on interfering in the U.S. election.^[39][40]
• April 12: Asked about Putin by Eric Bolling on the Fox News show Cashin' In, Trump says Putin has taken the mantle from Obama. He continues, “Interestingly, I own the Miss Universe pageant, and we just left Moscow. He could not have been nicer. He was so nice and so everything. But you have to give him cr that what he’s doing for that country in terms of their world prestige is very strong.”^[41]
• May: The Russian Internet Research Agency begins its election interference campaign of "spread[ing] distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general.”^[39][40]
• May 27: Speaking at a National Press Club luncheon, Trump again claims to have spoken to Putin. "I own the Miss Universe [pageant]. I was in Russia. I was in Moscow recently. And I spoke indirectly and directly with President Putin who could not have been nicer. And we had a tremendous success.”^[42]
• June 4–26: Aleksandra Krylova and Anna Bogacheva, two Russian Internet Research Agency employees, travel to the U.S. to collect intelligence. They lie on their visa applications, claiming they are making personal trips. Maria Bovda, a third employee, is denied a visa.^[39] All three are indicted in February 2018 for their work on election interference.^[40]
• July 2: Richard Gates is interviewed by the FBI about his international business dealings.^[14]
• July 22: Laurence Levy, a lawyer with the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani, advises Rebekah Mercer, Steve Bannon, and Alexander Nix on the legality of their company, Cambridge Analytica, being involved in U.S. elections. He advises that Nix and any foreign nationals without a green card working for the company not be involved in any decisions about work the company performs for any clients related to U.S. elections. He further advises Nix to recuse himself from any involvement with the company's U.S. election work because he is not a U.S. citizen.^[43][44]
• July 30: Paul Manafort is interviewed by the FBI about his international business dealings.^[14]
• September 11: The Russian Internet Research Agency promulgates a hoax they created about a fictitious chemical plant fire in Centerville, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana, purportedly started by ISIS. The hoax includes tweets and YouTube videos showing a chemical plant fire. Centerville is home to many chemical plants, but the plant named in the tweets does not exist. Initial tweets are sent directly to politicians, journalists, and Centerville residents.^[45]
• September 21-October 11: The Material Evidence art exhibition is displayed at the Art Beam gallery in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. It portrays the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine in a pro-Russian light. It is promoted by Twitter accounts that also spread the September 11 chemical plant fire hoax.^[45] The exhibition is partly funded by the Russian Internet Research Agency.^[46]
• November 26–30: An unnamed Russian Internet Research Agency employee travels to Atlanta.^[39][40]
• December 13:
  • The Russian Internet Research Agency uses Twitter to promulgate a hoax about an Ebola outbreak in Atlanta. Many of the Twitter accounts used in the September 11 chemical plant fire hoax also spread this hoax. The hoax includes a YouTube video of medical workers wearing hazmat suits.^[45]
  • Using a different set of Twitter accounts, the Russian Internet Research Agency promulgates a hoax about a purported police shooting of an unarmed black woman in Atlanta. The hoax includes a blurry video of the purported event.^[45]

2015[]

• January 23: A court filing by the U.S. government contains a transcript of a recorded conversation between two members of a Russian SVR spy ring, Victor Podobnyy and Igor Sporyshev. Their conversation concerns efforts to recruit "Male-1", later confirmed as Carter Page. Podobnyy calls Page an "idiot" and tells Sporyshev, "You get the documents from him and tell him to go fuck himself".^[17][13][47]
• March 18: Trump announces he is forming a presidential exploratory committee.^[48]
• Spring: U.S. Intelligence intercepts conversations of Russian government officials discussing associates of Donald Trump.^[49]
• April: Flynn begins advising ACU Strategic Partners, a company seeking to build nuclear power plants in the Middle East involving a sanctioned Russian company.^[50]
• April 11–12: Alexander Torshin attends the National Rifle Association (NRA) convention in Nashville and briefly converses with Trump. Torshin and the Trump family dispute how much was said.^[51]
• June: Flynn travels to the Middle East. In September 2017, members of Congress present evidence to Mueller that Flynn's purpose was to promote a Russian-backed plan for the building of 40 nuclear reactors, with "total regional security" to be provided by U.S.-sanctioned Russian weapons exporter Rosoboron.^{[52][53][54][55]}

2016 presidential campaign[]

2015[]

• June 16: Donald Trump announces his candidacy for president.^[56]
• June 17: In an interview on the Fox News show Hannity, Sean Hannity asks Trump if he has talked to Putin. Trump replies, "I don't want to say. But I got to meet all of the leaders. I got to meet all — I mean, everybody was there. It was a massive event. And let me tell you, it was tremendous."^[57]
• July onward: Thousands of fake Twitter accounts run by the Kremlin's Internet Research Agency begin to praise Trump over his political opponents by a wide margin, according to a later analysis by The Wall Street Journal.^[58][59]
• July: George Papadopoulos contacts Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski about joining the campaign as a policy advisor.^[60]
• July 11: Maria Butina attends FreedomFest in Las Vegas, where Trump is speaking and taking questions. She asks Trump his stance on continuing sanctions; he replies he knows Putin and doesn't think sanctions are needed.^[61] Reviewing a video of the encounter, Steve Bannon points out that "Trump had a fully developed answer".^[62]
• July 13: Maria Butina is present at Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's presidential candidacy announcement.^[61]
• July 24: Rob Goldstone emails Trump's assistant Rhona Graff, suggesting that Emin Agalarov could arrange a meeting between Putin and Trump.^[63]
• Summer: Hackers linked to the Russian FSB gain access to the Democratic National Committee's computer network.^[64] Dutch intelligence services alert their U.S. counterparts that a hacking group known as Cozy Bear has penetrated the DNC servers.^[65]
• August: Papadopoulos emails Michael Glassner, the executive director of Trump's campaign committee, expressing further interest in joining the campaign as a policy advisor. He continues corresponding with Glassner and Lewandowski for months, but is repeatedly told no position is available for him.^[60]
• August 8: Roger Stone leaves the Trump campaign. The campaign says it fired Stone, but Stone insists he quit. He subsequently gives the press a resignation letter that the campaign says it never received.^[66]
• August 21: Sessions makes his first appearance at a Trump campaign rally.^[67]
• September:
  • An FBI special agent reports to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) that at least one of its computer systems has been hacked by an espionage team linked to the Russian government. The agent is transferred to a tech-support contractor at the help desk, who makes a cursory check of DNC server logs and does not reply to the agent's follow-up calls, allegedly because of a belief that the call might have been a prank.^[68]
  • Jill Stein speaks briefly with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a Russia Today gala in New York City.^[69]
• September–October: The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website primarily funded by billionaire Paul Singer, hires Fusion GPS to perform opposition research on Trump. Initially a Marco Rubio supporter, Singer continues to fund the research after Rubio withdraws from the race.^[70][71]
• September 4–5: At the 2016 G20 Hangzhou summit, Obama confronts Putin about Russian cyber attacks, telling him to stop. Putin explains Russia's stance on the issue.^[72]
• September 11: Trump speaks at the Yalta European Strategy conference in Kiev via satellite. The organizer of the event, Victor Pinchuk, donates $150,000 to Trump's charity, the Trump Foundation.^[73][74]
• September 21: On Hugh Hewitt's radio program, Trump says, "The oligarchs are under [Putin's] control, to a large extent. I mean, he can destroy them, and he has destroyed some of them... Two years ago, I was in Moscow... I was with the top-level people, both oligarchs and generals, and top-of-the-government people. I can't go further than that, but I will tell you that I met the top people, and the relationship was extraordinary."^[75]
• October: For his remarks during a cybersecurity forum in Washington, D.C., Flynn receives $11,250 from Kaspersky Government Security Solutions Inc., the American subsidiary of Kaspersky Lab, owned by Eugene Kaspersky.^[76][77]
• October 28: Trump signs a letter of intent to construct a Trump-branded building in Moscow, a fact made public in August 2017.^[78][79]
• November: Trump associate Felix Sater emails Trump lawyer Michael Cohen: "Michael, I arranged for Ivanka to sit in Putin's private chair at his desk and office in the Kremlin [...] Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it. I will get all of Putin's team to buy in on this".^[80][29] Sater also tells Cohen that the Kremlin's VTB Bank is ready to finance a Trump Tower project in Moscow.^[22]
• November 19: The Russian Internet Research Agency creates the @TEN_GOP Twitter account. Purporting to be the “Unofficial Twitter account of Tennessee Republicans,” it peaks at over 100,000 followers.^[81]
• December: Unable to find a position in the Trump campaign, Papadopoulos joins the Ben Carson campaign.^[60]
• December 8–13: Outspoken Trump supporter Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke, former NRA President David Keene, future NRA President Pete Brownell, NRA Golden Ring of Freedom Chair Joe Gregory, major NRA donor Arnold Goldschlager, and Paul Erickson travel to Moscow for the Right to Bear Arms convention. They meet Russian government officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and a gun manufacturer. Rogozin is under U.S. sanctions. Clarke later files an ethics report showing that Maria Butina's organization, Right to Bear Arms, covered $6,000 of his expenses.^[61][82][83]
• December 10: Flynn gives a paid speech on world affairs in Moscow, at a gala dinner organized by RT News.^[84] Flynn had appeared on RT as an analyst after retiring from the U.S. Army. Putin is the dinner's guest of honor.^[85] Flynn is seated next to Putin; also seated at the head table are Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and members of Putin's inner circle, including Sergei Ivanov, Dmitry Peskov, and Alexey Gromov.^[86] For his speech, Flynn nets $33,500 of the $45,000 paid to his speakers’ bureau.^[87] For all of 2015, Flynn receives more than $65,000 from companies linked to Russia.^[88]

January–March 2016[]

• January:
  • Cohen attempts to contact Putin's personal spokesman Dmitry Peskov to request assistance with construction of a Trump-branded building in Moscow. Cohen asks in an email what it will take to move the project forward because "the communication between our two sides has stalled".^[89][90]
  • Flynn applies to renew his security clearance for five years. In an interview with security investigators, he claims U.S. companies paid for his trip to the RT dinner in Moscow. Documents subsequently obtained by the House Oversight Committee show that RT paid for the trip.^[91]
• January 19: Konstantin Sidorkov, executive at Vkontakte (VK, Russia’s equivalent of Facebook), emails Donald Trump Jr. and social media director Dan Scavino offering to help promote Trump’s campaign to its nearly 100 million users. Goldstone brokered the overture. Sidorkov emails again on November 5, 2016.^[92]
• February: Paul Erickson and Maria Butina form Bridges LLC. Erickson later tells McClatchy the South Dakota-based company was created to provide financial assistance for Butina's graduate school tuition.^[61] As of January 2018, McClatchy was unable to find any of the company's financial transactions.^[93]
• February 28: Trump is formally endorsed by Jeff Sessions.^[67]
• February 29: Paul Manafort submits a five-page proposal to Trump outlining his qualifications to help Trump secure enough convention delegates and win the Republican presidential nomination. Manafort describes how he assisted several business and political leaders, notably in Russia and Ukraine.^[94]
• March:
  • Carter Page begins working for the Trump campaign as an unpaid foreign policy adviser.^[95][96][97]
• Early March: Papadopoulos contacts Michael Glassner saying he is free again to join Trump's campaign. Glassner connects Papadopoulos with campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis. Clovis tells Papadopoulos that improving Russia relations is a top foreign policy goal for the campaign.^[60]
• March 3: Jeff Sessions is appointed to the Trump campaign's national security advisory committee.^[67]
• March 6: Papadopoulos learns he will be a foreign policy advisor for the Trump Campaign.^{[98][99][100]} The campaign hires Papadopoulos on Ben Carson's recommendation.^[101]
• March 14: George Papadopoulos first meets Maltese academic Joseph Mifsud while traveling in Italy.^[98][102]
• March 16: The FBI releases its Report of Investigation on Flynn's security clearance renewal application.^[91]
• March 19: Clinton presidential campaign chairman John Podesta is asked to change his email password in an apparent phishing attempt, believed to be spearheaded by Russian hackers. They gain access to his account.^[64]
• March 21: In a Washington Post interview,^[103][104] Trump says Carter Page and George Papadopoulos are among his foreign policy advisers. Page had helped open the Moscow office of investment banking firm Merrill Lynch and advised Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom, in which Page is an investor. He had blamed 2014 US sanctions relating to Russia’s annexation of Crimea for driving down Gazprom’s stock price.^[105] Earlier in March 2016, Iowa tea party activist Sam Clovis had recommended Page to the Trump campaign.^[106]
• March 24: In London, Papadopoulos meets Mifsud and Olga Polonskaya, who falsely claims to be Putin's niece.^[107] Polonskaya is in regular email contact with Papadopolous, in one message writing, "We are all very excited by the possibility of a good relationship with Mr. Trump".^[102]
• March 29: On Roger Stone's recommendation,^[108] Manafort joins the Trump campaign as convention manager, tasked with lining up delegates.^[109]
• March 30: Alexandra Chalupa, who worked in the White House Office of Public Liaison during the Clinton administration, briefs the DNC's communications staff on Manafort's and Trump's ties to Russia.^[110]
• March 31: At the first meeting of Trump's foreign policy team, which includes Trump and Sessions, Papadopoulos speaks of his connections with Russia, and offers to negotiate a meeting between Trump and Putin. Sessions later states he opposed the idea.^{[102][111][112][113]} The meeting is held at the yet-to-open Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C..^[60]
• Spring:
  • U.S. intelligence officials’ suspicions of Russian meddling in the presidential election grow after their counterparts in Europe warn that Russian money might be flowing into the election.^[49]
  • Roger Stone tells associates he is in contact with Julian Assange.^[114]

April–June 2016[]

• April:
  • Between April and November 2016, there are at least 18 further exchanges by telephone and email between Russian officials and the Trump team.^[115][116]
  • Hackers linked to the GRU gain access to the DNC computer network.^[64]
  • Russian social media company SocialPuncher releases an analysis showing that Trump has quoted or retweeted Twitter bots 150 times since the beginning of 2016.^[117][118]
  • Rohrabacher meets with Natalia Veselnitskaya in Moscow to discuss the Magnitsky Act. Vladimir Yakunin, under U.S. sanctions, is also present.^[119] Rohrabacher later says he met Yakunin at the request of Kislyak.^[120] He also meets with officials at the Russian Prosecutor General's office, where he receives a document full of accusations against Sergei Magnitsky. U.S. Embassy officials are worried Rohrabacher may be meeting with FSB agents. The meeting at the prosecutor's office is not on his itinerary.^[119] The document is given to Rohrabacher by Deputy Prosecutor Viktor Grin, who is under U.S. sanctions authorized by the Magnitsky Act. Rohrabacher subsequently uses the document in efforts to undermine the Magnitsky Act.^[120] His accepting the document from Grin, a sanctioned individual, and using it to influence U.S. government policy leads to a July 21, 2017, complaint being filed against Rohrabacher and his staff director, Paul Brends, for violating Magnitsky Act sanctions.^[121]
  • The Russian Internet Research Agency starts buying online ads on social media and other sites. The ads support Trump and attack Clinton.^[39][40]
  • Marc Elias, a lawyer at Perkins Coie and general counsel for the Clinton campaign, takes over funding of the Fusion GPS Trump investigation. He uses discretionary funds at his disposal and does not inform the campaign about the research.^{[122][123][71]}
• April 4: A rally is held in Buffalo, New York, protesting the death of India Cummings. Cummings was a black woman who had recently died in police custody. The Russian Internet Research Agency's "Blacktivist" account on Facebook actively promotes the event, reaching out directly to local activists on Facebook Messenger asking them to circulate petitions and print posters for the event. Blacktivist supplies the petitions and poster artwork.^[124]
• April 11: Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik, his old lieutenant, exchange emails about whether recent press coverage of Manafort joining the Trump campaign can be used to make them "whole" with Russian oligarch Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska. Manafort is in debt to Deripaska for millions of dollars at the time.^[125]
• April 16: A rally protesting the death of Freddie Gray attracts large crowds in Baltimore. The Russian Internet Research Agency's Blacktivist Facebook group promotes and organizes the event, including reaching out to local activists.^[126]
• April 18: Mifsud introduces Papadopoulos to Ivan Timofeev, program director of the Kremlin-sponsored Valdai Discussion Club. Papadopoulos and Timofeev communicate for months about potential meetings between Russian government officials and members of the Trump campaign. Later records indicate that Timofeev discussed Papadopoulos with former Russian Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov.^{[107][102][100]}
• April 20: Manafort becomes Trump’s campaign manager. Reports surface about his 2007 to 2012 ties to former President of Ukraine Victor Yanukovych, whom Manafort helped elect.^[127]
• April 23: A small group of white-power demonstrators hold a rally they call "Rock Stone Mountain" at Stone Mountain Park near Stone Mountain, Georgia. They are confronted by a large group of protesters, and some violent clashes ensue. The counterprotest was heavily promoted by the Russian Internet Research Agency's accounts on Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook, and the IRA website blackmatters.com. The IRA uses its Blacktivist account on Facebook to reach out, to no avail, to activist and academic Barbara Williams Emerson, the daughter of Hosea Williams, to help promote the protests. Afterward, RT blames anti-racist protesters for violence and promotes two videos shot at the event.^[124]
• April 26:
  • Papadopoulos meets Mifsud in London again. Mifsud claims that he has learned that Russians are in possession of thousands of stolen emails that may be politically damaging to Clinton.^{[128][102][107]}
  • Before the second Mifsud meeting, Papadopoulos emails Stephen Miller, informing him that Putin has extended an "open invitation" to Trump. After the meeting, Papadopoulos tells Miller that he has "some interesting messages coming in from Moscow about a trip when the time is right."^[107]
• April 27:
  • Trump, Sessions and Jared Kushner greet Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington D.C. This contact is repeatedly omitted from testimony or denied.^{[104][129][130]} Afterward, Kislyak reports the conversation with Sessions to Moscow.^[131] Kushner is the first to publicly admit the Kislyak meeting took place in his prepared statement for Senate investigators on July 24, 2017.^[132]
  • Trump delivers a speech ed by Papadopoulos that calls for improved relations between the US and Russia. Papadopoulos brings the speech to the attention of Mifsud and Polonskaya, and tells Timofeev that it should be considered "the signal to meet".^[102]
  • Papadopoulos tells Lewandowski via email that Putin wants to meet Trump.^[100]
• Late April: The DNC's IT department notices suspicious computer activity. Within 24 hours, the DNC contacts the FBI, and hires a private cybersecurity firm, CrowdStrike, to investigate.^[133]
• May:
  • CrowdStrike determines that sophisticated adversaries—denominated Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear—are responsible for the DNC hack. Fancy Bear, in particular, is suspected of affiliation with Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU).^[134]
  • In London, Papadopoulos tells the Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Alexander Downer, that the Russians have politically damaging material on Hillary Clinton. Two months later, Australian officials pass this information to American officials.^[102]
  • Paul Erickson, a member of the NRA, contacts Trump campaign advisor Rick Dearborn. In an email headed "Kremlin Connection", Erickson seeks the advice of Dearborn and Sessions about how to arrange a meeting between Trump and Putin. Erickson suggests making contact at the N.R.A.’s annual convention in Kentucky. The communication refers to Alexander Torshin, who is under instructions to contact the Trump campaign.^[135][136]
  • Papadopoulos travels to Greece and meets with Greece's president, defense minister, foreign minister, and a former prime minister. Putin makes an official visit to Athens during Papadopoulos's trip.^[137]
• May 2: A second rally is held in Buffalo, New York, protesting the death of India Cummings. Like the rally on April 4, the event is heavily promoted by the Russian Internet Research Agency's Blacktivist account on Facebook, including attempted outreach to local activists.^[124]
• May 4:
  • Papadopoulos forwards an email from his MFA connection to Lewandowski that offers a meeting between the MFA and Papadopoulos in Moscow. The next day, campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis replies, “[t]here are legal issues we need to mitigate, meeting with foreign officials as a private citizen.”^[100]
  • Trump becomes the only remaining candidate for the Republican presidential nomination when John Kasich withdraws.^[138]
• May 19–22: The N.R.A. annual conference is held in Louisville, Kentucky. Trump and Donald Trump Jr. attend. Trump Jr. speaks with Torshin.^{[139][140][141]}
• May 21:
  • Papadopoulos forwards a note from Timofeev to Paul Manafort stressing the Russian Foreign Ministry's desire to meet with Trump. Manafort shoots down the idea in an email to Rick Gates.^[60][100]
  • Two competing rallies are held in Houston to alternately protest against and defend the recently opened Library of Islamic Knowledge at the Islamic Da'wah Center. The "Stop Islamization of Texas" rally is organized by the Facebook group "Heart of Texas". The Facebook posting for the event encourages participants to bring guns. A spokesman for the group converses with the Houston Press via email but declines to give a name. The other rally, "Save Islamic Knowledge", is organized by the Facebook group "United Muslims of America" for the same time and location. Both Facebook groups are later revealed to be Russian Internet Research Agency accounts.^[142][143]
• May 25: The Westboro Baptist Church holds its annual protest of Lawrence High School graduation ceremonies in Lawrence, Kansas. The "LGBT United" Facebook group organizes counterprotesters to confront the Westboro protest, including by placing an ad on Facebook and contacting local people. About a dozen people show up. Lawrence High School students do not participate because they are "skeptical" of the counterprotest organizers. LGBT United is a Russian Internet Research Agency account that appears to have been created specifically for this event.^[144]
• May 26: The Associated Press reports that Trump has secured enough delegates to become the presumptive Republican nominee.^[64]
• May 27–28: Putin makes an official visit to Greece and meets with Greek government leaders. His visit overlaps with a trip to Greece by Papadopoulos.^[137][145]
• May 29: The Russian Internet Research Agency hires an American to pose in front of the White House holding a sign that says, “Happy 55th Birthday, Dear Boss.” "Boss" is a reference to Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin.^[39][40]
• June:
  • The FBI sends a warning to states about "bad actors" probing state voter-registration databases and systems to seek vulnerabilities; investigators believe Russia is responsible.^[146]
  • At Maria Butina's urging, Christian activist Rick Clay emails Dearborn with the subject "Kremlin connection" offering a meeting between Trump and Alexander Torshin.^[93] Dearborn, then Sessions's Chief of Staff, sends an email mentioning a person from West Virginia seeking to connect Trump campaign members with Putin. Dearborn appears "skeptical" of the meeting request.^[147] Jared Kushner rejects the request. Alexander Torshin and Donald Trump Jr. later meet at the N.R.A. convention.^[93]
  • Fusion GPS hires Christopher Steele to research Trump's activities in Russia. A resultant 35-page document, later known as the Trump–Russia dossier or Steele dossier, is published on January 10, 2017, by BuzzFeed News.^[148]
• Early June: At a closed-door gathering of foreign policy experts visiting with the Prime Minister of India, Page hails Putin as stronger and more reliable than Obama and touts the positive effect a Trump presidency would have on U.S.-Russia relations.^[149]
• June 1:
  • Based upon a referral from Lewandowski, Papadopoulos emails Sam Clovis about more interest from the Russian government to set up a Trump meeting in Russia. He writes, "I have the Russian MFA asking me if Mr. Trump is interested in visiting Russia at some point."^[150][151]
  • The Russian Internet Research Agency plans a Manhattan rally called "March for Trump" and buys Facebook ads promoting the event.^[39][40]
• June 3: Trump Jr. receives an e-mail from Goldstone offering, on behalf of Emin Agalarov, to meet an alleged Russian government official who “would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father”, as "part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” Trump Jr. responds, "I love it," and schedules the meeting. Goldstone also offers to relay the information to Trump through his assistant.^[152]
• June 4: The Russian Internet Research Agency email account allforusa@yahoo.com sends news releases about the "March for Trump" rally to New York City media outlets.^[39][40]
• June 5: The Russian Internet Research Agency contacts a Trump campaign volunteer to provide signs for the "March for Trump" rally.^[39][40]
• June 9: Kushner, Manafort and Trump Jr. meet in Trump Tower with Goldstone, Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya,^[153] Russian-American lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin,^[154] Ike Kaveladze of Aras Agalarov's Crocus Group,^[155] and a translator.^[156] Veselnitskaya is best known for lobbying against the Magnitsky Act, an American law that blacklists suspected Russian human rights abusers.^[157] Trump Jr. later acknowledges that he asked Veselnitskaya for damaging information about the Clinton Foundation and says she had none.^[158]
• June 11–12: The DNC expels Russian hackers from its servers. Some of the hackers had been accessing the DNC network for over a year.^[159]
• June 12: Julian Assange appears on the ITV television show Peston on Sunday. He tells Robert Peston that emails related to Clinton are "pending publication" and says, "WikiLeaks has a very good year ahead."^[160][161]
• June 14: The DNC publicly alleges that they have been hacked by Russian state-backed hackers.^[160][159]
• June 15:
  • Guccifer 2.0 claims cr for the DNC hacking and posts some of the stolen material to a website. CrowdStrike stands by their "findings identifying two separate Russian intelligence-affiliated adversaries present in the DNC network in May 2016."^[162]
  • House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and House Speaker Paul Ryan meet separately with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman at the Capitol. Groysman describes to them how the Kremlin is financing populist politicians in Eastern Europe to damage democratic institutions. McCarthy and Ryan have a private meeting afterwards with GOP leaders that is secretly recorded. Toward the end of their conversation, after laughing at the DNC hacking, McCarthy says, "there's two people, I think, Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump...[laughter]...swear to God." Ryan then tells everyone to keep this conversation secret. A transcript of the recording becomes public a year later.^[163][164]
• June 19: After communicating with the MFA via email and Skype, Papadopoulos emails Lewandowski saying that the MFA is interested in meeting with a "capaign rep" if Trump can't meet with them. Papadopoulos offers to go in an unofficial capacity.^[150][151]
• June 20: Trump fires his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski.^[165]
• June 23: The Internet Research Agency persona "Matt Skiber" contacts an American to recruit for the "March for Trump" rally.^[39][40]
• June 24: The Internet Research Agency Facebook group "United Muslims of America" buys Facebook ads for the "Support Hillary, Save American Muslims" rally.^[39][40]
• June 25:
  • The Internet Research Agency's "March for Trump" rally occurs.^[39][40]
  • The Internet Research Agency Facebook group LGBT United organizes a candlelight vigil for the Pulse nightclub shooting victims in Orlando, Florida.^[166][167]
• June 29: Goldstone emails Trump campaign social media director Dan Scavino about promoting Trump on the Russian social media site VK. He says the email is a follow-up to his recent conversation with Trump Jr. and Manafort.^[92]
• Summer:
  • Papadopoulos is approached via LinkedIn by American-Belarussian Sergei Millian of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce. Papadopoulos and Millian meet repeatedly in Manhattan to discuss starting an energy business together, to be financed by Russian billionaires "who are not under sanctions". They also discuss the possibility of a Trump Tower in Moscow.^[102]
  • Internet Research Agency employees use the stolen identities of four Americans to open PayPal and bank accounts to act as conduits for funding their activities in the United States.^[39][40]

