Russiagate
- 1970s
- 1980s
- 1990s
- 2000s
- 2010-2012
- 2013-2015
- January- June 2016
- July – August 2016
- September – October 2016
- November-December 2016
- January-February 2017
- March-April 2017
- May – June 2017
- July-December 2017
- 2018
- 2019
- 2020
August/Sep 2016 WikiLeaks published hacked John Podesta emails, Stone admitted to communicating with Assange through someone. NY Times
Roger Stone admitted the Guccifer 2.0 messages on The Smoking Gun website, while he said he wasn’t recalling them. Friday February, Roger Stone “released screen grabs from his Twitter account to publications, including The Washington Times” NY Times
September 2016
September 2016:Sen. Jeff Sessions meets Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in Sessions’s office. NBC News
September 2016:Congressional Intelligence “Gang of Eight” receiving briefings on hacking. Washington Post
September 5, 2016: “The Washington Post reports that US intelligence agencies, including the FBI, are investigating possible plans by Russia to disrupt the presidential election. – Putin and Obama have a tense meeting at the G20 summit in China, where they discuss Syria, Ukraine, and cybersecurity. In December, Obama will tell reporters that he confronted Putin about Russia’s alleged interference in the election and told him to “cut it out.”Mother Jones
September 7, 2016:” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper suggests publicly for the first time that Russia may be responsible for the DNC hack, pointing to Obama’s July statement that “experts have attributed this to the Russians.” Clapper adds that “the Russians hack our systems all the time.” Mother Jones
September 8, 2016: “Trump responds to Clapper’s comments in an interview with RT, the English language arm of a Russian state-controlled media conglomerate, casting doubt on whether Russian hackers were responsible for the DNC hack. “I think maybe the Democrats are putting that out,” Trump says. “Who knows, but I think it’s pretty unlikely. –“Jeff Sessions meets with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in his Senate office. He is the only one of the Senate armed services committee’s 26 members to meet with the ambassador in 2016. The meeting occurs days after Putin and Obama’s tense G20 meeting.” Mother Jones
“The subject of the meeting isn’t clear, but one official told NBC’s Hallie Jackson that during such meetings ambassadors would “often make superficial comments about election-related news.” On Mar. 2, 2017, Sessions explained that the meeting was attended by himself and two or three other staffers. They “listened to the ambassador and what his concerns might be.” The topics discussed included travel to Russia, terrorism and Ukraine. “I don’t recall any specific political discussions,” Sessions said.” Washington Post
September 9, 2016: Guccifer 2.0 sends Roger Stone a link to a blog post about voter turnout, along with this message: “hi what do u think of the info on the turnout model for the democrats entire presidential campaign? Basically how it works is there are people who will vote party line no matter what and there are folks who will actually make a decision. The basic premise of winning an election is turnout your base (marked turnout) and target the marginal folks with persuadable advertising (marked persuadable). They spend millions calculating who is persuadable or what we call a ‘soft democrat’ and who is a ‘hard democrat.’” [Added March 13, 2017]Bill Moyers
“fter asking Stone what Guccifer 2.0 can do to help, Guccifer 2.0 sends Stone a link to Nevins’ page containing DCCC’s turnout data and asks what Stone thinks. Stone replies, “Pretty Standard.” [Note: If that type of information being disclosed is not pretty standard, then Stone’s reply is incriminating. Analysis by Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo suggests it was not pretty standard. The Direct Message exchange between Stone and Guccifer then ends abruptly.]” Just Security
September 13, 2016: A spokesperson for Sessions indicated that he and Kislyak spoke by phone on this day, but then retracted that claim.“WikiLeaks had tweeted links to what the group said was 678.4 megabytes of DNC documents.” Washington Post
September 14, 2016: “Wikileaks has uploaded another (huge 678 mb) archive of files from the DNC” and included a link and a “decryption key,” according to a copy obtained by The Washington Post. The writer, who said his name was Michael J. Erickson and described himself as the president of an aviation management company, sent the message to the then-Republican nominee as well as his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and other top advisers. In addition to Trump Jr., it was sent to a rarely used address for Donald Trump, as well as Trump Organization attorney Michael Cohen and a Gmail account that had sometimes been used by Hope Hicks, who is now the White House communications director. It also went to several other Trump Organization employees, with the subject line “Trump: Another Wikileaks DNC Upload.”” Washington Posthttps://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/930228239494209536
September 15, 2016: Guccifer 2.0 posts hacked DCCC documents on New Hampshire, Ohio, Illinois and North Carolina. [Added March 13, 2017]Bill Moyers
September 16, 2016: Stone says on Boston Herald Radio (around the 12-minute mark), “I expect Julian Assange and the WikiLeaks people to drop a payload of new documents on Hillary on a weekly basis fairly soon. And that of course will answer the question of exactly what was erased on that email server.” He says he’s in touch with Assange “through an intermediary.” He also says that Hillary Clinton’s association with Putin and Russia’s oligarchs was “far more troubling to me than Donald Trump’s.” [Added April 24, 2017]Bill Moyers
“Butina allegedly emails [Erickson] and [O’Neill] to express an urgent need for another dinner with prominent figures in Washington out of concern that those looking for Russia expertise would turn to the “currently popular radically oppositional to Russia crowd of experts.” Washington Post
September 20, 2016: Wikileaks sent Don Trump Jr. a Twitter Direct Message that “A PAC run anti-Trump site putintrump.org is about to launch” The Atlantic
“WikiLeaks itself has released documents referring to Kunstler as an attorney for the group and Julian Assange.
