We resume our republishing of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report of Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election, and President Donald Trump's subsequent actions.
Following the general introduction, the report then offers an executive summary of Volume I, which follows. Several parts of this section were redacted by the special counsel's office; "harm to ongoing matter" means the information redacted pertains to investigations or prosecutions in progress, and therefore cannot be divulged now.
RUSSIAN SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN
Yevgeniy Prigozhin (left) and Russian president Vladimir Putin (AP Photo)
[EDITOR: For more information about Prigozhin and Putin, see this Seattle Times article from 2018.]
In mid-2014, the IRA sent employees to the United States on an intelligence-gathering mission with instructions [REDACTED - HARM TO ONGOING MATTER]
The IRA later used social media accounts and interest groups to sow discord in the U.S. political system through what it termed "information warfare." The campaign evolved from a generalized program designed in 2014 and 2015 to undermine the U.S. electoral system, to a targeted operation that by early 2016 favored candidate Trump and disparaged candidate Clinton. The IRA's operation also included the purchase of political advertisements on social media in the names of U.S. persons and entities, as well as the staging of political rallies inside the United States. To organize those rallies, IRA employees posed as U.S. grassroots entities and persons and made contact with Trump supporters and Trump Campaign officials in the United States. The investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons conspired or coordinated with the IRA. Section II of this report details the Office's investigation of the Russian social media campaign.
RUSSIAN HACKING OPERATIONS
At the same time that the IRA operation began to focus on supporting candidate Trump in early 2016, the Russian government employed a second form of interference: cyber intrusions (hacking) and releases of hacked materials damaging to the Clinton Campaign. The Russian intelligence service known as the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Army (GRU) carried out these operations.
In March 2016, the GRU began hacking the email accounts of Clinton Campaign volunteers and employees, including campaign chairman John Podesta. In April 2016, the GRU hacked into the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The GRU stole hundreds of thousands of documents from the compromised email accounts and networks. Around the time that the DNC announced in mid-June 2016 the Russian government's role in hacking its network, the GRU began disseminating stolen materials through the fictitious online personas "DCLeaks" and "Guccifer 2.0." The GRU later released additional materials through the organization WikiLeaks.
The presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump ("Trump Campaign" or "Campaign") showed interest in WikiLeaks's releases of documents and welcomed their potential to damage candidate Clinton. Beginning in June 2016, [REDACTED - HARM TO ONGOING MATTER] forecast to senior Campaign officials that WikiLeaks would release information damaging to candidate Clinton.1 WikiLeaks' first release came in July 2016. Around the same time, candidate Trump announced that he hoped Russia would recover emails described as missing from a private server used by Clinton when she was Secretary of State (he later said that he was speaking sarcastically.) [REDACTED - HARM TO ONGOING MATTER] WikiLeaks began releasing Podesta's stolen emails on October 7, 2016, less than one hour after a U.S. media outlet released video considered damaging to candidate Trump.2 Section III of this Report details the Office's investigation into the Russian hacking operations, as well as other efforts by Trump Campaign supporters to obtain Clinton-related emails.
RUSSIAN CONTACTS WITH THE CAMPAIGN
The social media campaign and the GRU hacking operations coincided with a series of contacts between Trump Campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government. The Office investigated whether those contacts reflected or resulted in the Campaign conspiring or coordinating with Russia in its election-interference activities. Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.
[EDITOR: "Did not establish" means the investigators could find no evidence that there was conspiracy or coordination. As stated in the Introduction, the report notes that lack of evidence does not mean something did not happen. See also, my cookie jar analogy in the last post.]
The Russian contacts consisted of business connections, offers of assistance to the Campaign, invitations for candidate Trump and Putin to meet in person, invitations for Campaign officials and representatives of the Russian government to meet, and policy positions seeking improved U.S.-Russian relations. Section IV of this Report details the contacts between Russia and the Trump Campaign during the campaign and transition periods, the most salient of which are summarized below in chronological order.