July 2016[]

• July:
  • The Internet Research Agency translator project grows to over 80 employees.^[39][40]
  • Carter Page makes a five-day trip to Moscow.^[168] The Trump–Russia dossier alleges that in July, Carter Page secretly met Rosneft chairman Igor Sechin in Moscow, together with a "senior Kremlin Internal Affairs official, DIVYEKIN", that Sechin offered Trump a 19% stake in Rosneft (worth about $11 billion) in exchange for lifting the sanctions against Russia after his election,^[169][170] and that Page confirmed, on Trump's "full authority", that he intended to lift the sanctions.^{[171][172][173]}
• July 5:
  • At Steele's London office, Steele reveals to an FBI agent from Rome some of his findings that indicate a wide-ranging Russian conspiracy to elect Trump.^[102][174]
  • "United Muslims of America", an Internet Research Agency group, orders posters with fake Clinton quotes promoting Sharia Law. The posters are ordered for the "Support Hillary, Save American Muslims" rally they are organizing.^[39][40]
• July 6: Guccifer 2.0 releases another cache of DNC documents and sends copies to The Hill.^[175][176]
• July 6–10: The Internet Research Agency's "Don't Shoot" Facebook group and affiliated "Don't Shoot Us" website try to organize a protest outside the St. Paul, Minnesota police headquarters on July 10 in response to the July 6 fatal police shooting of Philando Castile. Some local activists become suspicious of the event because St. Paul police were not involved in the shooting: Castile was shot by a St. Anthony police officer in nearby Falcon Heights. Local activists contact Don't Shoot. After being pressed on who they are and who supports them, Don't Shoot agrees to move the protest to the St. Anthony police headquarters. The concerned local activists investigate further and urge protesters not to participate after deciding Don't Shoot is a "total troll job." Don't Shoot organizers eventually relinquish control of the event to local organizers, who subsequently decline to accept any money from Don't Shoot.^[177][178]
• July 7:
  • In a lecture at the New Economic School in Moscow,^[179] Page criticizes American foreign policy, saying that many of the mistakes spoiling relations between the US and Russia “originated in my own country.”^[180] Page had received permission from the Trump campaign to make the trip.^[181] Page also meets Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich during the visit.^[182]
  • Paul Manafort exchanges emails with his former deputy Konstantin Kilimnik using his official Trump campaign email address. In the emails, he asks Kilimnik to forward an offer to provide "private briefings" to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.^[183][184]
• July 8: Page emails Trump campaign officials about his presentation at the New Economic School in Moscow. He describes meeting Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich. He says Dvorkovich "expressed strong support for Mr. Trump and a desire to work together toward devising better solutions in response to the vast range of current international problems."^[185]
• July 9:
  • The Washington Post reports that Trump is considering Flynn as his running mate, with support from Senator Jeff Sessions.^[186] Trump eventually selects Mike Pence, Governor of Indiana.
  • The “Support Hillary, Save American Muslims” rally occurs in Washington, D.C. The rally is organized by the Internet Research Agency group “United Muslims of America."^[39][40]
• July 10: A Black Lives Matter protest rally is held in Dallas. A "Blue Lives Matter" counterprotest is held across the street. The Blue Lives Matter protest is organized by the "Heart of Texas" Facebook group, controlled by the Internet Research Agency.^{[187][166][143]}
• July 12: An Internet Research Agency group buys ads on Facebook for the "Down with Hillary" rally in New York City.^[39][40]
• July 13: A hacker or group calling themselves Guccifer 2.0 releases over 10,000 names from the DNC in two spreadsheets and a list of objectionable quotes from Sarah Palin.^[176]
• July 16: The Internet Research Agency's Blacktivist Facebook group organizes a rally in Chicago to honor Sandra Bland on the first anniversary of her death. The rally is held in front of the Chicago Police Department's Homan Square building. Participants pass around petitions calling for a Civilian Police Accountability Council ordinance.^[188][189]
• July 18: Guccifer 2.0 dumps a new batch of documents from the DNC servers, including personal information of 20,000 Republican donors and opposition research on Trump.^[190]
  Further information: 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak
• July 18–21: Republican Convention in Cleveland^[191]
  • July 18:
    • Kislyak attends the convention, meeting Page and J. D. Gordon;^[1] as Trump's foreign policy advisers, they stress that he would like to improve relations with Russia.^[192] Sessions speaks with Kislyak at a Heritage Foundation event.^[1][67]
    • Gordon lobbies to remove arms sales to Ukraine from the Republican platform, citing concerns over conflict escalation in Donbass.^[193][194] In December 2017, Diana Denman, a Republican delegate who supported the weapons sale, says that Trump directed Gordon to weaken that position.^[195]
  • July 21: Trump formally accepts the Republican nomination.^[196]
• July 22: WikiLeaks publishes 20,000 emails from seven key DNC officials. The emails show them disparaging Bernie Sanders and favoring Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential primaries.^[197]
• July 23: The Internet Research Agency-organized "Down with Hillary" rally is held in New York City. The Agency sends 30 news releases to media outlets using the email address joshmilton024@gmail.com.^[39][40]
• July 24:
  • DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is forced to resign because of the WikiLeaks email publication.^[198]
  • Appearing on This Week With George Stephanopoulos, Manafort denies there are any links between him, Trump, or the "campaign and Putin and his regime".^[199]
• July 25–28: Democratic Convention in Philadelphia.^[200]
• July 25: Based on assessments from cybersecurity firms, the DNC and the Clinton campaign say that Russian intelligence operators have hacked their e-mails and forwarded them to WikiLeaks.^[201]
• July 27:
  • Trump calls for Russia to give Clinton's missing emails to the FBI. His tweet is before his statements on the matter to the press.^[202]
  • Trump tells a CBS affiliate in Miami, “I have nothing to do with Russia. Nothing to do. I never met Putin. I have nothing to do with Russia whatsoever.” This contradicts his many claims since 2013 to have met Putin and done business in Russia.^[20]
  • At a news conference, Trump says he "hopes" Russia can find Clinton's missing emails. The remark triggers a backlash from media and politicians who criticize Trump's "urging a foreign adversary to conduct cyberespionage" against his political opponent.^[203][204] Trump responds that he was being "sarcastic".^[205]
• July 28: Clinton formally accepts the Democratic nomination.^[206]
• July 31:
  • The FBI starts a counter-intelligence investigation into Russian interference, including possible coordination between Trump associates and Russia.^[207][208]
  • In an interview on This Week, Trump told George Stephanopoulos that people in his campaign were responsible for changing the GOP's platform stance on Ukraine, but that he was not personally involved.^[209]
• End July: CIA Director John Brennan, alarmed at intelligence that Russia is trying to "hack" the election, forms a working group of officials from the CIA, FBI, and NSA.^[210]

August 2016[]

• August: Trump donor Rebekah Mercer asks the CEO of Cambridge Analytica whether the company could better organize the Clinton-related emails being released by WikiLeaks.^[211]
• August 2–3: The Internet Research Agency's "Matt Skiber" persona contacts the real "Florida for Trump" Facebook account. The "T.W." persona contacts other grassroots groups.^[39][40]
• August 4:
  • Brennan calls his Russian counterpart Alexander Bortnikov, head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), to warn him against meddling in the presidential election.^[210]
  • The Internet Research Agency Facebook account "Stop AI" accuses Clinton of voter fraud during the Iowa Caucuses. They buy ads promoting the post.^[39][40]
  • Internet Research Agency groups buy ads for the "Florida Goes Trump" rallies. The 8,300 people who click on the ads are sent to the Agency's "Being Patriotic" Facebook page.^[39][40]
• August 5:
  • Roger Stone writes an article published by Breitbart News in which he insists Guccifer 2.0 hacked the DNC, using statements by Guccifer 2.0 on Twitter and to The Hill as evidence for his claim. He tries to spin the DNC's Russia claim as a coverup for their supposed embarrassment over being penetrated by a single hacker.^[212][213] The article leads to Guccifer 2.0 reaching out to and conversing with Stone via Twitter.^[214]
  • In response to questions about Carter Page's July 7 speech in Moscow, Hope Hicks describes Page as an “informal foreign policy adviser [who] does not speak for Mr. Trump or the campaign.”^[149]
  • The Internet Research Agency Twitter account @March_For_Trump hires an actress to play Hillary Clinton in prison garb and someone to build a cage to hold the actress. The actress and cage are to appear at the "Florida Goes Trump" rally in West Palm Beach, Florida on August 20.^[39][40]
• August 6: By videolink, Julian Assange addresses the Green Party National Convention in Houston about the hacked DNC documents published by WikiLeaks.^[215] Green candidate Jill Stein later states she does not know why or how this address was arranged.^[69]
• August 8: Roger Stone, speaking in Florida to the Southwest Broward Republican Organization, claims he is in contact with Assange, saying, "I actually have communicated with Assange. I believe his next tranche of his documents pertain to the Clinton Foundation."^[216][213] Stone later claims the communications were through an intermediary.^[217]
• August 9:
  • Flynn Intel Group, Michael Flynn's company, signs a lobbying contract with Inovo BV, which was founded by Ekim Alptekin. Alptekin is a director of the Turkey-U.S. Business Council, which is part of Turkey’s Foreign Economic Relations Board.^[218][219]
  • WikiLeaks denies having communicated with Roger Stone.^[220]
• August 11: The Internet Research Agency Twitter account @TEN_GOP claims that voter fraud is being investigated in North Carolina.^[39][40]
• August 12:
  • In a #MAGA Podcast, Stone says Assange has all the emails deleted by Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills.^[221]
  • Journalist Emma Best has two simultaneous conversations by Twitter direct message with Guccifer 2.0 and WikiLeaks. Best tries to negotiate the hosting of stolen DNC emails and documents on archive.org. WikiLeaks wants Best to act as an intermediary to funnel the material from Guccifer 2.0 to them. The conversation ends with Guccifer 2.0 saying he will send the material directly to WikiLeaks.^[222]
• August 14: The New York Times reports that Manafort's name has been found in the Ukrainian "black ledger". The ledger, belonging to the Ukrainian Party of Regions, shows $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments to Manafort from 2007 to 2012. Manafort's lawyer, Richard A. Hibey, says Manafort never received "any such cash payments".^[5] The Associated Press later verifies some of the entries against financial records.^[223]
• August 15:
  • After several weeks of communications between Papadopoulos and his campaign superiors about an unofficial trip to Russia to meet with the MFA, Sam Clovis tells Papadopoulos, "I would encourage you [and Walid Phares to] make the trip[], if it is feasible." The trip never occurs.^[150][151]
  • A Trump campaign county chair contacts the Internet Research Agency through their phony email accounts to suggest locations for rallies.^[39][40]
• August 16:
  • Stone tells Alex Jones that he is in contact with Assange, claiming he has "political dynamite" on Clinton.^[224]
  • The Internet Research Agency buys ads on Instagram for the "Florida Goes Trump" rallies.^[39][40]
• August 17:
  • Trump is warned in an FBI briefing that foreign adversaries including Russia would likely attempt to infiltrate his campaign. This is Trump's first classified briefing. Clinton receives a similar briefing in the same month.^{[225][226][227]}
  • Steve Bannon is named Trump campaign CEO.^[228]
  • Kellyanne Conway is named Trump campaign manager.^[228]
• August 18:
  • The FBI issues a nationwide "flash alert" warning state election officials about foreign infiltration of election systems in two states, later reported to be Arizona and Illinois. The alert includes technical evidence suggesting Russian responsibility, and urges states to boost their cyberdefenses. Although labeled for distribution only to "NEED TO KNOW recipients," a copy is leaked to the media.^[229]
  • The Internet Research Agency uses its joshmilton024@gmail.com email account to contact a Trump campaign official in Florida. The email requests campaign support at the forthcoming "Florida Goes Trump" rallies. It is unknown whether the campaign official responded.^[39][40]
  • The Internet Research Agency pays the person they hired to build a cage for a "Florida Goes Trump" rally in West Palm Beach, Florida.^[39][40]
• August 19:
  • Manafort resigns as Trump's campaign manager.^[230]
  • A Trump supporter suggests to The Internet Research Agency Twitter account "March for Trump" that it contact a Trump campaign official. The official is emailed by the Agency's joshmilton024@gmail.com account.
  • The Internet Research Agency's "Matt Skiber" persona contacts another Trump campaign official on Facebook.^[39][40]
• August 20: 17 "Florida Goes Trump" rallies are held across Florida. The rallies are organized by Russian trolls from the Internet Research Agency.^[40][231]
• August 25: Trump names Sam Clovis as a campaign national co-chairman.^[232]
• August 26: After Clinton claims that Russian intelligence was behind the leaks, Assange says she is causing "hysteria" about Russia, adding, "The Trump campaign has a lot of things wrong with it, but as far as we can see being Russian agents is not one of them."^[233]
• August 27: The Internet Research Agency Facebook group "SecuredBorders" organizes a "Citizens before refugees" protest rally at the City Council Chambers in Twin Falls, Idaho. Only a small number of people show up for the three-hour event, most likely because it is Saturday and the Chambers are closed.^[234]
• August 31:
  • Guccifer 2.0 leaks campaign documents stolen from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's hacked personal computer.^[235][236]
  • An American contacts the Internet Research Agency's "Being Patriotic" account about a possible September 11 event in Miami.^[39][40]
  • The Internet Research Agency buys ads for a September 11 rally in New York City.^[39][40]
• Late August: CIA director John Brennan gives individual briefings to the Gang of Eight on links between the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the election.^[237]

September 2016[]

• September
  • The Egyptian Embassy in Washington, D.C., reaches out to Papadopolous expressing Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's interest in meeting Trump. With Steve Bannon's approval, Papadopoulos arranges a meeting between Trump and el-Sisi at the Plaza Hotel in New York City.^[60] While the meeting does not appear to relate to campaign contacts with Russia, it highlights that Papadopoulos was more than a "coffee boy", as Trump campaign officials later claim.^[102]
  • The CIA gives a secret briefing to congressional leaders on Russian interference in the election. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell voices doubts about the intelligence.^[238]
• September 2: Lisa Page writes in a text message to Peter Strzok that a meeting at the FBI was set up "because Obama wanted 'to know everything we are doing'."^[239] Lisa Page was referring to the FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, not the Clinton emails investigation, which had concluded months earlier.^[240][239]
• September 3: The Internet Research Agency Facebook group "United Muslims of America" organizes a "Safe Space for Muslim Neighborhood" rally outside the White House, attracting at least 57 people.^[241]
• September 3–5: Wealthy Republican donor Peter W. Smith gathers a team to try to acquire the 30,000 deleted Clinton emails from hackers. He believes Clinton's private email server was hacked and copies of the emails were stolen.^[242] Among the people recruited is Matt Tait, a former information-security specialist for the GCHQ.^[243] The team creates "KLS Research", an LLC registered in Delaware, as a vehicle "to avoid campaign reporting."^[244] The team finds five groups of hackers claiming to have the emails. Two of the groups are Russian. Flynn is in email contact with the team. Smith commits suicide on May 14, 2017, about ten days after telling the story to The Wall Street Journal but before the story is published in June.^[242]
• September 8: Sessions meets with Kislyak a third time, in Sessions's office;^[1] he later says they discussed Ukraine and terrorism.^[245]
• September 9
  • Papadopoulos contacts deputy communications director Bryan Lanza about a request from Interfax for an interview with Ksenia Baygarova. Lanza approves the interview.^[60]
  • The Internet Research Agency sends money to its American groups to fund the September 11 rally in Miami, and to pay the actress who portrayed Clinton at the West Palm Beach, Florida, rally.^[39][40]
• Mid-September: Papadopoulos approaches British government officials asking for a meeting with senior ministers. He is given a meeting with a mid-level Foreign Office official in London. Papadopoulos mentions he has senior contacts in the Russian government. British officials conclude he is not a major player and discontinue contact.^[246]
• September 20: Flynn meets with Dana Rohrabacher. On November 10, 2017, the Mueller investigation is reported to have asked questions about this meeting.^[247]
• September 20–26: BlackMattersUS, an Internet Research Agency website, recruits activists to participate in protests over the police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte, North Carolina. The IRA pays for expenses such as microphones and speakers.^[248]
• September 22
  • Senator Dianne Feinstein and Representative Adam Schiff issue a statement warning that Russia is trying to undermine the election. Their warning is based on what they learned from intelligence briefings as members of the Gang of Eight.^[249]
  • The Internet Research Agency buys ads on Facebook for "Miners for Trump" rallies in Pennsylvania.^[39][40]
• September 23: Yahoo News reports that U.S. intelligence officials are investigating whether Carter Page has set up private communications between the Trump campaign and senior Russian officials, including talks on possibly lifting sanctions if Trump is elected.^[250]
• September 25
  • When asked by CNN about allegations linking Page to Russia, Conway denies that Page is part of the Trump campaign.^[251][252]
  • Page sends Comey a letter asking that the FBI drop the reported investigation into his activities in Russia. He denies meeting with sanctioned Russian officials.^[253]
• September 26: Carter Page tells Josh Rogin in an interview for The Washington Post that he is taking a leave of absence from the Trump campaign. He denies meeting with sanctioned individuals in Moscow.^[254]
• September 29: Comey testifies before the House Judiciary Committee, confirming that federal investigators have detected suspicious activities in voter registration databases, as stated in the August 18 alert.^[255]
• September 30: Ksenia Baygarova interviews Papadopolous for Interfax on Trump's foreign policy positions in relation to Russia.^[256] The interview was approved by Trump campaign deputy communications director Bryan Lanza. Baygarova later tells The Washington Post that she had been tasked to interview a representative from each campaign. She says Papadopoulos was the only person from the Trump campaign to respond. She describes him as not very experienced.^[60]