“Any bonafide offers of assistance to Mr. Assange would have been made in person with Mr. Assange’s lawyers in the United States: Mr. Barry Pollak in Washington DC or Mrs. Margaret Ratner Kunstler in New York,” reads a Sept. 20, 2016 email posted by WikiLeaks.” Daily Caller
September 21, 2016: “the Times had delivered potential evidence of communications to B.G.R., a Washington lobbying firm that worked for Alfa Bank. Two days later, the Trump domain vanished from the Internet. (Technically, its “A record,” which translates the domain name to an I.P. address, was deleted. If the D. N.S. is a phone book, the domain name was effectively decoupled from its number.) For four days, the servers at Alfa Bank kept trying to look up the Trump domain. Then, ten minutes after the last attempt, one of them looked up another domain, which had been configured to lead to the same Trump Organization server.” Vanity Fair
September 22, 2016:“Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), vice chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House intelligence committee, release a statement about Russia’s interference in the US election. “Based on briefings we have received, we have concluded that the Russian intelligence agencies are making a serious and concerted effort to influence the U.S. election,” they said. “We believe that orders for the Russian intelligence agencies to conduct such actions could come only from the very senior levels of the Russian government.”Mother Jones
September 23, 2016: “Yahoo News reports that US intelligence officials are investigating whether Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page discussed the possible lifting of US sanctions on Russia and other topics during private communications with top Russian officials, including a Putin aide and the current executive chairman of Rosneft, who is on the Treasury Department’s US sanctions list. Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller claims that Page “has no role” in the Trump campaign and says that “we are not aware of any of his activities, past or present.”Mother Jones“Guccifer 2.0 posts hacked DCCC documents on chairman Rep. Ben Ray Lujan. “[Added March 13, 2017]Bill Moyers “Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News reports US intelligence officials are seeking to determine whether Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page had opened up private communications with senior Russian officials, including talks about the possibility of lifting economic sanctions if Trump became president.” [Added April 17, 2017]Bill Moyers
mail1.trump-email.com was deleted from the Listrak email marketing company server located in Lititz, Pennsylvania.
September 25, 2016: “In a CNN interview, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway denies that Page is affiliated with the Trump campaign. “He’s certainly not part of the campaign that I’m running,” she said. In response to a question about Page’s possible connections to Russian officials, Conway says, “If he’s doing that, he’s certainly not doing it with the permission or knowledge of the campaign,” She adds, “He is certainly not authorized to do that.” Mother Jones “Kellyanne Conway says Page is not part of the campaign team during an interview with CNN”. NBC“Carter Page writes to FBI Director James Comey that in 2016 he “had not met with any sanctioned official in Russia….” [Added April 17, 2017]Bill Moyers
September 26, 2016: “Carter Page takes a leave from the campaign.- During the first presidential debate, Clinton brings up the allegations that Russia orchestrated the DNC hack. Trump responds: “I don’t think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC. She’s saying Russia, Russia, Russia. I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, okay?” Mother Jones
“Then on September 26, 2016, the Twitter tracking links start looking like the links in Trump’s Facebook ads. Sprinklr & RNC were around before this date — they appear in Trump FB ad links since the RNC in July. Why did they wait to bring in the RNC & Sprinklr? What happened?” @emlas
September 28, 2016: FBI Director Comey appears before the House Judiciary Committee and refuses to answer questions about whether the bureau is investigating connections between members of the Trump campaign and Russia. “We do not confirm or deny investigations,” Comey says. [Added April 24, 2017]Bill Moyers
September 29, 2016: “The text messages also show that Credico expressed concern about being identified as Stone’s link to WikiLeaks.