Newspaper article from 2013 about Trump Tower Moscow
2015. Some of the earliest contacts were made in connection with a Trump Organization real-estate project in Russia known as Trump Tower Moscow. Candidate Trump signed a Letter of lntent for Trump Tower Moscow by November 2015, and in January 2016 Trump Organization executive Michael Cohen emailed and spoke about the project with the office of Russian government press secretary Dmitry Peskov. The Trump Organization pursued the project through at least June 2016, including by considering travel to Russia by Cohen and candidate Trump. [EDITOR: An independent website has details about the Trump Tower Moscow project, which Trump has at various times both denied pursuing and confirmed pursuing. The idea was first floated in 2013. (See image above)
FBI booking shot of George Papadopoulos
Summer 2016. Russian outreach to the Trump Campaign continued into the summer of 2016, as candidate Trump was becoming the presumptive Republican nominee for President. On June 9, 2016, for example, a Russian lawyer met with senior Trump Campaign officials Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and campaign chairman Paul Manafort4 to deliver what the email proposing the meeting had described as "official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary." The materials were offered to Trump Jr. as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." The written communications setting up the meeting showed that the Campaign anticipated receiving information from Russia that could assist candidate Trump's electoral prospects, but the Russian lawyer's 5 presentation did not provide such information.
Days after the June 9 meeting, on June 14, 2016, a cybersecurity firm and the DNC announced that Russian government hackers had infiltrated the DNC and obtained access to opposition research on candidate Trump, among other documents.
In July 2016, Campaign foreign policy advisor Carter Page6 traveled in his personal capacity to Moscow and gave the keynote address at the New Economic School. Page had lived and worked in Russia between 2003 and 2007. After returning to the United States, Page became acquainted with at least two Russian intelligence officers, one of whom was later charged in 2015 with conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of Russia. Page's July 2016 trip to Moscow and his advocacy for pro-Russian foreign policy drew media attention. The Campaign then distanced itself from Page and, by late September 2016, removed him from the Campaign.
July 2016 was also the month WikiLeaks first released emails stolen by the GRU from the DNC. On July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks posted thousands of internal DNC documents revealing information about the Clinton Campaign. Within days, there was public reporting that U.S. intelligence agencies had "high confidence" that the Russian government was behind the theft of emails and documents from the DNC. And within a week of the release, a foreign government [Australia] informed the FBI about its May 2016 interaction with Papadopoulos and his statement that the Russian government could assist the Trump Campaign. On July 31, 2016, based on the foreign government reporting, the FBI opened an investigation into potential coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign.
Booking photo of Paul Manafort
[EDITOR: There were reports in August that the Trump campaign directed the Republican National Committee change the GOP platform regarding Ukraine.]
Fall 2016. On October 7, 2016, the media released video of candidate Trump speaking in graphic terms about women years earlier, which was considered damaging to his candidacy. Less than an hour later, WikiLeaks made its second release: thousands of John Podesta's emails that had been stolen by the GRU in late March 2016. The FBI and other U.S. government institutions were at the time continuing their investigation of suspected Russian government efforts to interfere in the presidential election. That same day, October 7, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint public statement "that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations ." Those "thefts" and the "disclosures" of the hacked materials through online platforms such as WikiLeaks, the statement continued, "are intended to interfere with the US election process."
Post-2016 Election. Immediately after the November 8 election, Russian government officials and prominent Russian businessmen began trying to make inroads into the new administration. The most senior levels of the Russian government encouraged these efforts. The Russian Embassy made contact hours after the election to congratulate the President-Elect and to arrange a call with President Putin. Several Russian businessmen picked up the effort from there. Kirill Dmitriev, the chief executive officer of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, was among the Russians who tried to make contact with the incoming administration. In early December, a business associate steered Dmitriev to Erik Prince, a supporter of the Trump Campaign and an associate of senior Trump advisor Steve Bannon. Dmitriev and Prince later met face-to-face in January 2017 in the Seychelles and discussed U.S.-Russia relations.7 During the same period, another business associate introduced Dmitriev to a friend of Jared Kushner who had not served
on the Campaign or the Transition Team. Dmitriev and Kushner's friend collaborated on a short written reconciliation plan for the United States and Russia, which Dmitriev implied had been cleared through Putin. The friend gave that proposal to Kushner before the inauguration, and Kushner later gave copies to Bannon and incoming Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
On December 29, 2016, then-President Obama imposed sanctions on Russia for having interfered in the election. Incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn8 called Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and asked Russia not to escalate the situation in response to the sanctions. The following day, Putin announced that Russia would not take retaliatory measures in response to the sanctions at that time. Hours later, President-Elect Trump tweeted, "Great move on delay (by V. Putin)." The next day, on December 31, 2016, Kislyak called Flynn and told him the request had been received at the highest levels and Russia had chosen not to retaliate as a result of Flynn's request.