October–November 2016[]

• October: The FBI obtains a FISA warrant to monitor the communications of Carter Page as well as two Russian banks suspected of being part of the Russian interference in the election.^[18][257]
• Early October: A team of FBI agents travel to Europe to speak with Steele about his dossier.^[102] On or about the same date, Steele gives the FBI a dossier of allegations compiled by Cody Shearer, which corresponded "with what he had separately heard from his own independent sources." It includes the unverified allegation that Trump was sexually compromised by the Russian secret service at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Moscow in 2013.^[258][259]
• October 2: "Miners for Trump" rallies are held across Pennsylvania. The Internet Research Agency uses the same techniques to organize the rallies as they used for the "Florida Goes Trump" rallies, including hiring a person to wear a Clinton mask and a prison uniform.^[39][40]
• October 7:
  • The DHS and the ODNI issue a joint statement^[260] accusing the Russian government of breaking into the computer systems of several political organizations and releasing the obtained material via DCLeaks, WikiLeaks, and Guccifer 2.0, with the intent "to interfere with the U.S. election process."^[261]
  • The Washington Post publishes a raw video tape from the television show Access Hollywood of Trump bragging about grabbing women by their genitals.^[262] While the tape is not relevant to the Russian interference in the election, the distraction of its release lessens the public impact of the joint intelligence report released hours earlier and may have triggered WikiLeaks' Podesta emails release two hours later.^[263][213]
  • WikiLeaks begins publishing thousands of emails from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, revealing excerpts from Clinton's paid speeches to Wall Street.^[264][265]
• October 8: Kushner's company receives $370 million in new loans, including $285 million from Deutsche Bank, to refinance his portion of the former New York Times building. The size and timing of the Deutsche Bank loan draws scrutiny from the House Financial Services Committee, the Justice Department, and, later, the Mueller investigation. The concern is that the transaction may be related to Russian money laundering through Deutsche Bank.^[266][267]
• October 11: Donald Trump Jr. travels to Paris to give a paid speech at the Ritz Hotel. The dinner event is sponsored by the Center of Political and Foreign Affairs, a group founded by Fabien Baussart and his business partner. Baussart is openly linked to Russian government officials. Randa Kassis, one of the hosts, travels to Moscow after the election and reports the details of the event to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov.^[268]
• October 12: WikiLeaks writes to Trump Jr., “Hey Donald, great to see you and your dad talking about our publications” and “Strongly suggest your dad tweets this link if he mentions us.”^[269] Fifteen minutes later, Donald Trump tweets, "Very little pick-up by the dishonest media of incredible information provided by WikiLeaks. So dishonest! Rigged system!"^[270]
• October 13: Roger Stone and WikiLeaks communicate directly using private tweets.^[271]
• October 14:
  • Trump Jr. tweets a specific WikiLeaks link.^[272]
  • Pence denies that the Trump campaign is working with WikiLeaks, stating that "nothing could be further from the truth".^[273]
• October 16: The Internet Research Agency Instagram account "Woke Blacks" makes a post aimed at suppressing black voter turnout.^[39][40]
• October 19:
  

  Senator Harry Reid Letter to FBI Director James B. Comey^[274]
  • The FBI and the DoJ apply for a FISA warrant to conduct surveillance on Page.^[275]
  • During the third presidential debate, Clinton blames Russia for the DNC email leaks and accuses Trump of being a "puppet" of Putin.^[276] Trump denies ever having met Putin and any connection to him.^[277]
  • A Financial Times probe finds evidence a Trump venture has links to alleged laundering network.^[278]
• October 21: WikiLeaks sends Trump Jr. private tweets suggesting that the campaign give them Trump's tax returns to publish so that they seem less of a "‘pro-Trump’ ‘pro-Russia’" source.^[270]
• October 22: A large rally is held in Charlotte, North Carolina, protesting the police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott. The Internet Research Agency website BlackMattersUS recruits unwitting local activists to organize the rally.^[279] BlackMattersUS provides an activist with a bank card to pay for rally expenses.^[248]
• October 24: Trump announces at a Florida campaign rally, "I have nothing to do with Russia, folks. I’ll give you a written statement."^[280]
• October 27: At the Valdai Discussion Club yearly forum, Putin denounces American "hysteria" over accusations of Russian interference, saying “Does anyone seriously think that Russia can influence the choice of the American people?”^[281]
• October 30: Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid sends FBI Director James Comey a letter, asking him to reveal Trump's ties to the Russian Federation.^[282]
• October 31:
  • Through the "red phone", Obama tells Putin to stop interfering or face consequences.^[283]
  • Mother Jones magazine's David Corn reports that a veteran spy, later publicly identified as Steele, gave the FBI information alleging a Russian operation to cultivate Trump, later known as the "Steele dossier".^[284]
  • Slate publishes an article by Franklin Foer alleging that a Trump server was in suspicious contact with Alfa-Bank in Russia.^[285] Snopes examined the story and rated it "Unproven". Several cyber security experts saw nothing nefarious, while the FBI was still investigating the matter: "One U.S. official said investigators find the server relationship 'odd' and are not ignoring it. But the official said there is still more work for the FBI to do. Investigators have not yet determined whether a connection would be significant."^[286]
• November 2: The Internet Research Agency Twitter account @TEN_GOP alleges “#VoterFraud by counting tens of thousands of ineligible mail in Hillary votes being reported in Broward County, Florida.”^{[citation needed]} It is retweeted by Donald Trump Jr.^[39][40]
• November 3: The Internet Research Agency Instagram account "Blacktivist" suggests people vote for Jill Stein instead of Hillary Clinton.^[39][40]
• November 5:
  • Konstantin Sidorkov again emails Trump Jr. and Trump campaign social media director Dan Scavino. He again offers to promote Trump to VK's 100 million users. His previous email was sent on January 19, 2016.^[92]
  • Anti-Hillary Clinton "Texit" rallies are held across Texas. The Internet Research Agency's "Heart of Texas" Facebook group organizes the rallies around the theme of Texas seceding from the United States if Clinton is elected. The group contacts the Texas Nationalist Movement, a secessionist organization, to help with organizing efforts, but they decline to help. Small rallies are held in Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, and other cities. No one attends the Lubbock rally.^{[287][288][289]}

Post-election transition[]

November–December 2016[]

• November 8:
  • Trump is elected President of the United States.^[290]
  • Rospatent, the Russian government agency responsible for intellectual property, grants 10-year extensions on four of Trump's trademarks.^[291]
  • Hours after the polls close, the hashtag #Calexit becomes one of the top trends on Twitter. Within a few hours of the initial tweet,^[292] #Calexit is mentioned over 100,000 times, including thousands of retweets by Internet Research Agency accounts.^[289]
• November–December: Michael Flynn serves as an advisor to SCL Group, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica.^[293][294]
• November–January: During the transition period, the FBI warns Trump aide Hope Hicks at least twice that she may be approached by Russian government operatives using fake identities.^[295][296]
• November 10:
  • Kislyak states that Russia was not involved with U.S. election hacking.^[297]
  • In a private Oval Office meeting, Obama warns Trump against hiring Flynn.^[298]
  • Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov tells the Interfax news agency "there were contacts" with the Trump team during the campaign.^[299]
  • Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova tells Bloomberg News that it was "normal practice" for Russian Embassy staffers to meet with members of the Trump campaign. She says the Clinton campaign declined requests for meetings.^[299]
  • Mark Zuckerberg describes the idea that "fake news" on Facebook could have influenced the election as "crazy."^[300][301]
• November 11:
  • Hicks denies claims by the Kremlin that Trump officials met with its staff.^[280]
  • House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes is named to the executive committee of the Trump transition team.^[302]
  • William McGinley, a Trump campaign lawyer, holds a conference call with members of the Flynn Intel Group to find out whether Flynn had been paid to write his November 8 article promoting relations with Turkey and attacking Fethullah Gulen. McGinley becomes the White House Cabinet Secretary in the new administration.^[303]
  • Mike Pence replaces Chris Christie as chairman of the Trump transition team. Christie later claims he was fired for opposing Michael Flynn becoming the National Security Advisor. Steve Bannon and Flynn celebrate Christie's firing by ceremonially throwing binders full of administration candidates into the trash.^[304][305]
• November 12:
  • Maria Butina holds a birthday party at Cafe Deluxe in Washington, D.C., attended by Paul Erickson and Trump campaign aides. Butina brags about being part of Russian communications with the Trump campaign, something she has bragged about for months.^[306]
  • A Trump protest called "Trump is NOT my President" attracts 5,000-10,000 protestors in Manhattan who march from Union Square to Trump Tower. The protest is organized by the Internet Research Agency using a Facebook account they control called BlackMattersUS.^{[39][40][307]}
• November 15: Devin Nunes replaces former Representative Mike Rogers as a Trump transition team national security advisor.^[308]
• November 18:
  • Trump announces he will nominate Sessions as Attorney General^[309] and Flynn as National Security Adviser.^[310]
  • Elijah Cummings, ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, writes a letter to Pence warning that Flynn's connections to Russia and Turkey might create conflicts of interest. He asks the Trump administration's transition team for documents related to Flynn.^[311] Receipt of the letter is acknowledged on November 28.^[115]
• November 19:
  • The Internet Research Agency organizes the "Charlotte Against Trump" rally in Charlotte, North Carolina.^[39][40]
  • Barack Obama has a private meeting with Mark Zuckerberg at a gathering of world leaders in Lima, Peru. Obama urges Zuckerberg to take the threats of political disinformation and "fake news" seriously. Obama warns Zuckerberg that doing nothing will cause problems in the next election. Zuckerberg responds that there were only a few messages and doing something about the problem would be difficult.^[301]
• Late November: Senior members of Trump's transition team warn Flynn about the dangers of contacting Kislyak, including that Kislyak's conversations are probably being monitored by the FBI and the NSA. Flynn is recorded a month later discussing lifting sanctions with Kislyak.^[312]
• November 30:
  • The Justice Department notifies Michael Flynn that he is under investigation for his work with Turkey.^[303]
  • On a recommendation from the GSA, Trump transition team members discuss installing Signal, an encrypted messaging app, on Flynn's phone to encrypt his communications.^[313]
• December: Concerned that the incoming Trump administration will suppress the information collected in the Russia investigation, the White House spreads it across government agencies to leave a trail for future investigators.^[314]
• December 1: According to an anonymous letter to The Washington Post citing leaked intercepts of Russian diplomatic communications, during a transition team meeting at Trump Tower, Kushner asks Kislyak about the potential to communicate directly with the Kremlin over a Russian-encrypted channel. Flynn also attends the meeting.^[315][316]
• Early December: In Russia, FSB cyber chief Sergei Mikhailov, senior Kaspersky Lab researcher Ruslan Stoyanov, and hacker Dmitry Dokuchayev (known as “Forb”) are arrested for treason.^[317][318]
• December 9:
  • Republican Senator John McCain delivers the Steele dossier to Comey.^[319]
  • The Trump transition team dismisses reported intelligence assessments finding Russian interference in the election. Their statement says, "These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.’"^[238]
• December 12: Kislyak meets with Kushner's assistant, Avi Berkowitz, to arrange a meeting between Kushner and the FSB-connected Sergey Gorkov of the Kremlin's Vnesheconombank.^{[22][320][321][322]}
• December 13:
  • Gorkov, the head of sanctioned Russian bank Vnesheconombank, arrives from Moscow to secretly meet Kushner in New York, before flying to Japan, where Putin is holding a summit. The meeting is first reported in March 2017, and attracts the interest of federal and congressional investigators in May. Kushner later characterizes the meeting as brief and meaningless. The White House later describes the meeting as a diplomatic encounter. The bank later says they discussed Kushner's real estate business.^{[22][321][323]}
  • Trump picks Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State; Russian officials praise the decision.^[324]
• December 15:
  • Clinton tells a group of donors in Manhattan that Russian hacking was ordered by Putin "because he has a personal beef against me" due to her accusation in 2011 that Russian parliamentary elections that year were rigged.^[325][326] Clinton's comment is backed by U.S. Intelligence reports.^[327]
  • UAE crown prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan travels to New York City to meet with Flynn, Kushner, and Bannon. In a breach of standard protocol, the UAE did not give the U.S. government advance notice of the prince's trip.^[328][329]
• December 18: Speaking to CBS News, Conway says it is "false" and "dangerous" to suggest that members of the Trump campaign spoke to any Russians during the campaign.^[280][330]
• December 22: At the direction of a very senior member of the transition team, Flynn asks Kislyak to delay or defeat a pending vote on a United Nations Security Council resolution. Flynn later pleads guilty to lying to the FBI about the effort to defeat the resolution.^[331][332]
• December 23: Kislyak calls Flynn and tells him Russia will not vote against the United Nations Security Council resolution they spoke about the day before.
• December 26: Oleg Erovinkin, a former KGB official, is found dead in the back seat of his car in Moscow. He was suspected of assisting former MI-6 agent Christopher Steele in compiling Steele's dossier.^[333]
• December 29:
  • Following Executive Order 13757 signed the previous day, Obama's administration expels 35 Russian diplomats, locks down two Russian diplomatic compounds, and expands sanctions against Russia.^{[334][335][336][337]} Flynn consults with the Trump transition team,^[338][339] then speaks with Kislyak by telephone to request that Russia not escalate matters in response to Obama's actions.^[340][341] Flynn later pleads guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with Kislyak regarding the new sanctions.^[332]
  • Before Flynn's call to Kislyak, K. T. McFarland emails other Trump transition officials saying that Flynn will be speaking to Kislyak to try to prevent a cycle of retaliation over the newly imposed sanctions. The email is forwarded to Flynn, Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon, and Sean Spicer.^[342]
  • The NCCIC releases a joint analysis report titled "GRIZZLY STEPPE – Russian Malicious Cyber Activity" as a follow-up to the October 7, 2016, joint statement on election security. The report describes methods used by Russian intelligence groups APT29 and APT28 to penetrate election-related servers.^[343]
• December 30: Putin announces he will not retaliate against the U.S. expulsions, contrary to recommendations from Lavrov.^[344] In reply, Trump tweets "Great move on delay (by V. Putin) – I always knew he was very smart!"^[345]
• December 31: Kislyak calls Flynn to tell him that Russia has decided not to retaliate based upon Flynn's request. Afterward, Flynn tells senior members of the transition team about his conversations with Kislyak and Russia's decision not to escalate.^[332]

January 2017[]

• Early January: At a meeting in Langley, Mossad agents are warned by a U.S. spy chief that Putin may have "leverages of pressure" over President-elect Trump and that intelligence should be shared cautiously with the coming White House and United States National Security Council for fear of leaks to the Russians and thereby Iran.^{[346][347][348]}
• January 4:
  • Flynn informs Don McGahn, the transition team's chief lawyer, that he is under "investigation for secretly working as a paid lobbyist for Turkey during the campaign." McGahn becomes the White House Counsel after the inauguration. The new Administration later claims they knew nothing of Flynn lobbying for Turkey.^[303]
  • The FBI begins investigating Flynn's December phone calls with Kislyak.^[303]
• January 5:
  • Obama is briefed on the intelligence community’s findings.^[349]
  • Flynn, Kushner and Steve Bannon meet with the King of Jordan. According to BuzzFeed, they discuss a plan to deploy American nuclear power plants in Jordan with security support from a Russian company. "People close to the three Trump advisers" deny the allegations.^[350][351]
  • R. James Woolsey Jr., who became a senior adviser to Trump in September 2016, resigns amid Congressional hearings into cyber attacks and public statements by Trump critical of the United States Intelligence Community.^[352]
• January 6:
  • The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) publishes an unclassified report^[353] about Russian meddling in the 2016 election stating that "Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election".^[354] While the report says Russian hackers did not change votes, it ignores the security of back-end election systems.^[355] Putin was personally involved in the Russian interference, per a CIA stream of intelligence.^[327]
  • Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, NSA Director Michael Rogers, and FBI Director James Comey travel to Trump Tower in New York City to brief Trump and senior members of the transition team on the classified version of the ODNI report on Russian interference in the election.^[356][357] In addition to Trump, the other people present are incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, incoming CIA Director Mike Pompeo, incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, and Vice President-elect Mike Pence. After the briefing, Comey stays behind to privately brief Trump on the salacious allegations in the Steele dossier. While cordial during the briefings, Trump still refuses to accept the intelligence on Russian interference.^[327] The meeting unsettles Comey and prompts him to write a memo documenting the conversation.^[358]
  • Flynn's lawyer, Robert K. Kelner, has a follow-up call with the Trump transition legal team about the Justice Department's ongoing investigation of Flynn's work for Turkey.^[303]
• January 9:
  • Kushner is named Senior Advisor to the President.^[359]
  • Profexer, a Ukrainian hacker who is the author of a hacking tool described in the December 29, 2016, NCCIC report on Russian cyber attacks, goes dark. He turns himself in to the Ukrainian police and becomes a cooperating witness for the FBI. The Ukrainian police say he was not placed under arrest.^[360]
• January 10:
  • In a confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sessions denies communicating with the Russian government during Trump's election campaign.^[361]
  • BuzzFeed publishes the unverified Steele dossier alleging various misdeeds by Trump and associates in Russia.^[362] Trump dismisses the dossier as "fake news."^[363]
• January 11:
  • Trump tweets "Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA – NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!".^[364] USA Today says this is "not exactly true".^[365]
  • Erik Prince, a Trump campaign donor and brother of forthcoming Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, meets in the Seychelles with Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian government's $10bn Russian Direct Investment Fund. Prince will claim in August that he scarcely remembers Dmitriev. Dmitriev's identity is revealed in November 2017. The meeting was organized by the United Arab Emirates and reportedly includes talks of a "back channel" with Moscow to try to influence Russian policy in the Middle East.^[329][366] George Nader, an adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates, is also in attendance.^[367]
• January 13:
  • President-elect Trump nominates U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein as Deputy Attorney General.^[368]
  • Sean Spicer claims in a press conference that Flynn had only one call with Kislyak, about setting up a call between Trump and Putin.^[369] Emails from December show Spicer most likely knew Flynn discussed sanctions with Kislyak on December 29, 2016, and may have known about the purpose of the call in advance.^[342]
• January 15: Interviewed on CBS's Face the Nation and Fox News Sunday, Vice President-elect Pence repeatedly denies any connection between the Trump campaign team and Russians.^[115] He also denies Flynn discussed sanctions with Kislyak.^[369]
• January 17: Sessions states in writing that he has not been "in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election."^[370] Sessions had been accused of failing to disclose two meetings with Kislyak.^[371]
• January 18:
  • Jared Kushner files his security clearance application without listing his meetings with Russians.^[372]
  • Michael Flynn, Devin Nunes, and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu attend a private breakfast meeting at the Trump Hotel in Washington. An unidentified Trump Organization official is also present. Afterward, Cavusoglu's aide says the U.S-Turkish agenda was discussed, which Nunes's spokesman, Jack Langer, denies.^[373][374]
• January 18/19: McClatchy^[375] and The New York Times report that Manafort, Page and Stone have been under investigation by the FBI, NSA, CIA, and FinCEN,^[376] based on intercepted Russian communications and financial transactions.^[377] Sources say "the investigators have accelerated their efforts in recent weeks but have found no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing."^[376]
• January 20: Barack Obama leaves office.^[378]