“You are not going to drag my name into this are you,” he wrote on Sept. 29, 2016.Daily Caller
September 30, 2016:Flynn Intel Group files Lobbying Registration for Robert Kelley, 2006 Chief Counsel to House Subcommittee on National Security and Committee on Government Reform retroactive to 9/15/16. RegistrationWikileaks server address located in Moscow modified. Patribotics
“The Russian news agency Interfax publishes an interview with Papadopoulosin which he expresses critical views toward U.S. sanctions against Russia.” USA Today
October 2016
October: “Russian government think tank RISS drafts and circulates a document among top Russian officials warning that Hillary Clinton is likely to win the US presidential election. According to Reuters, the memo advises the Kremlin to revise its strategy for influencing the election: Instead of focusing on pro-Trump propaganda, it should instead seek to undermine Clinton’s reputation and the legitimacy of the US electoral system by stoking fears about voter fraud.”Mother Jones October 2016: RISS (Russian Inst. Strategic Studies) release second paper and “warned that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was likely to win the election. For that reason, it argued, it was better for Russia to end its pro-Trump propaganda and instead intensify its messaging about voter fraud to undermine the U.S. electoral system’s legitimacy and damage Clinton’s reputation in an effort to undermine her presidency, the seven officials said.” Reuters
October 1, 2016: “Six days before WikiLeaks releases emails that Russian hackers had acquired from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s email account, Trump’s informal adviser and surrogate Roger Stone tweets,” Bill Moyers “Wednesday@HillaryClinton is done. #Wikileaks.” Wednesday@HillaryClinton is done. #Wikileaks.— Roger Stone (@RogerJStoneJr)
“[B]ig news Wednesday,” “Now pretend u don’t know me.”
“Hillary’s campaign will die this week,” he wrote later. Daily Caller
October 2, 2016“Papadopoulos sent The Professor a private Facebook message with a link to an article from Interfax.” USA Today
October 2. 2016: “October 2, 2016 (Sunday): Stone says on Alex Jones’ show: “An intermediary met with him [Assange] in London recently who is a friend of mine and a friend of his, a believer in freedom. I am assured that the mother lode is coming Wednesday. It wouldn’t be an October surprise if I told you what it was but I have reason to believe that it is devastating because people with political judgment who are aware of the subject matter tell me this.” Just Security
October 2, 2016 (Sunday): Stone tweets: “Wednesday @HillaryClinton is done. #Wikileaks.”” Just Security
October 3, 2016: [Randy] “Credico appeared to refer to Kunstler again in a text message sent to Stone on Oct. 3, 2016, just days before WikiLeaks released Podesta’s emails.
“I’m best friends with [Assange’s] lawyer and leave it at that and leave it alone,” he wrote.
Credico has long known Kunstler, who was married to the late William Kunstler, an activist lawyer known for representing the Black Panthers and terrorist group the Weather Underground.” Daily Caller
“Stone tweets: “I have total confidence that @wikileaks and my hero Julian Assangewill educate the American people soon #LockHerUp.” NBC
“WikiLeaks wrote again. “Hiya, it’d be great if you guys could comment on/push this story,” WikiLeaks suggested, attaching a quote from then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton about wanting to “just drone” WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange.
“Already did that earlier today,” Trump Jr. responded an hour-and-a-half later. “It’s amazing what she can get away with.”
Two minutes later, Trump Jr. wrote again, asking, “What’s behind this Wednesday leak I keep reading about?”The Atlantic
October 4, 2016: Trump tweets: “CLINTON’S CLOSE TIES TO PUTIN DESERVE SCRUTINY.”Guccifer 2.0 posts documents hacked from the Clinton Foundation. [Added March 13, 2017]Bill Moyers
Paul Erickson wrote: “Unrelated to specific presidential campaigns, I’ve been involved in securing a VERY private line of communication between the Kremlin and key POLITICAL PARTY I leaders through, of all conduits, the [NRA].” Washington Post
October 5, 2016 (Wednesday): Stone tweets: “Libs thinking Assange will stand down are wishful thinking. Payload coming #Lockthemup” Just Security
“Over Twitter, Butina allegedly messages Torshin, who is being treated in a hospital: “We made our bet. I am following our game. I will be connecting the people from the prayer breakfast to this group. . . . Yesterday’s dinner showed that American society is broken in relation to Russia. This is now the dividing line of opinions, the crucial one in the election race. [The Republicans] are for us, [Democrats] — against- 50/50. Our move here is very important.” (The complaint obscures the identity of the parties.)