[EDITOR: Esquire ran a lengthy profile of Kislyak in May 2017.]
On January 6, 2017, members of the intelligence community briefed President-Elect Trump on a joint assessment -- drafted and coordinated among the Central Intelligence Agency, FBI, and National Security Agency -- that concluded with high confidence that Russia had intervened in the election through a variety of means to assist Trump's candidacy and harm Clinton's. A declassified version of the assessment was publicly released that same day.
Between mid-January 2017 and early February 2017, three congressional committees -- the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), and the Senate Judiciary Committee (SJC)-announced that they would conduct inquiries, or had already been conducting inquiries, into Russian interference in the election. Then-FBI Director James Comey later confirmed to Congress the existence of the FBI's investigation into Russian interference that had begun before the election. On March 20, 2017, in open-session testimony before HPSCI, Comey stated:
I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia 's efforts .... As with any counterintelligence investigation, this will also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed.
The investigation continued under then-Director Comey for the next seven weeks until May 9, 2017, when President Trump fired Comey as FBI Director -- an action which is analyzed in Volume II of the report.
[EDITOR: To recap this part, intelligence and law enforcement officials told the president of the United States that the Russian government had interfered in the 2016 presidential election, and that there would be investigations into whether the Trump campaign or its representatives had been involved in such interference. Then seven weeks later, the president fired the man who was leading the investigation. One should ask, why? Did Donnie knock over the cookie jar while trying to eat the cookies in it?]
On May 17, 2017, Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed the Special Counsel and authorized him to conduct the investigation that Comey had confirmed in his congressional testimony, as well as matters arising directly from the investigation, and any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F .R. ยง 600.4(a), which generally covers efforts to interfere with or obstruct the investigation.
[EDITOR: In other words, by firing Comey, Trump then prompted another investigation into whether he was obstructing the first investigation. Smart move, eh?]
President Trump reacted negatively to the Special Counsel's appointment. He told advisors that it was the end of his presidency, sought to have Attorney General Jefferson (Jeff) Sessions9 unrecuse from the Russia investigation and to have the Special Counsel removed, and engaged in efforts to curtail the Special Counsel's investigation and prevent the disclosure of evidence to it, including through public and private contacts with potential witnesses. Those and related actions are described and analyzed in Volume II of the report.
NEXT: The Special Counsel's Charging Decisions, and details of the investigation.
NOTES:
- The party in question is undoubtedly Roger Stone, who was indicted by a grand jury in January and later taken into custody by the FBI. The indictment document is available here at the CNN website.
- The recording in question was the now-infamous "pussy grab" conversation between Trump and Billy Bush, who was at the time host of Access Hollywood. The New York Times has a transcript of the conversation.
- Alexander Downer, who was then Australia's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. Downer reported the conversation to US intelligence officials.
- Manafort is currently in federal prison after being convicted on federal charges of bank and tax fraud and witness tampering, and New York charges of mortgage fraud. [Details]
- The lawyer in question is Natalia V. Veselnitskaya, who in January was charged in a separate case involving money laundering.
- The FBI revealed in July that it had had Page under surveillance in 2016, after obtaining a FISA warrant. Details here.
- In Congressional testimony, Prince denied meeting with Dmitriev.
- In December 2017 Flynn plead guilty to lying to the FBI about meetings with Russian representative. Flynn also agreed to cooperate with the Mueller investigation.
- Trump dismissed Sessions as Attorney General in November 2018. Trump's nominee to replace Sessions, William Barr, took over the office in February.
But these are all just coincidences, right?