Trump administration[]

January 2017[]

• January:
  • White House Counsel Donald McGahn tells Trump he believes that Flynn had misled the FBI and lied to Vice President Pence, and should be fired.^[379]
  • McGahn researches the Logan Act and federal laws related to lying to federal investigators. Records turned over to the Mueller investigation show McGahn believes Flynn violated one or more of those laws.^[380]
    

    Susan Rice's email to herself on January 20, 2017.
• January 20:
  • Trump and Pence take office.^[381]
  • While seated at Trump's inauguration speech, Flynn texts Alex Copson, chairman of ACU Strategic Partners, that Russian sanctions blocking a private Russian-backed plan to build nuclear plants in the Middle East will now be "ripped up".^{[382][383][384][385][386]} An associate of Copson later denies the allegation.^[387]
  • Sergei Millian, Source D in the Steele dossier, attends VIP inauguration events.^[388]
  • Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer involved in the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, and Rinat Akhmetshin, another participant in that meeting, attend a black-tie inauguration party at the Library of Congress hosted by Representative Dana Rohrabacher's campaign committee. Akhmetshin later claims he received tickets from event organizers, but Rohrabacher's office claims the campaign has no record of such an invitation or of ticket purchases by the two.^[389]
  • Maria Butina attends the inaugural Freedom Ball. It is one of the three balls Trump attends.^[389][61]
• January 21:
  • Trump appoints Flynn as National Security Advisor.^[390]
  • Bannon phones Page, and they talk about Russia. According to congressional testimony given by Page in November 2017, Bannon referred to the dossier and asked him to cancel a scheduled television appearance.^[391]
• January 22: Michael Flynn is sworn in as National Security Advisor.^[369]
• January 23: Sean Spicer repeats that Flynn did not discuss sanctions with Kislyak in late December.^[392] Emails from December show Spicer most likely knew Flynn discussed sanctions with Kislyak on December 29, 2016, and may have known about the purpose of the call in advance.^[342]
• January 24:
  • The FBI interviews Flynn about his conversations with Kislyak.^[393] Flynn conceals the interview, which took place without a lawyer present, from the White House.^[394] On December 1, 2017, Flynn will plead guilty to lying during the interview.^[395][396]
  • Comey tells top FBI agents that Trump asked him to stay on as FBI director.^[397]
• January 26: Acting Attorney General Sally Yates warns the Trump administration that Flynn has not been truthful about his contacts with Russia and may be vulnerable to blackmail by Russian intelligence.^[398] Flynn is fired 18 days later, on February 13.^[399]
• January 27:
  • The FBI interviews Papadopoulos about Russian meetings in 2016. In October 2017 he will plead guilty to making omissions and false statements during the interview.^[400][150]
  • McGahn has further discussions with Yates about Flynn.^[401]
  • During a private dinner at the White House, Comey gets the impression that Trump wants to "create some sort of patronage relationship." Comey will later testify that Trump requested "loyalty" from him, and that he offered "honesty" instead.^[402]
• January 31:
  • Trump dismisses Yates, citing her refusal to enforce Executive Order 13769.^[403]
  • Alexander Torshin, Maria Butina, Paul Erickson, and former Kremlin staffer Andrey Kolyadin dine with Representatives Dana Rohrabacher and Thomas Massie at a private dinner hosted by Rockefeller heir George O’Neill Jr.^[61][51]

February 2017[]

• February: According to later reporting by Michael Wolff, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, during a visit to the White House, warns Kushner that UK intelligence services may have had the Trump campaign under surveillance. Blair denies Wolff's claims.^[404][405]
• Early February: Cohen delivers a pro-Russian Ukrainian peace plan to Flynn while visiting the White House. The plan was developed by Sater and Andrii Artemenko, a Ukrainian politician who said he was encouraged by "top aides" to Putin.^[406] The meeting was arranged by Ukrainian-American Alex Oronov, whose daughter is married to Cohen's brother.^[407][408]
• February 2: Alexander Torshin and Maria Butina attend the National Prayer Breakfast. Torshin is scheduled to meet privately with Trump beforehand, but the meeting is canceled after a national security aide points out that Torshin is under investigation for organized crime and money laundering.^[61] A spokesman for Torshin later says Torshin was officially on vacation at the time, adding, "President Trump has never proposed a meeting to Mr. Torshin."^[409]
• February 8:
  • Sessions is confirmed as Attorney General by a vote of 52 to 47;^[410] he is sworn in the next day.^[411]
  • Comey meets with Priebus at the White House and informs him that Justice Department policy is not to discuss investigations with the White House.^[412]
  • Flynn publicly denies that he discussed sanctions with Kislyak in December.^[413]
• February 9:
  • The Washington Post reports that Flynn privately discussed Russian sanctions with Kislyak before Trump took office, which Flynn had previously denied. Flynn's spokesman now says, "[Flynn] couldn’t be certain that the topic never came up.”^[413]
  • Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) introduces a resolution of inquiry in relation to possible crimes relating to Trump's financial dealings or collusion with Russia.^[414]
• February 10: Trump tells reporters he did not know about Flynn's December discussions of sanctions with Kislyak.^[415]
• February 11: Flynn omits his paid trip to the Russia Today 10th anniversary gala on a financial disclosure form.^[416]
• February 13:
  • Flynn is dismissed after less than a month in office.^[417]
  • Appearing on Fox News's Your World with Neil Cavuto hours before Flynn leaves, Nunes says he has confidence in Flynn and thinks he shouldn't resign, adding, "He’s probably the best intelligence officer of his generation."^[418]
• February 14:
  • Trump asks Comey, per Comey's testimony to Congress, to drop any investigation of Flynn.^[419] The White House later denies the charge.^[420] Trump will fire Comey three months later (May 9).^[421]
  • White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer states that Trump asked McGahn to determine whether Flynn had broken the law, and that McGahn told the White House that no law had been broken.^[422][423] He also says no members of the Trump campaign met with Russians during the campaign.^[424]
  • The New York Times reports that current and former American officials assert that phone records and intercepts show Trump campaign aides were in repeated contact with senior Russian intelligence officials prior to the election.^[425] This is consistent with public statements made by Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials on November 10, 2016.^[299]
• February 15:
  • In a morning tweet, Trump calls reports of Russian connections to the campaign "non-sense" and says they are part of a coverup by the Clinton campaign.^[426] Later that day, speaking at a joint White House news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump describes Flynn as "a wonderful man", adding, "I think it is very, very unfair what has happened to General Flynn." He says the classified documents used against Flynn were "illegally leaked" as part of a "coverup for a terrible loss that the Democrats had under Hillary Clinton."^[427]
  • Comey asks Sessions to stop direct communications from Trump and to never leave them alone together.^[428][429]
  • McCabe tells Priebus the February 14 New York Times article on Russian contacts^[425] is wrong, but refuses to issue a press release.^[430]
  • Judy Woodruff interviews Carter Page on PBS News Hour. In response to a direct question about meetings with Russians, Page denies having any meetings with Russian officials in 2016.^[431]
• February 16: The FBI interviews Papadopoulos a second time. In the following days, he deletes the Facebook account he had had since 2005 (containing correspondence concerning Russia), opens a new Facebook account, and changes his telephone number.^[432][433]
• February 17: Comey meets privately with members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Later the same day, the Committee votes to issue letters asking the White House and several government agencies to preserve communications related to the Committee's Russia investigation.^[434] The Committee also issues a letter to Roger Stone asking him to preserve records.^[435]
• February 19: Corey Lewandowski says in an interview with White House correspondent Jonathan Karl on ABC's This Week that he does not know of anyone on the campaign having any contacts with any Russians.^[436]
• February 20:
  • Trump appoints H. R. McMaster to replace Flynn as National Security Adviser.^[437]
  • Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders states during a White House press briefing that "to the best of our knowledge, no contacts took place" between the Trump team and Russia.^[280]
• February 24: Asked about links between Trump and Russia, Spicer says that "there are no connections to find out about".^[280]
• February 28:
  • A resolution of inquiry is defeated in the House Judiciary Committee by an 18-16 party-line vote. The resolution would have required the White House to turn over documents related to Trump's ties to Russia and any conflicts of interest related to his businesses. A Republican member of the committee, Matt Gaetz, calls the motivation for the resolution, which was introduced by Democrat Jerrold Nadler, sour grapes over Clinton losing the election.^[438]
  • White House lawyers instruct White House staff to preserve documents related to Russian interference in the election. The instructions are in response to a February 17 letter from the Senate Intelligence Committee asking for the preservations.^[434][439]

March 2017[]

• March: Citigroup gives Kushner's company a $325 million loan days after Kushner meets with Citigroup's CEO Michael Corbat.^[440]
• March 1:
  • Sessions comes under scrutiny after reports that he had contact with Russian government officials during the election campaign, even though he denied it during his confirmation hearings. Democratic representatives ask Sessions to resign his post as United States Attorney General.^[441]
  • Comey receives an "urgent" call from Trump that Comey views as an attempt to win him over to Trump's side.^[442]
• March 1–2: On Trump's instructions, McGahn attempts to persuade Sessions to stop recusing himself from the Russia investigation.^{[443][444][445][446]}
• March 2:
  • Sessions announces that he will recuse himself from any investigations into Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election.^[447]
  • Carter Page and J.D. Gordon admit publicly for the first time that they met with Kislyak during the campaign.^[448][449]
• March 3: In testimony to Congress, Comey says: “It makes me mildly nauseous to think that we might have had some impact on the election.”^[450]
• March 4:
  • Corey Lewandowski tells Jeanine Pirro on Fox News that he and Trump never met Carter Page.^[451]
  • Trump accuses the Obama Administration of wiretapping his phones.^[452] In response, Comey demands that the Justice Department issue a statement correcting the record because the claim is false. No such statement is ever issued.^[453]
• March 5: In a Meet the Press interview, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper states that, while he was in office, the NSA, FBI, and CIA had found no evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.^[454] On May 12 he clarifies his statement, saying that he wouldn't have known the contents of an FBI investigation.^[455]
• March 7: Michael Flynn retroactively files as a foreign agent for Turkey.^[456] The filing covers $530,000 in lobbying Flynn performed from August through November 2016.^[457]
• March 9: Vice President Mike Pence, asked by Bret Baier on Fox News about Flynn retroactively registering his lobbying work for Turkey, says, "Well, let me say, hearing that story today was the first I'd heard of it."^[458]
• March 10:
  • Trump fires 46 U.S. Attorneys, including Preet Bharara, whom Trump had recently told could keep his job.^[459] Bharara had been prosecuting a money-laundering case against the Russian company Prevezon. Prevezon's attorney in the case is Natalia Veselnitskaya.^[460] The company reaches a financial settlement with the government on May 15, 2017, two days before the trial was scheduled to start.^[461]
  • Roger Stone admits to communicating with Guccifer 2.0.^[214]
• March 13: Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr says Roger Stone's communications with Guccifer 2.0 are part of the Committee's ongoing investigation.^[462]
• March 15:
  • Roger Stone is in a hit-and-run collision in Pompano Beach, Florida. He is in the front passenger seat when the other car collides with the front passenger door. He claims the collision may have been deliberate because Representative Adam Schiff had recently called for Stone to testify before the House Intelligence Committee.^[463]
  • House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes says his committee has not found any evidence that Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower, referring to the accusations Trump made via Twitter.^[464]
• March 16: The Senate Intelligence Committee leaders issue a joint statement saying they saw "no indications" that Trump Tower had been wiretapped by the U.S. Government.^[465]
• March 20:
  • The House Intelligence Committee holds its first public hearing. Comey admits that there is an ongoing FBI investigation into whether there were any links between individuals associated with the Russian government and the Trump campaign and whether they coordinated.^[466]
  • Devin Nunes tells David Corn of Mother Jones that he has never heard of Carter Page or Roger Stone. Corn is so surprised by the apparent lie that he immediately tweets about it.^[467] In February, the White House asked Nunes to read and debunk a February 14 New York Times article^[425] that mentioned Page and Stone being under investigation.^[468] On March 3, Nunes discussed the article in an interview with Evan Onstot on Fresno, California, television station KSEE. He said he would not call the people named in the story to appear before his committee.^[469]
  • WikiLeaks again denies communicating with Roger Stone.^[470]
• March 22:
  • Nunes announces that he discovered the intelligence community "incidentally collected" the communications of some members of Trump's transition team, potentially including the president himself,^[471] and claims that the information was "widely disseminated". It is later confirmed that he learned this from Senior Director for National Intelligence Ezra Cohen-Watnick and Assistant White House Counsel Michael Ellis, formerly counsel to Nunes's committee, during his White House visit on the previous day.^[314][472]
  • Trump asks Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and NSA Director Mike Rogers to publicly deny any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Both refuse, saying the requests are inappropriate.^[473] Coats later tells staffers that Trump also asked him to get Comey to back off the FBI investigation of Flynn.^[474]
• March 23: Rick Gates, longtime deputy to Manafort and Trump campaign advisor, is forced to leave the pro-Trump nonprofit America First Policies after reports that Manafort sought to further Russian interests.^[475]
• March 27: Schiff and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi call for Nunes's recusal from the investigation after details of his White House visit become public.^[476]
  Play media

  'Clint Watts tells Senate intel panel that Russia targets Trump with propaganda'. Video from C-Span
• March 30:
  • Flynn tells the FBI and Congress that he would testify in exchange for immunity from prosecution.^[477]
  • Former FBI special agent Clint Watts testifies as an expert witness before the Senate Intelligence Committee.^[478]
  • According to Comey, Trump calls him in the morning to ask Comey what he can do to lift the "cloud" impairing the Trump presidency.^[428]
• March 31: Flynn files an amended financial disclosure form listing his RT speech. The form also lists previously undisclosed speeches made to Kaspersky Government Security Solutions and Volga-Dnepr Airlines.^[416]

April 2017[]

• April 3: Eli Lake reports in Bloomberg View that former National Security Advisor Susan Rice had requested to unmask the identities of members of the Trump campaign and presidential transition in surveillance records.^[479]
• April 4: BuzzFeed News identifies "Male-1", described in 2015 US government court documents containing evidence of a Russian spy ring attempting to recruit American assets in New York, as Carter Page.^[13][47]
• April 6: Nunes recuses himself from the House Intelligence Committee investigation.^[480] The House Ethics Committee starts an investigation of Nunes's conduct in the month of March.^[481]
• April 9: The Internet Research Agency's "United Muslims of America" Facebook group posts a meme complaining about the cost of the April 6 missile strike on Syria by the United States. The strike had been made in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack by the Syrian government. The meme asserts the $93 million cost of the strike "could have founded [sic] Meals on Wheels until 2029."^[241]
• April 11:
  • Trump calls Comey and asks him to "get out" that Trump is not personally under investigation. Comey refers Trump to the Acting Deputy Attorney General. It is the last time they speak.^[482]
  • Representative Dana Rohrabacher meets with Rinat Akhmetshin at the Westin Grand Hotel in Berlin. They discuss the Prevezon money laundering case in New York, as well as lifting Magnitsky Act sanctions.^[483]
• April 19: The White House refuses to fulfill a request from the House Oversight Committee for documents related to Flynn's foreign lobbying.^[484]
• April 25: Rosenstein is confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 94-6.^[485][486]
• April 29: Trump is interviewed by John Dickerson on Face The Nation. He says, "The concept of Russia with respect to [the Trump campaign] is a total phony story."^[487]

May 2017[]

• May 3:
  • Senator Dianne Feinstein says there is "not yet" any evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.^[488]
  • FBI Director James Comey testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee.^[489]
• May 4:
  • Rice refuses to testify to Congress.^[490]
  • In a Wall Street Journal interview, Peter Smith, a GOP operative and independent opposition researcher, says he tried to acquire the 33,000 deleted Clinton emails. Smith contacted several hackers who claimed to have data, including some potential Russian operatives. Flynn's son Michael G. Flynn was reportedly involved in the effort. Smith kills himself ten days after the interview.^{[491][492][493]}
• May 5: An aide to Sessions asks a member of Congressional staff if they know of any damaging information about Comey, according to January 2018 reporting by The New York Times.^[443]
• May 5–7: At Trump's direction, White House Senior Advisor for policy Stephen Miller drafts a letter of dismissal of Comey.^[494]
• May 8: In an Oval Office meeting, Trump informs Kushner, Pence and McGahn of his intent to remove Comey, and gives them copies of the Miller draft. McGahn objects to the letter's angry tone and convenes a separate meeting later that day with Sessions and Rosenstein, who had previously considered removing Comey from office. Rosenstein is given a copy of Miller's draft and agrees to write a new memo that would support the dismissal, using Comey's handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation as the main rationale.^[494]
• May 9:
  • Rosenstein gives Sessions the memo to provide the basis for a recommendation that Comey be dismissed.^[495][115]
  • Trump dismisses Comey from his position as FBI Director.^[450]
  • Spicer tells the press that Trump "has no business in Russia; he has no connections to Russia."^[496]
• May 10:
  • Trump holds a meeting in the White House with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Kislyak. U.S. reporters are excluded.^[104] Trump reportedly tells Lavrov and Kislyak he fired Comey to relieve pressure caused by the investigation.^[497] Trump shares classified intelligence about ISIS with Lavrov and Kislyak without first seeking permission from the allied sources who collected the information.^[498] It is later confirmed that the intelligence came to Trump from Israel via Mike Pompeo.^[348][499]
  • Pence characterizes the dismissal of Comey as a reactive decision Trump made in response to a recommendation by Sessions and Rosenstein.^[500]
• May 11: In an interview with NBC News, Trump says the Russia investigation was a consideration for him in deciding to dismiss Comey.^[501]
• May 12:
  Play media

  Congressman Al Green's Floor Speech on the Impeachment of President Trump
  • Trump threatens Comey with alleged secret recordings of their conversations.^[502]
  • Two of Trump's lawyers, Sheri A. Dillon and William F. Nelson, say in a letter that the only income Trump has had from Russia are the 2008 sale of Maison de L’Amitie for $95 million to Dmitry Rybolovlev and $12.2 million in payments connected to the Miss Universe 2013 pageant in Moscow. The letter is criticized for covering only a short time period.^[503]
• May 17:
  • Rosenstein appoints former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to oversee the investigation into Russian election interference and related matters.^[504]
  • Rep. Al Green (D-TX) calls for Trump's impeachment from the House floor.^[505]
  • Putin offers to provide a record of the May 10 Oval Office meeting with Russians to the U.S. Congress.^[506]
• Late May: Mueller's team interviews Comey.^[507]
• May 18: The Russian State Duma approves the nomination of former Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov to replace Kislyak as U.S. ambassador.^[508]
• May 19: Feinstein repeats her statement of May 3 that no evidence of collusion was found, and adds that "there are rumors".^[509]
• May 22: Flynn refuses to hand over subpoenaed documents to the Senate Intelligence Committee, citing the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination.^[510]
  Play media

  'Russia, Trump Team in Contact, Former CIA Director Tells Congress' video from Voice of America
• May 23:
  • Experts from the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) declare Mueller ethically able to function as special counsel.^[511]
  • The House Intelligence Committee hears testimony from former CIA Director Brennan, who states that Russia "brazenly interfered in the 2016 election process" despite U.S. efforts to ward it off.^[512]
• May 24:
  • U.S. media reports that Trump has hired lawyer Marc Kasowitz, his longtime legal counsel, to represent him in any inquiry.^[513]
  • Sessions claims the reason he didn't disclose meetings with Russian officials on his security forms is that the FBI told him not to list foreign officials he met with in connection with "his Senate activities."^[514]
• May 25: The Senate Intelligence Committee unanimously votes to give its Republican chairman Richard Burr, and Democratic vice chairman Mark R. Warner, "blanket authority" to issue subpoenas during their investigation.^[515]
• May 26:
  • The Washington Post reports that Kislyak told Moscow that Kushner wanted a secret communications channel with the Kremlin under Russian supervision.^[315]
  • The Senate Intelligence Committee requests that the Trump campaign turn over "all of its emails, documents and phone records" related to Russia. Several months earlier, the committee had asked the campaign committee to preserve records.^[516]
• May 30:
  • Cohen is formally urged to preserve records by the special counsel and the congressional committees.^[517] Flynn partially agrees to turn over documents in the investigation.^[518]
  • CNN reports on leaked intercepts of conversations between Kremlin officials discussing their potential influence on some Trump campaign members, including financial matters.^[519]
• May 31:
  • The House Intelligence Committee serves seven subpoenas – including those on Cohen and Flynn – for testimony, personal documents and business records.^[520][521]
  • The FBI and Congressional committees inquire about a possible third encounter between Sessions and Kislyak on April 27, 2016.^[522]
  • The Trump administration offers to reopen the two Russian diplomatic compounds, in New York and Maryland, that the Obama administration locked down on December 29, 2016.^[523]
  • The White House announces that it will no longer take questions relating to Russia-Trump allegations, referring such questions to Trump's lawyers.^[524]

June 2017[]

At a conference in St. Petersburg, NBC's Megyn Kelly repeatedly questioned Putin about Russian interference in the 2016 US elections.^[525]

• Summer: Mueller's team interviews Rosenstein.^[526]
• June: Trump orders White House Counsel Donald F. McGahn II to fire Mueller. McGahn refuses to relay the order to the Justice Department, saying he would quit. Trump backs down.^[527]
• June 3:
  • Mueller takes over an earlier probe into Manafort's activities in Ukraine.^[528]
  • The Internet Research Agency's "United Muslims of America" Facebook group organizes the "Make peace, not war!" protest outside Trump Tower in New York City. It is unclear whether anyone attends this protest or instead attends the "March for Truth" affiliated protest held on the same day.^{[241][529][530]}
• June 5: The Intercept publishes a top secret NSA document that discusses the targeting by GRU of computer systems maintaining voter rolls in several states.^[531][532] Reality Winner, an NSA contractor, is arrested for leaking the document.^[533]
  Play media

  'Coats refuses to say whether Trump asked him to intervene in Flynn investigation'. Video from C-Span.
• June 7:
  • Coats and Rogers testify to the Senate Intelligence Committee that they never felt pressured by Trump to do anything inappropriate, but decline to answer questions on private conversations with him.^[534]
  • In a prepared written testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee,^[535] Comey confirms telling Trump that he was not personally under investigation, and refusing to say this publicly without prior approval from the Attorney General's office.^[536] He also states that Trump felt the Russia story was a "cloud" that prevented him from performing his job as president.^[536]
• June 8: Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence committee.^[537]
• June 12:
  • The Senate Intelligence Committee conducts closed meetings with Rogers and former DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson in the Senate's SCIF.^[538]
  • The media report that Trump has considered the possibility of dismissing Mueller.^[539]
  • Representative Brad Sherman (D-CA) begins circulating articles of impeachment to other members of Congress.^[540]
• June 13:
  • The U.S. Senate agrees on a new package of sanctions on Russia in retaliation to the election interference. The bill is drafted to prevent Trump from lifting sanctions unilaterally.^[541]
  • Sessions testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee.^[542]
  • Rosenstein testifies to the Senate that he is the only person empowered to dismiss Mueller, and that he sees no reason to do so.^[543]
• June 14: The Washington Post confirms that Mueller is investigating Trump for obstruction of justice, in relation to his dismissal of Comey.^[544]
• June 16: Trump tweets: "I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt."^[545]
• June 18: Trump's lawyer Jay Sekulow states that he has not been notified of any investigation into Trump himself.^[546]
• June 19: ABC News contradicts the Post's report of June 14, saying no decision has yet been made on whether to investigate Trump for potential obstruction of justice.^[547]
• June 20: Speaking about her campaign and party in a Politico interview, Jill Stein says, "I am certainly not aware of any ties whatsoever, financial or otherwise, to the Russian government."^[69]
• June 21: Kushner's lawyers provide an amended SF-86 to the FBI, their third such change, to list the meeting with the Russian lawyer.^[548]
• June 23: The FBI interviews Kushner about his security clearance.^[548]
• June 27: Manafort registers retroactively as a foreign agent with the DoJ, showing that his firm received $17.1 million over two years from Yanukovych's Party of Regions.^[549]
• June 30: On the Lawfare blog, British security consultant Matt Tait claims that he had a series of conversations with Peter Smith in 2016, concerning Hillary Clinton's emails, an unnamed dark web contact, and a new Delaware company called KLS Research.^[550][551] Tait is interviewed by Mueller shortly thereafter.^[243]

July 2017[]

• July 7: During a two-hour meeting with Trump at the 2017 G20 Hamburg summit, Putin denies interfering in the 2016 US election. Trump conducts a second meeting with Putin some hours later, with no US aides. The second meeting is undisclosed by the White House until July 18, following news reports.^{[552][553][554][555]}
• July 8: Returning from Germany aboard Air Force One, Trump preemptively dictates a misleading statement on behalf of Trump Jr., claiming that the Veselnitskaya meeting on June 9, 2016 concerned child adoption.^{[556][557][558]}
• July 9:
  • The New York Times first reports that Trump Jr., Kushner and Manafort met Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower on June 9, 2016.^[153][559]
  • President Trump says he and Putin "discussed forming an impenetrable cyber security unit so that election hacking, and many other negative things, will be guarded and safe." Trump later says he does not think this will happen.^[560]
• July 10: Trump, Hicks, and Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Trump's legal team, have a conference call to discuss the handling of the Veselnitskaya meeting revelations. Corallo says the statement drafted on Air Force One will backfire because the original emails will eventually come out. Hicks responds the emails "will never get out." Corallo resigns shortly thereafter, reportedly due to concerns over possible obstruction of justice.^[561]
• July 10–18: Further details about the Veselnitskaya meeting emerge in the press.^{[154][155][156]}
• July 11: Trump Jr. tweets his emails about the Veselnitskaya meeting before The New York Times publishes them minutes later.^[152][562]
• July 12:
  • Two Democratic Party donors and a former party staff member file an invasion of privacy lawsuit against Trump’s campaign and Stone.^[563]
  • Articles of Impeachment against President Trump are formally filed in the House of Representatives.^[564]
  • Speaking on Fox News, Pence's spokesman Marc Lotter repeatedly refuses to clarify whether or not Pence met with Russian representatives.^[565]
• July 14: Brad Parscale, the digital media director of Trump's campaign, issues a statement stating "I am unaware of any Russian involvement in the digital and data operation of the 2016 Trump presidential campaign" after accepting an invitation to testify before the House Intelligence Committee.^[566]
• July 19:
  • The New York Times reports on offshore transactions and shell companies linked to Manafort's work in Ukraine and investments with a Russian oligarch.^[567]
  • The New York Times reports on sources claiming that Deutsche Bank is cooperating with federal investigators about Trump accounts.^[568]
  • Trump, in an interview with The New York Times, threatens Mueller's job if the investigation expands to his personal finances.^[569]
  • The UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) says it has never certified Kaspersky Lab's security software, an admission that comes just a week after the Trump administration booted the firm from two of its approved suppliers lists.^[570]
• July 20:
  • Bloomberg News reports that Mueller is investigating Trump's business transactions.^[571]
  • The Washington Post reports Trump is asking his attorneys about his ability to pardon himself and other key aides and family members.^[572]
• July 21:
  • The Washington Post reports Sessions discussed Trump campaign-related matters with Kislyak.^[131]
  • The Senate Judiciary Committee requests all communications between Trump Jr. and a group of people, including Jill Stein. She publicly describes the notion that she communicated with Trump Jr. as "an obvious smear designed to generate a fake news feeding frenzy".^[573]
  • John M. Dowd replaces Marc Kasowitz at the head of Trump's legal team, following personal threats made by Kasowitz.^[574] Legal spokesman Mark Corallo resigns.^[575] Michael Wolff later reports that Corallo had been instructed not to speak to the press or to answer his telephone, and that he privately stated his belief that the Air Force One meeting on July 8, 2017 represented likely obstruction of justice.^[576]
  • A complaint is filed against Representative Dana Rohrabacher with the Office of Foreign Assets Control alleging violations of Magnitsky Act sanctions.^[121][577] In April 2016, Rohrabacher received a document directly from Russian Deputy Prosecutor Viktor Grin, an individual under sanctions, and used it in attempts to weaken the Magnitsky Act.^[120] The allegation is that the work Rohrabacher performed was a "service" provided to Grin in violation of the sanctions against Grin.^[121]
• July 22: Trump asserts "complete power" to pardon anyone in relation to the Russia investigation.^[578]
• July 24: After a closed-door meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee, Kushner issues a statement denying any collusion with Russian officials.^[579][580]
• July 25:
  • Kushner meets with the House Intelligence Committee in a closed-door meeting.^[581][580]
  • Manafort meets with members of the Senate Intelligence Committee and turns over contemporaneous notes of the June 9, 2016 meeting.^[582][583]
  • In an Oval Office interview with The Wall Street Journal's Gerard Baker, Trump states that there was "nobody on the campaign that saw anybody from Russia".^[584]
• July 26: The FBI conducts a predawn raid on Manafort's home, seizing documents and electronic devices.^[582][585] The raid happens on the day Manafort was scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.^[586]
• July 27: Papadopoulos is arrested upon arrival at Washington Dulles International Airport.^[587]
• July 28: Trump indicates his intention to sign the bill passed by overwhelming veto-proof majorities in both houses of Congress taking the sanctions in place against Russia out of the president's control.^[588][589]
• July 30: Putin, responding to sanctions, orders a cut in U.S. diplomatic staff by 755, and bars U.S. officials from entering a warehouse in Moscow used by the United States Embassy and to a site along the Moscow River.^[590]
• July 31: The Washington Post reports that Trump personally dictated a statement for Donald Trump Jr. stating that the Veselnitskaya meeting “primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children”.^[591] The next day, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders clarifies that Trump "certainly didn't dictate, ... but he weighed in, offered suggestion, like any father would do, based on the limited information that he had."^[592]
• Late July: Mueller removes senior FBI investigator Peter Strzok from his team following the discovery of private texts exchanged with FBI lawyer Lisa Page during the Clinton investigation and the election campaign. According to The Washington Post, the texts contain pro-Clinton comments, are critical of Congress and the media, and call Trump an "idiot" and a "loathsome human".^{[593][594][595]}

August 2017[]

• August 1
  • The Washington Post reports that Rod Wheeler has filed a lawsuit claiming the Trump White House was directly involved in the publication of a Fox News story about the Seth Rich conspiracy theory.^[596]
• August 2:
  • Trump signs the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), legislation limiting his ability to ease sanctions against Russia. He describes the bill as "flawed" and "unconstitutional".^[597][598]
  • The Trump campaign turns over about 20,000 pages of documents to the Senate Intelligence Committee, as demanded by Feinstein and Grassley.^[599]
  • Christopher A. Wray is sworn in as the new FBI director.^[600]
• August 3:
  • The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post report that Mueller has convened a grand jury in the District of Columbia District Court exclusively for his Russia probe.^[601][602]
  • Flynn reveals a brief advisory role with Cambridge Analytica, the data mining and analysis firm that worked with Trump’s campaign, and the sponsoring Mercer family in an amended public financial filing. Flynn also discloses income from the Trump transition team.^[293][294]
  • Newsweek publishes an interview with Jill Stein in which she describes as "fake news" all suggestion of wrongdoing or collusion in relation to members of the Trump campaign and the visit to Moscow during which she was photographed with Putin and Flynn.^[603]
  • Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Chris Coons (D-DE) unveil legislation designed to prevent Trump from firing Mueller.^[604]
• August 4: Politico reports that in July 2017 an aide to Nunes secretly sent a pair of Republican staffers to London to contact Christopher Steele and his lawyer.^{[605][606][607]}
• August 5: Kislyak denies any inappropriate contact with Flynn, and says he will not agree to testify before Congress or a grand jury.^[608]
• August 6: Rosenstein confirms that Mueller is authorized to investigate any crime exposed by his inquiry.^[609]
• August 9: The Washington Post reports on the July 26 FBI raid at Manafort's home.^[582] According to The New York Times, Mueller ordered the search for tax documents and foreign banking records.^[610]
• August 11: Rinat Akhmetshin gives sworn testimony for two hours to Mueller's grand jury.^[611]
• August 14:
  • Pence says he "never witnessed" and was "not aware" of any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.^[612]
  • The Washington Post first reports on Papadopoulos's repeated attempts to arrange campaign meetings with the Russian leadership, which Manafort is said to have refused.^[613]
• August 15: Representative Dana Rohrabacher visits Julian Assange in London at the Ecuadorian embassy. Afterward, Rohrabacher claims to have evidence showing Russia didn't hack the DNC.^[61]

August 22, 2017 Fusion GPS Testimony Transcript of Glenn R. Simpson

• August 22:
  • Steele names to the FBI sources for the information in his Trump–Russia dossier.^[614]
  • Fusion GPS founder Glenn R. Simpson, who hired Steele to compile the dossier, speaks privately with the Senate Judiciary Committee and hands over more than 40,000 documents.^[614] Simpson tells the Committee that Steele knew that the FBI had an informant in Trump's campaign, and that the FBI's own information substantiated the details of Steele's research. Simpson also states that Steele broke off relations with the FBI shortly after October 31, 2016 due to his concerns that Trump's associates were manipulating the FBI. Simpson's attorney Josh Levy states during the meeting that a person has been killed as a result of the Steele dossier's publication.^{[615][616][617][618]}
• August 23:
  • The FBI requests from the General Services Administration (GSA) copies of communications by nine members of Trump's team, according to Trump transition lawyer Kory Langhofer. A further request is made on August 30.^[619]
  • Chairman Grassley confirms that the Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on the question of releasing the transcript of the August 22 Fusion GPS testimony.^[620] A vote is never scheduled; Feinstein will unilaterally publish the transcript on January 9, 2018.^[618]
  • The Internet Research Agency's @TEN_GOP Twitter account is closed.^[81]
• August 24:
  • The New York Times reports that Akhmetshin had stronger ties to the Russian government and Kremlin-backed oligarchs than previously known.^[621]
  • The House Intelligence Committee issues subpoenas to the FBI and the DoJ for documents relating to the Trump dossier. They were not complied with by the September 1 deadline; the deadline is extended to September 14.^[622]
• August 25: The Washington Post and NBC report that Mueller has issued subpoenas to several lobbying firms connected to Flynn and Manafort, including Mercury Public Affairs and SGR LLC.^[623][624]
• August 29: CNN reports that Mueller has subpoenaed Manafort's former attorney Melissa Laurenza and spokesman Jason Maloni.^[89]
• August 30: Politico reports that Mueller has arranged with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to set up an alternative method of charging people in the case, in case Trump were to use his pardon power to stymie the investigation.^[625]
• August 31:
  • The Daily Beast reports that Mueller has enlisted the IRS's Criminal Investigations Unit to investigate Trump's tax returns.^[626]
  • The Wall Street Journal reports that, over the past months, Trump's lawyers have been making their case to Mueller that Trump should not be charged with obstruction of justice.^[627]

September 2017[]

• September 1: The GSA submits a flash drive to Mueller's team containing tens of thousands of communications by 13 senior members of Trump's transition team, including Kushner, from the official governmental Presidential Transition Team domain, "ptt.gov".^[628][629]
• September 6: Facebook admits selling advertisements to Russian companies seeking to reach U.S. voters.^[630] Hundreds of accounts were reportedly tied to the Internet Research Agency.^[631][45] Facebook pledges full cooperation with Mueller's investigation, and begins to provide details on purchases from Russia, including identities of the people involved.^[632]
• September 7: Trump Jr. testifies to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he met with a group of Russians in Trump Tower in June 2016 in order to seek damaging information about Hillary Clinton, but that no such information was forthcoming.^[633]
• September 8: Mueller names to the White House six current and former aides he expects to question in Russia probe: Hicks, Spicer, Priebus, McGahn, Josh Raffel of the Office of American Innovation, and James Burnham.^[634]
• September 11: The Daily Beast reports that Russia used Facebook events to organize anti-immigrant rallies on U.S. soil.^[234]
• September 12: Yahoo! News reports the FBI has begun a Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) violation investigation against the Sputnik news agency.^[635]
• September 13:
  • The United States bans use of Kaspersky Lab software in federal agencies amid concerns of Russian espionage.^[636]
  • Flynn's son, Michael G. Flynn, is named as a subject of Mueller's investigation.^[637]
  • CNN reports that the DoJ is preventing Senate investigators from interviewing two top FBI officials who could provide firsthand testimony about Comey's firing.^[638]
  • Bloomberg reports that Mueller has a “red-hot” focus on Russia’s effort to influence U.S. voters on Facebook.^[639]
  • The DoJ asks a company that supplies services to the US affiliate of Russia Today (RT) to register as a foreign agent.^[640]
  • Facebook states that a 225,000-member anti-immigrant group that attempted to organize anti-Clinton rallies in Texas during the 2016 presidential campaign was "likely operated out of Russia".^[641]
  • The Wall Street Journal reports that Flynn promoted a multi-billion-dollar Middle Eastern Russian-backed nuclear-plant project while working in the White House.^[642]
• September 14: Page files suit against Yahoo and The Huffington Post, alleging defamation in a September 2016 news article about his connections to Russia.^[643]
• September 15:
  • In response to a warrant, Facebook gives Mueller copies of advertisements and account information related to the Russian advertisement purchases beyond what it gave Congress in the previous week.^[644][645]
  • According to The Wall Street Journal, Representative Dana Rohrabacher (CA-R) contacts the White House this week about brokering a deal that would end Assange’s legal troubles in exchange for evidence that Russia was not the source of hacked emails WikiLeaks published during the 2016 presidential campaign.^[646]
  • Manafort's spokesman Jason Maloni testifies before Mueller's federal grand jury.^[647]
• September 17: The Senate Intelligence Committee seeks further information about Russian links to Facebook as concerns rise about the role that social media networks played in the 2016 presidential election and Russian interference.^[648]
• September 18:
  • Mueller notifies Manafort that he is a target of the investigation and will be indicted.^[649]
  • CNN reports that US investigators had been wiretapping Manafort under secret court orders before the election campaign, at least since 2014. The government surveillance continued into early 2017, including a period when Manafort was known to talk to Trump.^[650]
• September 19:
  • A private Senate Intelligence Committee interview with Michael Cohen is disbanded when it is learned that Cohen has shared his prepared statement with the media. Senators Burr and Warner condemn Cohen's action and announce that he will be recalled to testify publicly on October 25.^[651][652]
  • Congressional investigators say Facebook is withholding information that may demonstrate the nature of Russian election interference.^[653]
  • CNN reports that Mueller's Manafort investigation covers 11 years of activity.^[654]
  • Reports emerge that Trump is using campaign and Republican National Committee (RNC) funds to pay legal bills from the Russia probe.^[655]
  • During a Senate confirmation, Jon Huntsman, Trump’s pick for ambassador to Russia, says there is no doubt Moscow interfered in the 2016 U.S. election.^[656]
  • CBS News independently confirms that the FISA warrant surveillance of Manafort occurred during the 2016 presidential campaign.^[657]
• September 20:
  • Mueller seeks White House documents related to Trump’s actions as President, including records and emails concerning matters including Comey's dismissal and the warning that Flynn was under investigation.^[658][659]
  • The Washington Post reports that less than two weeks before Trump accepted the Republican presidential nomination, Manafort offered to provide briefings to Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, who is close to Putin.^[183]
  • The Daily Beast reports on emerging evidence that numerous pro-Trump and anti-Clinton Facebook and Twitter activist accounts, including "Being Patriotic" and "march_for_trump", were run by Russian propagandists.^[231]
• September 21: Facebook hands information on more than 3,000 Russia-linked advertisements to the Senate and House Intelligence Committees.^[660]
• September 22:
  • Trump and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov issue separate denials that Russia purchased advertising space on Facebook.^[661][662]
  • Mueller requests phone records about the Trump Jr. statement on the Veselnitskaya meeting that was reportedly prepared aboard Air Force One.^[663]
  • The Department of Homeland Security notifies election officials in 21 states that hackers targeted their systems last year; of those, only Illinois reported a successful breach.^[664]
  • Grassley asks the FBI whether it warned the Trump campaign in 2016 that Manafort was under federal surveillance while working for the campaign. Grassley compares the situation to the warning the McCain presidential campaign purportedly received in 2008.^[665]
• September 24: The Washington Post reports that then-President Obama warned Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg over the potential electoral impact of fake news on Facebook, an idea Zuckerberg had dismissed as “crazy”.^[301]
• September 25: The Washington Post reports that "Russian operatives used Facebook ads to exploit divisions over black political activism and Muslims."^[666]
• September 26:
  • Stone speaks to a closed session of the House Intelligence Committee. He denies all allegations of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign and describes the inquiry as politically motivated.^[667]
  • CNN reports that the IRS is sharing information with Mueller.^[668]
  • Politico reports that approximately $150,000 worth of Russian-funded Facebook advertisements promoted candidates Trump, Sanders and Stein.^[669]
  • Senator Richard Blumenthal tells Politico that criminal charges against Flynn and Manafort are virtually certain.^[670]
• September 27:
  • Senator Mark Warner's office states that Reddit is of interest to the investigation.^[671][672]
  • CNN reports that one of the Facebook campaign-time ads bought by Russians referenced Black Lives Matter and was targeted to reach audiences in Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore.^[673]
  • Facebook says it took down "tens of thousands" of fake accounts created by Russians before the German election.^[674][675]
  • The Senate Intelligence Committee invites Facebook, Twitter and Google parent company Alphabet to testify.^[676]
  • Zuckerberg says he regrets having dismissed election concerns,^[677] among reports of his lack of sensitivity to warnings of Russian trolls.^[678]
  • The Daily Beast reports that Russians impersonated American Muslims to create chaos on Facebook and Instagram.^[241]
• September 28:
  • Democrats rebuke Twitter for its "frankly inadequate" response to Russian meddling.^[679]
  • Mother Jones writes that "fake news on Twitter flooded swing states that helped Trump win."^[680]
  • Mueller's team interviews Keith Kellogg, the National Security Council chief of staff. He is the first White House staffer to be interviewed.^[681]

October 2017[]

• October 1
  • Facebook announces that it will send Congress thousands of ads bought by Russian operatives.^[682]
  • First CAATSA deadline missed.^[683]
• October 2:
  • The Washington Post reports that Russian Facebook ads showed a black woman firing a rifle, amid efforts to stoke racial strife.^[684]
  • The Washington Post reports that the Russians used similar methods to corporate America by using a Facebook tool to ID and influence voters.^[685]
  • Facebook announces 10 million Americans saw advertisements purchased by Russian intelligence officers in the 2016 election influence campaign.^[686]
• October 3:
  • CNN reports Russian-linked Facebook ads targeted Michigan and Wisconsin.^[687]
  • The Washington Post reports that the Senate Intelligence Committee is expected to largely endorse intel report on Russian meddling and sound the alarm about next election.^[688]
• October 5:
  • Papadopoulos pleads guilty to giving false testimony to the FBI about meetings he had with Mifsud in March 2016.^[587]
  • CNN reports that Mueller's investigators met with Steele.^[689]
• October 9:
  • The Washington Post reports that Google uncovered Russian-bought ads on YouTube, Gmail and other Alphabet-owned platforms aimed at influencing the 2016 presidential election.^[690]
  • The Washington Post and ABC News report on correspondence indicating that Veselnitskaya's intended topic for her June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower was the Magnitsky Act.^[691]
  • The Daily Beast reports that Russia recruited YouTubers to publicly criticize Clinton.^[692]
  • The Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook removed mention of Russia from an April report on election influence.^[693]
  • Recode reports that Microsoft is reviewing its records for signs of Russian interference during the election.^[694]
• October 10:
  • Nunes issues subpoenas to Fusion GPS.^[695] Fusion GPS lawyers deny the request on October 16.^[696]
  • Page informs the Senate Intelligence Committee that he will not cooperate with their inquiry, citing the Fifth Amendment.^[697]
  • A report published by the Brookings Institution alleges that Trump "likely obstructed justice" by dismissing Comey.^[698][699]
• October 11: The Daily Beast reports that the House Intelligence Committee is looking at Cambridge Analytica's work for the Trump campaign as part of its investigation. The company is in the process of turning over documents to the committee.^[700]
• October 12: Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) state that, despite an October 1 deadline, the White House has still not acted to identify Kremlin-linked targets for sanctions under CAATSA.^[701]
• October 13:
  • Mueller's investigators interview Trump's former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus for the entire day.^[702]
  • Politico reports that Twitter deleted data potentially crucial to Russia probes.^[703]
  • Facebook takes down data and thousands of posts, obscuring the reach of Russian disinformation.^[704]
  • NBC News reports on the transfer of $26 million from Oleg Deripaska's firm, Oguster Management Ltd, to Yiakora Ventures Ltd, a company linked to Manafort.^[705]
  • VTB Bank Chairman Andrey L. Kostin describes as "fake news" all purported connection between Felix Sater and plans for a Trump Tower in Moscow.^[706][22]
• Mid October: Mueller issues a first subpoena to the Trump campaign, which is voluntarily cooperating with his inquiry.^[707]
• October 16: Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump rejects the suggestion that he intends to dismiss Mueller.^[708]
• October 17:
  • The Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenas Page.^[709]
  • Business Insider reports that Mueller has interviewed former GCHQ security specialist Matt Tait, who says he was "recruited to collude with the Russians" as part of Peter W. Smith's effort to locate Clinton's missing State Department emails.^[243]
  • The Guardian reports that Russian trolls posing as Americans paid US activists to help fund protests during the 2016 election.^[710]
  • Mueller's team interviews Spicer for much of the day.^[711]
• October 19:
  • The Daily Beast reports that Conway, Trump Jr. and Parscale pushed messages from an account operated from Russia’s "troll farm", including allegations of voter fraud a week before Election Day.^[81][712]
  • Trump asks whether Russia, the FBI, or Democrats paid for the Steele dossier.^[713]
  • Senators Mark Warner and Amy Klobuchar introduce the Honest Ads Act, which would require digital platforms such as Facebook and Google to publicly archive advertisements with election content. McCain co-sponsors the legislation.^[714]
  • U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley says that Russian online interference in American elections is “warfare” and spreading misinformation is the country’s “new weapon of choice.”^[715]
  • According to The Washington Post, Pompeo "distorts intelligence community’s findings on Russian interference".^[716]
• October 20:
  • The Guardian reports that Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, who bought Florida property from Trump in 2008, is under investigation in Monaco for breach of privacy related to his art dealings.^[717]
  • CNN reports that Senate investigators spoke with Russians present at the June 2016 meeting with Trump Jr.^[718]
• October 21: In an interview with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, former President Jimmy Carter says, “I don't think there's any evidence that what the Russians did changed enough votes, or any votes."^[719][720]
• October 23:
  • NBC News reports that Tony Podesta and the Podesta Group are now subjects in Mueller‘s investigation.^[721]
  • Kaspersky Lab, the Moscow-based cybersecurity firm whose software U.S. officials suspect helped the Russian government spy on Americans, promises to make its source code available for an independent review.^[722]
• October 24:
  • Fusion GPS asks a federal judge in Washington for a restraining order to block the House Intelligence Committee from obtaining the firm's bank records, arguing that turning over the records would violate the First Amendment and poses an "existential threat" to the company.^[723]
  • Twitter plans to make political ads more transparent amid Russia revelations.^[724]
  • The Washington Post reports that the Clinton campaign and DNC were among the parties who paid for research that led to the Steele dossier.^[725]
• October 25:
  • The head of Cambridge Analytica says he asked Assange for help finding Clinton’s 33,000 deleted emails.^[726] Assange confirms the request and says he rejected the offer.^[727]
  • Feinstein and Grassley break ways in the Russia investigation.^[728]
  • Kaspersky Lab discloses that its software has uncovered secret code from the Equation Group on an NSA analyst's home computer.^[729]
• October 26:
  • Twitter says it will no longer accept advertising from accounts owned by Russian-backed news outlets RT and Sputnik.^{[730][731][732]} Twitter vows to give away the $1.9 million already earned from them.^[733]
  • RT reports that Twitter pushed RT for a large ad buy for the 2016 US election, but the channel declined the offer.^[734]
  • House Speaker Paul Ryan says that the FBI plans to hand over documents related to the Trump dossier.^[735]
• October 27:
  • Feinstein sends five letters to key players, including one asking Facebook and Twitter for copies of advertising that Russian buyers aimed at the U.S.^[736]
  • The New York Times reports that The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website funded by a major Republican donor, initially retained Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on Trump.^[70]
  • Mueller's team interviews former CIA Director James Woolsey about Flynn.^[737]
  • The ODNI states that the dossier itself played no role in the coordinated intelligence assessment that Russia interfered in the U.S. election.^[738]
  • A federal grand jury in Washington, DC approves the first charges in Mueller‘s investigation.^{[739][740][741][742]}
• October 28: Reports further clarify that the charges returned by the grand jury under seal are "related to meddling in the US presidential election."^[743]
• October 29: Mueller seizes three of Manafort's bank accounts.^[744]
• October 30:
  • Manafort and Gates surrender themselves to the FBI after both are indicted on 12 federal charges brought by Mueller, including conspiracy against the United States and money laundering.^{[745][746][747][748]} Appearing in court a few hours later, Manafort and Gates plead not guilty.^[749] Manafort is released to home confinement on a $10,000,000 bond, the terms of which will change on November 30. Gates is released to home confinement on a $5,000,000 bond. They are required to surrender all passports and submit to in-home monitoring.^[750]
  • Mueller announces that Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to making false testimony to the FBI.^[751] According to unsealed court documents, Papadopoulos met a Kremlin-linked professor, later identified by The Daily Telegraph as Joseph Mifsud of the University of Stirling's politics department.^[752] Mifsud told Papadopoulos that Moscow had damaging information on Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails”.^{[753][754][755][756]}
  • A lawyer for Trump campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis states that Clovis was "being polite", following reports that he encouraged Papadopoulos to meet with Russian officials.^[757][758]
  • New disclosures provided to Congress by digital social media companies indicate that during the campaign Russian agents placed 1,000 videos on YouTube, 131,000 messages on Twitter, and, via 170 accounts,120,000 posts on Instagram.^[759] 80,000 Russia-linked posts on Facebook were viewed by up to 126 million people.^[760]
• October 31:
  • Trump calls Papadopoulos a "low-level" advisor and a "liar".^[761]
  • The Kremlin dismisses as “baseless” and “ludicrous” the notion that charges leveled by Mueller against three former Trump campaign officials constitute possible meddling by Russia in U.S. political affairs.^[762]
  • The Ukrainian government says it warned Facebook and U.S. officials years ago that Russia was conducting disinformation campaigns on its platform.^[763]
  • Politico reports that Sam Clovis, President Trump’s nominee to be the Agriculture Department’s chief scientist, has been “a fully cooperative witness” in the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation of Russian interference.^[764]
  • Sarah Huckabee Sanders says that Mueller’s probe brought down Papadopoulos only thanks to White House cooperation.^[765]

November 2017[]

• November:
  • Mueller's prosecutors interview Kushner.^[766]
  • The private equity firm Apollo Global Management gives Jared Kushner a $185 million loan. The loan is considered suspicious because Apollo's founder, Joshua Harris, met several times with Kushner at the White House to discuss, among other things, a possible job in the administration. Also, the largest investor in Apollo's real estate trust, the Apollo-controlled entity that made the loan, is the Qatari government's Qatar Investment Authority. Kushner's company had previously tried to get a $500 millon loan from the head of Qatar Investment Authority.^[440] The SEC drops an ongoing inquiry into Apollo in December.^[767]
• November 1:
  • Facebook reports to Congress that the Russians succeeded in organizing a "Miners for Trump" rally.^[768]
  • The House Intelligence Committee releases a small sample of the ads a Russian troll farm purchased on Facebook during and after the U.S. presidential election.^[769]
• November 2:
  • Page testifies to the House Intelligence Committee for seven hours. He confirms that he met Russian government officials during his July 2016 trip to Moscow,^[770] and contradicts Attorney General Sessions's testimony to the Senate in July that he did not know that Page had traveled to Russia during the campaign.^[771] Page also tells the Committee that he had briefed Hicks, Gordon and Lewandowski about the trip.^[772] Page invokes his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when asked by Committee members why he withheld documents requested by the committee.^[773]
  • A court transcript shows that federal prosecutors described the Papadopoulos case as just a "small part" of Mueller's investigation.^[774] Those documents "represent the first concrete evidence that ... Trump was personally told about ties between a campaign adviser and Russian officials."^[775]
  • The Wall Street Journal reports that the DoJ has identified more than six Russian government officials involved in hacking the DNC's servers, and were considering bringing charges against them.^[776]
  • Kushner's team turns over documents to Mueller.^[777]
• November 5:
  • NBC News reports that federal investigators have gathered enough evidence to bring charges in their investigation of Flynn and his son.^[778]
  • Ryan vows that Congress shall not interfere with Mueller's investigations.^[779]
  • The New York Times reports that Wilbur Ross, after becoming Commerce Secretary, did not disclose his retained investments in a shipping firm he once controlled that has significant business ties to a Russian oligarch subject to American sanctions and Putin’s son-in-law, Kirill Shamalov.^{[780][781][782][783][784]}
• November 6:
  • An analysis of Twitter data shows Kremlin-backed online support for Trump began immediately after he started his campaign.^[58]
  • Veselnitskaya says that Trump Jr. indicated that a law targeting Russia could be reexamined if his father won the election, and asked her for written evidence that illegal proceeds went to Clinton’s campaign.^[785]
  • BuzzFeed subpoenas the DNC for information related to the DNC hack as part of its efforts to defend itself against an ongoing libel suit connected to its publication of the Steele dossier.^[786]
  • Ross says there is “nothing whatsoever improper” about the relationship between an international shipping company he holds significant investments in and a Russian energy company whose owners include a Putin family member and an oligarch, Gennady Timchenko, subject to U.S. sanctions.^[787]
  • Politico reports Wendy Teramoto served as a part-time adviser to Ross while maintaining her board seat at the energy shipping company, Navigator, with a Kremlin-linked client.^[788]
• November 7:
  • Corey Lewandowski says that his "memory has been refreshed" of his email exchange with Page in which Page requested his permission to travel to Moscow.^[789]
  • The House Intelligence Committee privately interviews Keith Schiller, Trump's longtime bodyguard and, until September 20, his Oval Office Operations director. Schiller testifies that he believes Russians offered to send five women to Trump's hotel room during their 2013 trip to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant, but that he did not think Trump met with the women.^[790][791] "One source noted that Schiller testified he eventually left Trump's hotel room door and could not say for sure what happened during the remainder of the night."^[792]
• November 8:
  • The Intercept reports that Pompeo met in late October with discred former U.S. intelligence official William Binney, who has become an advocate for a disputed theory that the theft of the DNC emails was an inside job rather than a hack by Russian intelligence.^[793]
  • Simpson agrees to be interviewed by the House Intelligence Committee.^[794]
  • Congressional investigators have interviewed former Trump aides about the campaign’s push to remove proposed language calling for giving weapons to Ukraine.^[795]
  • Senate Democrats have been privately investigating Russia’s Europe meddling without Republican help.^[796]
• November 10:
  • Russia plans new measures to restrict U.S. media working in Russia after RT said it was pressured into registering as a foreign agent in America.^[797][798]
  • NBC News reports that Mueller's investigators are questioning witnesses about an alleged September 20, 2016, meeting between Flynn and Dana Rohrabacher, a staunch advocate of pro-Russia policies.^[247]
• November 11: Despite the unified assessment of the U.S. intelligence community, Trump says he took Putin at his word when Putin again denied directing an election influence campaign.^[799][800] Trump later says he sides with the U.S. intelligence agencies.^[801] Brennan and Clapper comment that Trump is being "played" by Putin, and accuse him of being "susceptible to foreign leaders who stroke his ego."^[802]
• November 12:
  • British spymasters fear that Kaspersky Lab anti-virus software given away for free by Barclays to more than 2,000,000 customers may be an intelligence-gathering tool for the Russian government.^[803]
  • Lawyers for Alexsej Gubarev, who owns the Dallas-based web hosting firm Webzilla, are seeking to force Steele to provide testimony in Gubarev's case against BuzzFeed and its or, Ben Smith.^[804]
• November 13:
  • RT registers with the DoJ as a foreign agent under FARA.^[805]
  • The Atlantic reports that WikiLeaks asked Trump Jr. for his cooperation in sharing its work, in contesting the results of the election, and in arranging for Assange to be Australia’s ambassador to the United States. The Atlantic also reports that Trump Jr. contemporaneously informed Bannon, Conway, Parscale and Kushner that he was in touch with WikiLeaks, and that Kushner informed Hicks.^{[806][807][808]} Pence denies any knowledge of WikiLeaks contacts.^[809]

November 14, 2017 - House Intelligence Committee Transcript by Glenn R. Simpson

• November 14:
  • Simpson speaks for six hours with the House Intelligence Committee. He states that his research suggests that Trump was involved with Italian mafia figures early in his career and became associated with the Russian mafia in the 1990s.^[810][811] He describes evidence of Russian criminals buying Trump properties. He refers to a number of deaths and arrests following the publication of the Steele dossier.^[812] Simpson also asserts that Nigel Farage may have given Assange data on a flash drive at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.^[813] The testimony transcript will be released on January 18, 2018.
  • Buzzfeed reports that the FBI is scrutinizing more than 60 money transfers from the Russian foreign ministry to its embassies across the globe. Most of the transactions, which moved through Citibank accounts and totaled more than $380,000, contained a memo line reading "to finance election campaign of 2016".^[814]
  • The New York Times reports that Rex Tillerson hired a Russian company with a KGB link to Putin to guard the United States Embassy in Moscow.^{[815][816][817]}
• November 15:
  • The Russian Parliament votes unanimously for a new law about media “foreign agents”, in retaliation for being forced to register RT as a propaganda outlet.^[818]
  • Steele says he believes his dossier is "70–90% accurate" and that his FBI contacts greeted his intelligence report with "shock and horror".^[819]
• November 16:
  • The Washington Post reports that Kushner received and forwarded emails about WikiLeaks and a “Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite” that he kept from Senate Judiciary Committee investigators.^[820]
  • The Wall Street Journal reports that Mueller subpoenaed Trump campaign officials for Russia-related documents.^[821]
  • Guardian Faber publishes Luke Harding's Collusion: How Russia Helped Trump Win the White House, which details a network of connections originating in the 1980s between Trump and the Kremlin.^[822]
• November 17:
  • CNN reports that Kushner told congressional Russia investigators in July that he did not communicate with WikiLeaks, and did not recall anyone on the Trump campaign who had.^[823]
  • Congressional aides say they may have answers on the pro-Russia GOP platform change.^[824]
  • The Wall Street Journal reports that the U.S. Department of Defense, and more specifically the Flynn-run Defense Intelligence Agency, flagged Kaspersky Lab as a potential threat as early as 2004.^[825]
  • Politico reports that Papadopoulos claimed in a Greek newspaper last year that Trump telephoned him to discuss his new position as a foreign policy adviser to his presidential campaign, and that the two had at least one personal introductory meeting that the White House has not acknowledged.^[101]
• November 21:
  • The Wall Street Journal reports that Mueller’s investigators are asking questions about Kushner’s interactions with foreign leaders during the presidential transition, including his involvement in a dispute at the United Nations in December.^[826]
  • The New York Times reports that Rohrabacher has come under Mueller's and the Senate Intelligence Committee's scrutiny in recent months for his "close ties to the Kremlin".^[827]
• November 23: It is reported that Flynn's lawyers have notified Trump’s legal team in recent days that they will no longer discuss Mueller’s investigation.^{[828][829][830]}
• November 30:
  • Sessions testifies at a private meeting of the House Intelligence Committee. According to Schiff, Sessions refuses to say whether Trump asked him to hinder the Russia investigation.^[831][832]
  • Erik Prince confirms to House investigators that he met with a Kremlin-linked banker in the Seychelles on January 11.^[833][834]
  • The New York Times reports that Trump pressed Republicans Roy Blunt (R-MO), Richard Burr (R-NC), and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to end the Senate's Russia inquiry.^[835]
  • Stone confirms that his intermediary with Assange during the election was radio host Randy Credico.^[836]

December 2017[]

• December: The SEC drops an inquiry into how Apollo Global Management reported financial results. The inquiry had been ongoing since the Obama administration. This is considered suspicious because it comes one month after Apollo gave Jared Kushner a $185 million loan, and months after Apollo's founder, Joshua Harris, met with Kushner to discuss a possible job in the administration.^[440][767]
  

  Flynn statement of offense
• December 1:
  • Flynn pleads guilty in federal court to giving false testimony to the FBI about his contacts with Kislyak.^[396] As part of Flynn’s negotiations, his son, Michael G. Flynn, is not expected to be charged.^[837][838]
  • Bloomberg reporter Eli Lake speculates in an opinion piece that Kushner is the person mentioned in Flynn's plea documents who is said to have ordered Flynn to contact Russia.^[839]
  • ABC News reports Flynn is prepared to testify that Trump directed him to make contact with the Russians, in the context of plans to defeat ISIS.^[840]
  • ABC News suspends news correspondent Brian Ross for 4 weeks for wrongly reporting that it was candidate Trump rather than President-elect Trump who had directed Flynn to contact the Russian government.^[841]
  • Trump's lawyer Ty Cobb says that Flynn's plea "clears the way for a prompt and reasonable conclusion" to the Russia investigation.^[842]
• December 2:
  • The New York Times reports that even as the White House portrayed Flynn as a renegade who had acted independently in his discussions with a Russian official, emails among top transition officials provided or described suggest otherwise.^[342]
  • CNN reports that Trump admitted knowing that Flynn lied to the FBI in his tweet that “I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI."^[843]
• December 3:
  • Feinstein says on Meet the Press that her group is "putting together of a case of obstruction of justice" against Trump.^[844]
  • Trump's personal lawyer, John M. Dowd, says that he wrote the December 2 tweet on the @realDonaldTrump twitter account about Flynn's firing.^[845] Dowd also says Trump knew in January 2017 that Flynn had likely lied to the FBI.^[846]
  • Trump calls the FBI a biased institution whose reputation for fairness is “in tatters”.^[847]
• December 4:
  • Trump says he “feels badly” for Flynn, and claims that Clinton “lied many times” to the agency without consequences.^[848]
  • An email sent during the transition by Trump’s former deputy national security adviser, K. T. McFarland, appears to contradict the testimony she gave to Congress over the summer. The email shows McFarland knew about Flynn's December 29, 2016, call with Kislyak, while her written testimony says she had no knowledge of it at the time.^[339]
  • Prosecutors say that Manafort worked on an op-ed with Ukrainian journalist Oleg Voloshyn,^[849] an associate with ties to Russian intelligence, while out on bail; a court filing requests that the judge revoke Manafort's bond agreement.^[850][851]
• December 5:
  • Reports indicate that Mueller has subpoenaed Deutsche Bank for data on accounts held by Trump and his family,^[852][853] prompting denials by Trump's lawyers Jay Sekulow and John Dowd.^[854][855] Subsequent reports on December 6 indicate that only information on Trump's associates has been subpoenaed.^[856]
  • Cambridge Analytica's Alexander Nix and Trump's longtime assistant Rhona Graff are scheduled to be interviewed by the House Intelligence Committee about the connections between Trump and the Kremlin.^[857]
  • Democrats place a hold on McFarland's nomination as ambassador to Singapore until she answers their questions about her knowledge of communications between Flynn and Kislyak.^[858]
• December 6:
  • An unnamed "whistleblower" claims that Flynn told a former business associate that economic sanctions against Russia would be “ripped up” as one of the Trump administration’s first acts.^[386]
  • Trump Jr. testifies to the House Intelligence Committee in private. He refuses to answer questions about conversations with his father, based on attorney-client privilege.^[859] Trump Jr. says he communicated with Hicks, not his father, about the response to his Veselnitskaya meeting.^[860]
  • New Jersey Governor Chris Christie says he was ousted as head of Trump’s transition team due in part to his opposition to hiring Flynn as National Security Adviser.^[305]
  • Rosenstein confirms that he is satisfied thus far with Mueller's work.^[861]
  • The U.S. House of Representatives dismisses Al Green's resolution to impeach Trump, with 58 members requesting a vote and 364 refusing it.^[862]
• December 7:
  • Mueller's team interviews White House Communications Director Hope Hicks over two days.^[863]
  • During testimony to Congress, Director Christopher A. Wray defends the FBI from Trump's criticism of December 3.^[864]
  • The House Ethics Committee clears Nunes of misconduct in relation to the matter of his proximity to the White House and accusations that he inappropriately disclosed classified information.^[865][866] It is unclear how thorough the ethics investigation was since the Ethics Committee relied upon outside intelligence experts to review the material instead of comparing the material to Nunes's public statements themselves.^[867]
• December 8: Representative Matt Gaetz discusses Mueller's investigation with Trump aboard Air Force One en route to Florida. Representative Ron DeSantis is also aboard.^[868]
• December 12:
  • Trump's lawyers call for an investigation into the FBI's and the DoJ's alleged conflicts of interest associated with the work of Fusion GPS on the Steele dossier.^[869]
  • The DoJ shows journalists private text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page exhibiting anti-Trump and pro-Clinton sentiments.^{[870][595][871]}
• December 13:
  • At a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rosenstein states that he has seen no cause to dismiss Mueller, and confirms that Mueller is working within the boundaries of his brief. Rosenstein further states that Strzok's dismissal was appropriate and timely, and he contradicts Trump's claim that Mueller's investigation is a "witch hunt".^[871]
  • Trump Jr. meets with the US Senate Intelligence Committee.^[872]
• December 14:
  • The Wall Street Journal reports on the interview of Cambridge Analytica chief executive Alexander Nix by the House Intelligence Committee, stating that Mueller requested documents from the firm before or during October 2017.^[873][874] In undercover videos released by the British Channel 4 in March, Nix described his testimony. According to Nix, the Republicans on the committee asked only three questions and that portion of the interview lasted only five minutes, while the Democrats asked questions for two hours.^[875] This description of the nature of the testimony was confirmed by Adam Schiff, who said "my (Republican) colleagues had a habit of asking three questions: Did you conspire, did you collude, did you coordinate with Russians? And if the answer was no, they were pretty much done". Schiff also said the Republicans rejected requests that Nix be brought back before the committee.^[876]
  • At his annual news conference, Putin describes allegations of election interference as invented by Trump's political opponents, and states that contacts between Trump's associates and Russian officials before the election were appropriate.^[877]
  • The Washington Post reports in detail on Trump's associates' efforts to avoid the subject of Russia, to preclude Trump's "rages".^[878]
• December 15:
  • Answering questions from reporters, Trump reiterates his description of Russian collusion as a "hoax" and declines to comment on a possible pardon of Flynn.^[879] Trump declares that his own innocence is now "proven".^[880]
  • Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz states that he did not authorize the release to the press of the Strzok/Page text messages.^[881]
  • The Washington Post reports that Strzok and Page were using the text messages as a cover story for an extramarital affair between them.^[882]
• December 16:
  • Kory Langhofer, a lawyer for Trump for America, sends Congress a letter alleging that Mueller's acquisition, via the GSA, of tens of thousands of emails sent and received by 13 senior Trump transition team members is unlawful. The communications derive from the official Presidential Transition Team domain, ptt.gov.^{[628][883][884]}
  • Trump escalates his criticism of the FBI over its Russia investigation, saying, "It's a shame what's happened with the FBI ... It's a very sad thing to watch."^[885]
• December 17:
  • Responding to Langhofer's accusation of December 16, GSA Deputy Counsel Lenny Loewentritt states that Trump's transition team was explicitly advised that all material passing through government equipment would be subject to monitoring and would not be held back from law enforcement officers.^[886][887]
  • Mueller's spokesman Peter Carr rejects Langhofer's claims, stating that the Trump transition emails were acquired appropriately through the criminal investigation process.^[884]
  • White House Director of Legislative Affairs Marc Short states there has been "no conversation" in the White House concerning any potential dismissal of Mueller.^[888] Trump shortly thereafter confirms that he is not considering dismissing Mueller.^[889]
• December 18:
  • NBC News reports that the FBI warned Trump after his nomination at the 2016 RNC on July 19, 2016, that foreign adversaries, including Russia, would probably try to spy on and infiltrate his campaign.^[225]
  • The Washington Post reports that the Senate Intelligence Committee is looking at Jill Stein's presidential campaign for potential “collusion with the Russians.”^[890]
  • The House Intelligence Committee interviews Rob Goldstone and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.^[891]
• December 19:
  • FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe testifies in private to the House Intelligence Committee about Russian election interference.^[892]
  • Gizmodo reports that the Trump transition team discussed Flynn's use of Signal to encrypt conversations, according to GSA emails under FOIA.^[313]
• December 20:
  • Mark Warner delivers a speech to the Senate warning Trump of "immediate and significant consequences" should he attempt to dismiss Mueller or to pardon those involved in the investigation.^[893]
  • Foreign Policy reports that records submitted to Mueller's team indicate that McGahn researched federal law related both to the Logan Act and making false statements to investigators in the early days of Trump's presidency and that he may have warned Trump that Flynn was in potential violation.^[380]
  • Reports emerge that a group headed by Nunes has spent several weeks compiling a report on alleged "corruption and conspiracy in the upper ranks of federal law enforcement".^[865]
  • In private testimony before the House Intelligence Committee this week, McCabe tells lawmakers that Comey informed him of conversations he had with Trump soon after they happened.^[894]
  • Felix Sater is interviewed in New York by Congressional staff.^[895]
• December 22:
  • The New York Times reports that federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York have sought records from Deutsche Bank about entities associated with Kushner's family businesses.^[267] The prosecutors are examining a $285 million loan Deutsche Bank made one month before Election Day to lease 229 West 43rd Street, the former New York Times building in Times Square.^[896]
  • Journalist David Corn, the first to report the existence of the Steele dossier, denies that FBI General Counsel James Baker was his source, following Baker's reassignment.^[897]
• December 24: The Guardian reports that the FBI has asked the Central Bank of Cyprus for financial information about the defunct FBME Bank, which was used by wealthy Russians with political connections and has been accused by the US government of money laundering.^[898] Bloomberg reports that the Russia-related investigation into FBME was connected to a flow of illegal Russian funds into the New York real estate market.^[899]
• December 27:
  • According to The Washington Post, Trump’s legal team plans to cast Flynn as a "liar seeking to protect himself" if he accuses Trump or his senior aides of any wrongdoing.^[900]
  • Investigative journalist Michael Isikoff reports that Mueller has begun questioning RNC staffers about the party's digital operation that worked with the Trump campaign to target voters in key swing states.^[901][902]
• December 28: When questioned about his plans regarding the Mueller probe in a New York Times interview with Michael S. Schmidt, Trump says, "I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department."^[903]

January 2018[]

• January 2: In a New York Times op-ed, Fusion GPS founders Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch request that congressional Republicans "release full transcripts of our firm’s testimony" and add that "the Steele dossier was not the trigger for the FBI’s investigation into Russian meddling." Their sources said the dossier was taken seriously because it corroborated reports from other sources, "including one inside the Trump camp."^[904]
• January 3:
  • Manafort files a lawsuit challenging Mueller's broad authority and alleging the DoJ violated the law in appointing Mueller.^[905] A department spokesperson replies that "the lawsuit is frivolous but the defendant is entitled to file whatever he wants."^[905]
  • CNN reports that Trump's legal team held talks with Mueller's team a few days before Christmas.^[906]
  • Rosenstein and Wray meet with Ryan about the House Russia investigation.^[907]
  • Excerpts from Fire and Fury, a forthcoming book by Michael Wolff, are published, in which Bannon describes Trump Jr's meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya as "treasonous" and "unpatriotic". Wolff's book also describes Bannon's confidence that Trump Sr. knew of the meeting at the time. Trump subsequently tweets that Bannon had "very little to do with our historic victory" and that he has "lost his mind".^{[908][909][910][911][912]}
  • Trump lawyers send Bannon a letter demanding that he refrain from making disparaging comments against Trump and his family.^[913][914] As a consequence, Fire and Fury's publication date is advanced to January 5.
• January 4:
  • The New York Times reports that two days after Comey’s congressional testimony, an aide to Sessions approached a Capitol Hill staff member to ask for any derogatory information about Comey. Sessions purportedly wanted one negative article about Comey per day in the news media.^[443]
  • Mueller has handwritten notes from Priebus that show that Trump talked to Priebus about how he had called Comey to urge him to say publicly that Trump was not under investigation.^[443]
  • CNN reports that The Trump Organization has provided Mueller and Congressional investigators with documents on a wide range of events, including conversations and meetings about Trump's real estate business.^[915]
  • A federal judge denies Fusion GPS's bid to prevent the House Intelligence Committee from obtaining the firm’s bank records.^[916]
• January 5: Grassley and Graham make the first criminal referral of the congressional investigations, recommending that the DoJ investigate Steele for potentially making false statements to the FBI "regarding his distribution of information contained in the dossier".^{[917][918][919]}
• January 6: CNN reports that Spicer, Priebus and McGahn all tried to pressure Sessions not to recuse himself in the FBI's Russia Investigation, which ultimately led to Rosenstein appointing Mueller as special counsel.^[920]
• January 7: Senate Judiciary Committee members Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) write to Grassley, demanding the publication of the Fusion GPS testimony of August 22, 2017.^{[921][922][71]}

Putin's Asymmetric Assault on Democracy in Russia and Europe: Implications for U.S. National Security

• January 9:
  • Feinstein unilaterally releases the transcript of the Fusion GPS testimony given to the Senate Judiciary Committee on August 22, 2017.^[923]
  • The Daily Beast reports that a senior National Security Council official proposed withdrawing some U.S. military forces from Eastern Europe as an overture to Putin during the Trump administration's early days.^[924]
  • Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen sues BuzzFeed and Fusion GPS for defamation over allegations about him in a dossier the news organization published that was commissioned in 2016 by Trump’s political opponents.^[925]
  • FBI agents subpoena Bannon to appear before a grand jury.^[926]
• January 10:
  • The Washington Post reports that Mueller has added a veteran cyber prosecutor, Ryan K. Dickey, to his team, filling what has long been a gap in expertise and potentially signaling a recent focus on computer crimes. Dickey was previously assigned to the DoJ Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section.^[927]
  • The United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee releases a report, "Putin's Asymmetric Assault on Democracy in Russia and Europe: Implications for U.S. National Security."^[928]
• Week of January 15: Mueller's team interviews Jeff Sessions.^[507]
• January 16: Bannon testifies to the House Intelligence Committee,^[929] and remains tight-lipped, citing executive privilege.^[930] He indicates he will not invoke privilege when he testifies before Mueller's grand jury.^[930] The next day, Axios reports that Bannon informed the Committee that he had had a discussion with Priebus, Spicer, and Corallo about the June 2016 Veselnitskaya meeting.^[931][932]
• January 17: Lewandowski^[933] and Dearborn testify before the House Intelligence Committee's investigators.^[934]
• January 18:
  • McClatchy reports that the FBI is investigating whether the Central Bank of Russia's deputy governor, Alexander Torshin, funneled money to the Trump campaign through the NRA.^[93][935]
  • The House Intelligence Committee releases the transcript of the Glenn Simpson testimony given on November 14, 2017.^[812][936] Schiff says the testimony contains "serious allegations that the Trump Organization may have engaged in money laundering with Russian nationals". Trump Organization's chief counsel Alan Garten calls the allegations "unsubstantiated" and "reckless", and says that Simpson was mainly referring to properties to which Trump licensed his name. Democratic committee member Jim Himes says that Simpson "did not provide evidence and I think that's an important point. He made allegations."^[937]
• January 19:
  • German periodical Manager Magazin reports that Deutsche Bank has presented to Germany's financial authority, BaFin, evidence of "suspicious money transfers" by Kushner; this information is due to be handed to Mueller.^[938] Deutsche Bank denies the report on January 22 and announces that it is taking legal action.^[939]
  • House Republicans call for the release of a classified memo authored by Nunes alleging FISA abuses during the 2016 election.^[940] Nunes has repeatedly refused to share his concerns with the FBI, even after repeated requests by the bureau.^[941]
• January 20: Twitter announces that it will notify 677,775 US citizens that they followed or retweeted accounts linked to Russian propaganda during the election. Twitter also announces the discovery of a further 1,062 propagandist accounts linked to the Kremlin's Internet Research Agency, bringing the total to 3,814, as well as the discovery of a further 13,512 automated bot accounts based in Russia, bringing the total to 50,258. Twitter estimates that the bot accounts produced 2.12 million tweets, collectively receiving 454.7 million impressions in the first week after each posting. Twitter's analysis indicates that Russian bots retweeted Trump's account 470,000 times in the run-up to election day, and Clinton's account 48,000 times.^{[942][943][944][945]}
• January 22:
  • Russian media outlet Meduza, published exclusively by Buzzfeed News in English, details the inside battle for control of Kaspersky Lab, and the kidnapping of Eugene Kaspersky's son which led to a battle that was won by the side allied with Russian security services (FSB).^[946]
  • It is reported that Sessions, at Trump's urging, has been pressuring FBI Director Wray to fire Deputy Director McCabe, but that Wray threatened to resign if McCabe was removed.^[947][948]
  • Papadopoulos's fiancée, Simona Mangiante, tells The Washington Post that he "knows far more" than has been reported by news outlets so far.^[949]
  • CNN reports that Mueller's team and Papadopoulos's lawyers have delayed an upcoming check-in for his case, indicating that the investigation will stay active until at least springtime.^[950]
• January 23:
  • The New York Times reports that Mueller's team interviewed Sessions the previous week. He is the first serving Cabinet member known to have been interviewed in the course of the Russia investigation.^[951][952]
  • The Washington Post reports that top congressional Democrats call on Facebook and Twitter to urgently investigate and combat Russian bots and trolls.^[953]
  • The New York Times reports that Mueller's team interviewed Comey last year about the memos he took contemporaneously to Trump's potential obstruction of justice into the investigation of Flynn.^[954]
  • The Washington Post reports that Mueller is seeking to question Trump in the coming weeks about his decisions to fire Flynn and Comey, suggesting potential obstruction of justice and abuse of power charges.^[955]
  • The Washington Post reports that Trump, during an Oval Office meeting, asked McCabe whom he voted for in the presidential election.^[956]
  • CNN reports that Gates has quietly added a prominent white-collar attorney, Tom Green, to his defense team, signaling that Gates's approach to his not-guilty plea could be changing. This is seen as a sign that Gates may be negotiating with Mueller's team.^[957]
    

    The US Justice Department warned that the public release of a classified memo alleging abuses in FBI surveillance tactics would be "extraordinarily reckless"^[958]
• January 24: Trump publicly confirms that he is willing to testify under oath to Mueller.^[959]
• January 25:
  • The Senate Judiciary Committee announces plans to release transcripts of its interviews with Trump Jr. and others who participated in the June 2016 Veselnitskaya meeting.^[960]
  • The Senate Intelligence Committee releases a document detailing 129 fake political event announcements promoted on Facebook by Russian agents during the election.^[961] The announcements are believed to have drawn the interest of 340,000 Facebook users.^[143] Facebook admits to the Senate that it recommended Russian propaganda to some users.^[962]
  • The New York Times and The Washington Post report that Trump ordered Mueller fired in June 2017, but backed off when McGahn threatened to quit. Trump reportedly also floated the idea of firing Rosenstein.^[527][963]
  • Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant reports that hackers from the Dutch intelligence service AIVD infiltrated the Russian hacker group Cozy Bear in 2014 and witnessed the attacks on the DNC and the State Department, relaying evidence to US intelligence agencies all the while.^[964][965]
• January 29:

January 29, 2018 - HPSCI Meeting Transcript

• • Mark Warner tells Politico that the Senate Intelligence Committee late last year received “extraordinarily important new documents” in its investigation.^[966]
  • McCabe steps down as Deputy Director of the FBI, telling friends he felt pressured to leave by Wray.^[967]
  • Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, disregarding DoJ warnings that their actions would be “extraordinarily reckless,” vote on party lines to release the Nunes memorandum.^[968][969]
  • The Trump administration declines to impose additional sanctions on Russia as mandated under CAATSA, which was designed to punish Moscow’s alleged meddling, insisting the measure was already hitting Russian companies.^[970]
• January 30:
  • In a last-minute reversal from their January 29 position, the Trump administration releases an updated list of Russian politicians and business figures in an attempt to increase pressure on Putin. The list includes 114 individuals the Treasury Department deems to be senior Russian political figures. It also includes 96 people deemed to be "oligarchs." The Treasury says each has an estimated net worth of $1 billion or more.^[971]
  • The Guardian reports on the existence of a dossier compiled by political activist and former journalist Cody Shearer and handed over to the FBI by Christopher Steele in October 2016 that independently makes many of the same allegations as the Steele dossier. The Guardian states that the FBI is still assessing Shearer's claims and following leads.^{[972][973][974]}
  • The Wall Street Journal reports that Mueller is seeking an interview with Mark Corallo, the former spokesman for Trump’s legal team.^[975]
    

    Schiff accusing Nunes of making material changes to memo after committee vote
• January 31:
  • ABC News reports that the DoJ handed over numerous documents related to the proposed resignation of Sessions. The report also states that the White House handed over emails relating to Flynn's dismissal.^{[citation needed]}
  • A source tells Bloomberg that Wray has informed the White House that the Nunes memo "paints a false narrative."^{[citation needed]}
  • CNN reports that Rosenstein visited the White House in December, seeking Trump's help in fighting off document demands from Nunes. Trump wanted to know where Mueller's Russia investigation was heading, and whether Rosenstein was "on my team".^[976]
  • In a Washington Post op-ed, Schiff blasts Nunes's actions.^[977]
  • US ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman says Pompeo recently met with his Russian counterparts when they traveled to the US. Russian media reports that those who met with Pompeo may have included the country's sanctioned spy chief, Sergey Naryshkin.^[978][979]
  • In FEC filings, combined with the RNC, Trump's campaign reports paying a total of $5.5 million in legal bills during 2017 amid probes into Russia’s role in the 2016 election.^[980]
  • Schiff releases a statement; "BREAKING: Discovered late tonight that Chairman Nunes made material changes to the memo he sent to White House – changes not approved by the Committee. White House therefore reviewing a document the Committee has not approved for release."^[981]

February 2018[]

• February 1: Three attorneys file motion in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to withdraw their representation of Gates.^[982] One of them, Walter Mack, said in court last month that Mueller's prosecutors had warned him of more impending charges against Gates.^[983] Attorneys from the firm of Gates’s new counsel, Tom Green, are seen entering the building where Mueller works.^[984]
• February 2: Trump declassifies the Nunes memo, which is publicly released by House Republicans.^[985]
• February 3:
  • Trump tweets that the released Nunes memo "totally vindicates" him in the ongoing investigation.^[986][987]
  • U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg sides with the DoJ, to avoid releasing "sensitive nonpublic information", after multiple news organizations sued for the public release of Comey's memos after their Freedom of Information Act requests were denied.^[988]
• February 5:
  • The United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence votes unanimously to declassify the Democratic rebuttal to the Nunes memo.^[989]
  • Nunes admits that the FBI had indeed disclosed political backing for a Trump-Russia dossier in its October 19, 2016, FISA warrant application, which the Nunes memo, released on February 2, had denied.^[990]
  • The New York Times reports that Trump's lawyers have advised him to refuse a wide-ranging interview with Mueller. Mueller would be able to subpoena and compel Trump to testify before Mueller's Washington DC grand jury.^[991]
  • Bannon refuses to appear before the House Intelligence Committee, risking a charge of contempt of Congress.^[992]
  • On Fox & Friends, Devin Nunes asserts that Papadopoulos never met Trump. In March 2016 The Trump campaign released photographic evidence of Papadopolous and Trump in a meeting.^[993]
• February 6: The House Intelligence Committee gives Bannon one more week to comply with a subpoena to appear before the committee after missing an earlier deadline.^[994][995]
• February 7:
  • Secretary of State Rex Tillerson suggests in an interview with Fox News that Russia is already attempting to interfere in the 2018 midterm elections, and the United States has not prepared itself to counter the threat.^[996][997]
  • Jeanette Manfra, the head of DHS National Protection and Programs Directorate, confirms that, as first reported in September 2016, Russian hackers targeted voter rolls in 21 states and penetrated "an exceptionally small number of them".^[998]

The White House declines to publish the Democratic rebuttal to the Nunes memo.

Russian troll farm, 13 suspects indicted for interference in U.S. election

Manafort/Gates Eastern District of Virginia superseding indictment

Play media

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announces indictments of thirteen Russian individuals and three Russian companies

• February 8: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posts a 25-minute video on YouTube alleging that Manafort sent information to the Kremlin through the oligarch Oleg Deripaska. The video includes footage taken from the Instagram account of sex worker Nastya Rybka, showing Deripaska with Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko on his yacht in August 2016.^[999]
• February 9: The White House declines to publish the Democratic rebuttal to the Nunes memo. Although the document had been submitted to the DoJ and FBI for vetting before the House Intelligence Committee voted to release it, McGahn said in a letter to the committee that it "contains numerous properly classified and especially sensitive passages."^[1,000]
• February 12: Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, asks the Treasury Department for documentation related to Trump's 2008 sale of an uninhabitable Palm Beach mansion to Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev.^[1,001]
• February 13: In testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, the heads of the U.S. intelligence community, including Pompeo, Wray, Rogers and Coats, say that Russia is intent on disrupting foreign elections, including the 2018 midterms.^{[1,002][1,003][1,004]}
• February 15:
  • NBC News reports that Mueller's investigators have interviewed Bannon for a total of about 20 hours.^[1,005] TheAssociated Press adds that Bannon answered every question from Mueller's team.^[1,006]
  • Bannon appears at the House Intelligence Committee under subpoena. According to committee members, he answers only 25 questions that were pre-approved by the White House, answering “no” to each, and invokes presidential executive privilege to decline answering further questions. Republican and Democratic members of the committee say they are considering seeking contempt of Congress charges.^[1,007]
• February 16:
  • The Daily Beast reports that Mueller has interviewed Corallo for over two hours.^[1,008]
  • Mueller indicts 13 Russian citizens, IRA/Glavset and two other Russian entities in a 37-page indictment returned by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia.^[40][1,009]
  • Richard Pinedo, a California man, has pleaded guilty to one count of identity fraud arising from the Russia investigation, after allegedly selling stolen bank account information to individuals suspected of interfering in the election through Auction Essistance, an online marketplace.^{[1,010][1,011]}
• February 17: During questioning at the Munich Security Conference, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov dismisses additional charges in the investigation as "just blather".^{[1,012][1,013]}
• February 18: The Los Angeles Times reports that Gates will plead guilty to fraud-related charges, and that he has agreed to testify against Manafort for a reduced sentence.^[1,014]
• February 20: Alex van der Zwaan, a London-based attorney formerly with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, pleads guilty to one count of lying to federal investigators about his interactions with Gates and an unidentified "Person A", and about his role in the production of a report on the trial of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. He also pleads guilty to deleting emails sought by Mueller’s office, according to investigators. Van der Zwaan is the son-in-law of Ukrainian-Russian billionaire German Khan, who appeared in the Steele dossier and is suing Buzzfeed News over its publication.^[1,015]
• February 21: NBC News reports that federal investigators are looking into whether Manafort promised a Chicago banker, Steve Calk, president of the Federal Savings Bank,^[1,016] a job in the Trump White House in return for $16 million in home equity loans.^[1,017]
• February 22:
  • Sam Nunberg, one of Trump’s earliest campaign advisers, meets with Mueller’s investigators.^[1,018]
  • Mueller reveals new charges in the Manafort and Gates cases,^{[1,019][1,020]} filed on February 22. Unlike previous indictments, the superseding indictment was issued by a federal grand jury in the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, and contains 32 counts: 16 related to false individual income tax returns, seven of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts, five of bank fraud conspiracy, and four of bank fraud.^[1,021]
  • Former D.C. federal prosecutor Thomas Green formally joins Gates' legal team.^[1,022]
• February 23:
  • Gates pleads guilty to one count of conspiracy against the United States and one count of making false statements. He becomes the fifth defendant publicly charged by Mueller's team to plead guilty and the third Trump associate to make a cooperation deal with Mueller.^[1,023] In a statement issued by his lawyer, Manafort says he has no plans to follow suit and make a deal.^[1,024]
  • The Los Angeles Times reports that Gates's conviction of making false statements to investigators stems from a 2013 Ukraine-related meeting with Representative Rohrabacher. Gates purportedly told investigators that the meeting was not related to his or Manafort's work in Ukraine despite documents to the contrary.^[16]
  • Gates's plea reveals that he lied during an FBI interview on February 1. That same day, his attorneys withdrew from representing him.^[1,025]
  • Mueller reveals a new superseding indictment against Manafort, containing five counts: conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading FARA statements, and false statements.^[1,026]
• February 24: The House Intelligence Committee releases the 10-page Democratic rebuttal to the Nunes memo.^{[1,027][1,028]}
• February 27:
  • Buzzfeed News reports that Joseph Mifsud claimed to his former girlfriend that he was friends with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. Mifsud subsequently goes missing, having last been seen on October 31, 2017.^[1,029]
  • Charges against Gates are dismissed without prejudice, following his guilty plea.^[1,030]
  • Hope Hicks testifies before the House Intelligence Committee. She declines to answer most questions, saying she has been instructed by the White House not to answer any questions relating to her time at the White House,^[1,031] but admits that she has told lies for Trump.^[1,032]
  • In Senate testimony, NSA director Mike Rogers says Trump has given him "no new authority" to counter Russian election meddling.^[1,033]
  • CNN reports that Mueller's investigators asked witnesses questions about Trump's business dealings in Russia prior to his presidential campaign, including the 2013 Miss Universe pageant held in Moscow. The investigators also inquired about the timing of Trump's decision to run for president.^[1,034]
• February 28:
  • Manafort pleads not guilty in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Federal District Judge Amy Berman Jackson subsequently sets his trial to start on September 17, 2018.^[1,035]
  • NBC News reports that Mueller's team is asking "pointed questions" about whether Trump knew that the DNC emails had been stolen before it was publicly known, and whether he was involved in their "strategic release".^[1,036]
  • Hicks submits her resignation as White House Communications Director.^[1,037]
  • The New York Times reports that one company lent the Kushners' business $184 million, and another $325 million. Both had held White House meetings with Kushner.^[440] The SEC subsequently drops its investigation into Apollo Global Management, which gave Kushner the $184 million loan a month earlier.^[767]
  • ExxonMobil announces that it will end its joint ventures with Rosneft for exploration and research, due to U.S. and European Union sanctions against Russia.^[1,038]
  • The Washington Post reports that Mueller's team has questioned witnesses about Trump's apparent pressure on Sessions to resign during the summer of 2017.^[1,039]

March 2018[]

Sam Nunberg subpoena attachment

• March 1:
  • Bipartisan leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr and Mark Warner, state that Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee leaked private messages between Warner and a lawyer associated with Deripaska, as Warner attempted to contact Steele. Burr and Warner reprimand Ryan for Nunes's behavior.^{[1,040][1,041]}
  • NBC News reports that Mueller is preparing indictments against Russians and accomplices who engaged in criminal hacking and dissemination of private information intended to hurt Democrats in the 2016 election.^[1,042]
  • The Daily Beast reveals new details about the Internet Research Agency gathered from a leak of internal documents.^[124] The new information shows that the Russian troll farm used Reddit and Tumblr as part of its influence campaign.^[1,043]
• March 2: In an interview with Megyn Kelly broadcast on NBC News on March 10, 2018, Putin suggests that the 13 individuals Mueller indicted may not be Russians, saying, "Maybe they are not even Russians, but Ukrainians, Tartars, or Jews, but with Russian citizenship, which should also be checked: maybe they have dual citizenship or a Green Card; maybe the US paid them for this. How can you know that? I do not know either."^{[1,044][1,045]}
• March 4:
  • The New York Times reports that the State Department has not used any of the $120 million fund that it was allocated by Congress in late 2016 to counter foreign efforts to meddle in the upcoming elections.^[1,046]
  • Axios reports that Mueller has issued a subpoena to an unnamed witness for all his/her communications, emails, texts, handwritten notes, etc., regarding Trump and nine others (Carter Page, Corey Lewandowski, Hope Hicks, Keith Schiller, Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Roger Stone, and Steve Bannon) from November 1, 2015, to the present.^[1,047]

Play media

MSNBC interview with Sam Nunberg

• March 5:
  • The New Yorker reports that Steele has briefed Mueller on one of his undisclosed memos that purportedly makes the claim that the offer for the position of Secretary of State to former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney was rescinded after the Kremlin intervened to voice its displeasure with the pick.^[1,048]
  • Sam Nunberg publicly discloses that he has received a subpoena from Mueller. In live interviews with MSNBC^[1,049] and CNN,^[1,050] Nunberg initially says he will defy the grand jury's order to produce documents and testimony.^[1,051] That evening, Nunberg says he has decided he will comply with the subpoena.^[1,052] He attributes his erratic behavior to the influence of drugs and alcohol and says he will seek treatment after fulfilling his obligations to Mueller.^[1,053]
• March 6:
  • The Washington Post reports that Mueller is requesting documents and asking witnesses questions about Michael Cohen's involvement in the aborted project for a Trump Tower in Moscow and the February 2017 Russia-friendly Ukraine peace proposal.^[1,054]
  • The New York Times reports that George Nader, an adviser to the United Arab Emirates, is cooperating with Mueller, and gave testimony last week to the grand jury.^[367]
• March 7:
  • The Wall Street Journal reports that the Russian influence campaign gained personally identifying information about individual American citizens through Facebook.^[1,055]
  • The New York Times reports that Trump has questioned people interviewed by Mueller about their interviews. According to legal experts, Trump's queries likely do not constitute witness tampering.^[1,056]
  • The Washington Post reports that Mueller has evidence that the January 2017 Seychelles meeting between Erik Prince and Kirill Dmitriev was an effort to establish a back channel to the Kremlin. According to the report, "George Nader’s account is considered key evidence—but not the only evidence—about what transpired in Seychelles".^[1,057]
• March 9: Mueller obtains a letter from Trump addressed to Putin, inviting him to the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. The Washington Post reports that "at the bottom of the typed letter, Trump scrawled a postscript adding that he looked forward to seeing 'beautiful' women during his trip."^[20]
• March 12:
  • Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee announce the end of their investigation, over the objections of Democratic members. Their findings are that Russia interfered to create discord, but that "there was no evidence of collusion" between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and that Russia did not have a preference for Trump as a candidate.^[1,058]
  • Tillerson publicly condemns Russia for the use of a nerve agent in the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in the United Kingdom.^[1,059]
  • 

    Minority status of the russia investigation with appendices
    Buzzfeed News reports on a statement Felix Sater made under oath to House Intelligence Committee investigators in December 2017. In it, Satar said that he had been collaborating with U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies for more than 20 years, a collaboration that was continuing at the time of his statement.^[1,060]
• March 13:
  • Trump fires Tillerson and Steve Goldstein, the fourth highest ranking official at the State Department, who had been sworn in on December 4. Trump announces his intention to nominate Mike Pompeo to replace Tillerson.^[1,061]
  • Adam Schiff, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, criticizes the Republicans' draft report, calling it "little more than another Nunes memo in long form." Democrats on the committee plan to draft their own report on the investigation.^[1,062]
  • House Intelligence Committee democrats issue a 21-page status report outlining the work they consider to be remaining in the investigation.^{[1,063][1,064]}
  • The Washington Post reports that Sam Nunberg and another associate of Roger Stone claim that in 2016 Stone spoke directly to Assange, who informed him that WikiLeaks was in possession of emails stolen from John Podesta before it was publicly known that hackers had obtained the emails.^[114]
• March 15:
  • Trump imposes financial sanctions under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act on the 13 Russian government hackers and front organizations Mueller has indicted.^[1,065]
  • The New York Times reports that Mueller has subpoenaed the Trump Organization to turn over documents, including some related to Russia. It is the first known instance of the special counsel demanding records directly related to Trump’s businesses.^[1,066]
  • The U.S. Government accuses the Russian government of engineering a series of cyberattacks targeting United States and European nuclear power plants and water and electric systems.^[1,067]
  • McClatchy reports that Congressional investigators have learned that Cleta Mitchell, a longtime NRA lawyer, expressed concern over the organization's ties to Russia and its possible involvement in funneling Russian money to support Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Mitchell denies the reports.^[1,068]
• March 16:
  • Sessions fires Andrew McCabe, the Deputy Director of the FBI.^[1,069]
  • Politico reports that the Federal Election Commission is investigating whether Russian entities funneled money to the Trump campaign through the NRA during the 2016 election. The inquiry was prompted by a complaint lodged by the American Democracy Legal Fund, a political watchdog organization.^[1,070]
• March 17:
  • The New York Times and The Observer report on Cambridge Analytica's use of personal information acquired by an outside researcher who claimed to be collecting it for academic purposes. As a result, Facebook bans Cambridge Analytica from advertising on its platform.^{[1,071][1,072]} The Guardian reports that Facebook has known about this situation for two years, but has done nothing to protect its users.^[1,073]
  • John M. Dowd, one of Trump's attorneys, calls on Rosenstein to shut down Mueller's investigation.^[1,074]
• March 19: The Guardian reports that Joseph Chancellor, the co-director of Global Science Research (the company that harvested the data from tens of millions of Facebook users before selling it to Cambridge Analytica) has been working for Facebook as a corporate quantitative social psychologist since around November 2015.^[1,075]
• March 20:
  • The Intercept reports that in February 2016, FBI director Chris Wray, then a private lawyer, informed the DOJ that Erik Prince violated U.S. law by trying to sell modified paramilitary aircraft to the military of Azerbaijan. Robert Hur, now Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, helped Wray with the internal investigation of Prince's actions at Frontier Services Group.^[1,076]
  • The Washington Post reports that Trump failed to follow detailed warnings from his national security advisers when he congratulated Putin on his reelection, including a section in his briefing materials reading “DO NOT CONGRATULATE.”^[1,077]
• March 21: The New York Times reports that Mueller has given George Nader immunity from prosecution for his testimony relating to his foreign lobbying in relation to Elliott Broidy and the United Arab Emirates.^[1,078]
• March 22:
  • John M. Dowd resigns as Trump's lead lawyer for Mueller’s investigation.^[1,079]
  • The Daily Beast reports that Guccifer 2.0, the “lone hacker” who took cr for providing WikiLeaks with stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee, was in fact an officer of Russia’s military intelligence directorate (GRU) and that Mueller has taken over the investigation into his criminal activities and his direct contact with Roger Stone.^[1,080]
• March 23:
  • The British High Court grants the Information Commissioner's Office's application for a warrant to search Cambridge Analytica’s London offices.^[1,081]
  • NBC News acquires a memo that attorney Lawrence Levy of Bracewell & Giuliani sent to Bannon, Rebekah Mercer and Cambridge Analytica founder Alexander Nix that said Nix would have to be "recused from substantive management of any such clients involved in U.S. elections" because Nix is not a U.S. national.^[44]
  • Trump signs the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill in which Congress included strict new punishments against Russia.^{[1,082][1,083]}
  • The Washington Post reports that emails from Papadopoulos, which are among thousands of documents turned over to Mueller, show that he had more extensive contact with key Trump campaign and presidential transition officials than has been publicly acknowledged, and asked the Trump campaign directly before taking meetings with Russian officials.^[60]
  • CNN reports that Trump's National Security Council will recommend he expel an undetermined number of Russian diplomats in response to the poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal, 66, and his 33-year-old daughter Yulia on March 4 in Salisbury, England.^[1,084]
• March 25: Corey Lewandowski says he turned down Cambridge Analytica three times while Trump's campaign manager. He says he knew Steve Bannon was associated with the company, but not in what way. He insists the campaign did not hire the firm until after he left.^[1,085]
• March 26:
  • BuzzFeed News reports that European security officials, alarmed by of a set of meetings that Papadopoulos held with Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos in Europe in the months before and after the 2016 election, have informed investigators. Kammenos is known to be close to Putin.^[1,086]
  • Trump joins other Western countries and expels 60 Russian diplomats in response to the poisoning of Skripal and his daughter on March 4.^[1,087]
  • The Associated Press reports that George Nader has testified to Mueller that he wired $2.5 million to Elliott Broidy via a Canadian company to fund a lobbying campaign to Republican members of Congress to persuade the U.S. to take a hard line against Qatar, an adversary of the United Arab Emirates.^[1,088]
    

    Alex van der Zwaan Government Sentencing Memorandum (Gov.uscourts.dcd.193647.19.0)
• March 27: Christopher Wylie tells U.K. lawmakers that Palantir, a secretive company co-founded by high-profile Trump supporter Peter Thiel, worked with Cambridge Analytica on their ad-targeting in the 2016 election.^[1,089]
• March 28:
  • The New York Times reports that in 2017 Trump's attorney John Dowd discussed the idea of Trump pardoning Flynn and Manafort with their attorneys.^{[1,090][1,091]}
  • Evidence related to the sentencing of Alex van der Zwaan is filed in court. Person A is revealed to be Konstantin Kilimnik, a former Ukraine-based aide to Gates and Manafort.^[1,092]
  • ProPublica reports that Senate Judiciary Committee chief investigative counsel Jason Foster, empowered by chairman Charles Grassley, has been pseudonymously disparaging the FBI and Mueller’s investigation for a year.^[1,093]
  • Ecuador cuts Julian Assange's internet and telephone access at its London embassy, where Assange has been living for nearly six years.^[1,094]
• March 29: The Guardian reports that the FBI made inquiries before the 2016 election campaign into Trump's property dealings in the former Soviet Union and Latvia with individuals close to Putin.^[1,095]
• March 30: The Guardian reports that Ted Malloch was served with a search warrant to clone all of the electronic devices in his possession when he walked off the plane after flying from London's Heathrow to Boston's Logan airport, and was subsequently interrogated by the FBI, who asked about his involvement in the Trump campaign and connections to Nigel Farage and Roger Stone. The FBI agents “seemed to know everything about me,” Malloch said in a statement about his experience.^{[1,096][1,097]} Mueller has compelled Malloch to testify about the Russian cyber-intrusions.^[1,098]

April 2018[]

• April 1: The Financial Times reports that, in the weeks leading up to Trump's inauguration, Erik Prince met with Kirill Dmitriev, whose wife Natalia Popova was in the same year at Moscow State University as Putin’s daughter Katerina Tikhonova. Popova’s close friendship with Tikhonova helped secure Dmitriev’s job running the Kremlin’s Russia Direct investment Fund.^[1,099]
• April 2: The Wall Street Journal reports that Mueller is investigating Roger Stone's claim that he met with Assange in August 2016. In an email sent to Sam Nunberg on August 4, 2016, Stone wrote "I dined with Julian Assange last night." Stone denied the meeting took place.^[1,100]
• April 3: Dutch attorney Alex van der Zwaan is sentenced to 30 days in federal prison and ordered to pay a $20,000 fine for lying to the FBI about his contacts with a former GRU officer and for withholding documents from the Mueller investigation.^[1,101]
• April 4:
  • CNN reports that Mueller has been questioning Russian oligarchs who traveled into the US, stopping one and searching electronic devices when the private jet landed at a New York area airport.^[1,102]
  • Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in a call to reporters, says the personal information of up to 87 million people, most of them Americans, may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica during the 2016 election.^[1,103] Facebook announces sweeping changes to many of its APIs—software plugins that allow outside businesses and developers to collect data directly from Facebook.^[1,104]
  • The Washington Post reports that the Trump administration is going to implement new economic sanctions designed to target oligarchs with ties to Putin.^[1,105]
• April 5: Politico reports Mueller moved to seize bank accounts at three different financial institutions last year the day before Manafort was indicted.^[744]
  

  Cohen v US - Gov't Opposition to TRO Request
• April 6: The United States Treasury implements economic sanctions on seven Russian oligarchs and 12 companies they control, along with 17 top Russian officials, a state-owned weapons-trading company and a subsidiary bank. The high-profile names on the list include Oleg Deripaska, a billionaire with links to Manafort, and Kirill Shamalov, Putin's ex-son-in-law. The press release says, "Deripaska has been investigated for money laundering, and has been accused of threatening the lives of business rivals, illegally wiretapping a government official, and taking part in extortion and racketeering. There are also allegations that Deripaska bribed a government official, ordered the murder of a businessman, and had links to a Russian organized crime group."^[1,106]
• April 9:
  • ProPublica reports that Jeff Sessions sought out Elliott Broidy's advice on how the U.S. attorneys should be replaced.^[1,107]
  • The New York Times reports that Mueller is investigating a payment of $150,000 to the Trump Foundation by Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk for a September 2015 speech by Trump at the Yalta European Strategy conference that took place in Kiev.^[73][74]
  • Based on a referral from Mueller's office, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York executes a series of search warrants at the law offices of and hotel room of Michael Cohen, Trump's longtime personal attorney,^{[1,108][1,109]} in relation to the Stormy Daniels affair and other matters.
• April 11: The New York Times reports that the FBI was seeking all records related to the “Access Hollywood” tape in the Cohen raids.^[1,110]
• April 13: McClatchyDC reports that the special counsel has evidence that Michael Cohen visited Prague in 2016, contrary to his denials of ever being there after the publication of the Steele dossier.^[1,111]
• April 16: Robert Mueller's spokesman puts out statement saying that many news reports about the investigation are inaccurate.^[1,112]
• April 19: Comey memos released.^[1,113]

See also[]

• Business projects of Donald Trump in Russia
• Cyberwarfare by Russia
• Efforts to impeach Donald Trump
• Foreign electoral intervention
• Links between Trump associates and Russian officials
• Propaganda in post-Soviet Russia
• Social media in the United States presidential election, 2016
• Special Counsel investigation (2017–present)
• Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections (report)

References[]