They also allegedly discussed whether or not Butina should serve as an election observer, but decide against it. “Right now everything has to be quiet and careful,” Butina writes. Torshin had served in that capacity in 2012, according to Mother Jones.” Washington Post
October 7, 2016:Hurricane Matthew, Wikileaks Podesta email dump, US Intelligence Agencies Warn the Public, The “Grab ’em by the Pussy” Access Hollywood Tape released and stole focus“US intelligence agencies issue a joint release saying they are “confident” the Russian government interfered in the US election, in part by directing the leaking of hacked emails belonging to political institutions like the DNC. This is the first official government confirmation that Russia orchestrated the hacking and leaks during the election. -Late on Friday afternoon, a leaked video of Trump boasting of groping and kissing women without their consent is published by the Washington Post. Half an hourlater, WikiLeaks begins to release several thousand hacked emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.”Mother Jones NBC “In a joint statement, the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence says, “The US Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of emails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations… We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.” But two other stories dominate the news cycle: WikiLeaks begins publishing stolen emails from the account of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, and Trump’s infamous Access Hollywood tapes become public.”Bill Moyers
“[Note: The Washington Post may have given the Trump team some advance warning by seeking comment before publishing. The Post’s story states that the paper sought comment from NBC beforehand.]”Just Security
October 9, 2016:Trump brings 4 women who accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault to debate. The Daily Beast“During the second presidential debate, Clinton accuses Trump of benefiting from Russian hacking and other interference in the election. Trump responds, “I don’t know Putin. I think it would be great if we got along with Russia because we could fight ISIS together, as an example. But I don’t know Putin.”
Referring to Trump campaign staffers Russia’s deputy foreign minister, said the day after the election: “A number of them maintained contacts with Russian representatives. There were contacts. We continue to do this and have been doing this work during the election campaign.” Mother Jones
October 11, 2016:“The Obama White House promises a “proportional” response following the US intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia was responsible for hacking the DNC and other groups.” Mother Jones
October 12, 2016: “Sources briefed on the FBI examination of Russian hacking say the agency suspects that Russian intelligence agencies are behind the hacking of the emails of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and a Florida election systems vendor. – Roger Stone says he has “back-channel communications” with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, through a mutual friend.” Mother Jones NBC News
“but on October 12, 2016, the account again messaged Trump Jr. “Hey Donald, great to see you and your dad talking about our publications,” WikiLeaks wrote.
“Strongly suggest your dad tweets this link if he mentions us,” WikiLeaks went on, pointing Trump Jr. to the link wlsearch.tk, which it said would help Trump’s followers dig through the trove of stolen documents and find stories. “There’s many great stories the press are missing and we’re sure some of your follows [sic] will find it,” WikiLeaks went on. “Btw we just released Podesta Emails Part 4.”
Trump Jr. did not respond to this message. But just 15 minutes after it was sent, as The Wall Street Journal’s Byron Tau pointed out, Donald Trump himself tweeted, “Very little pick-up by the dishonest media of incredible information provided by WikiLeaks. So dishonest! Rigged system!””The Atlantic
The Daily caller reports, “Stone told TheDC that the release was actually delayed by Assange. ‘I was led to believe that there would be a major release on a previous Wednesday,’ Stone said.” Just Security
“[Note-1: Examining this part of the Daily Caller’s interview with Stone, former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti explains, “Stone has effectively admitted in an interview that his statements in October saying something significant was about to drop were, indeed, references to the Podesta emails.”]”Just Security
“[Note-2: As Mariotti also mentions, Stone has repeatedly said that he had “no advance notice about the hacking of Mr. Podesta.” Stone uses essentially that exact same phrase each time (Stone’s blog, Breitbart interview, Reddit Ask Me Anything, local Florida television). What Stone does not say is whether he had no advance notice about the release of Podesta’s hacked emails.]”Just Security
October 14, 2016: “Two days later, on October 14, 2016, Trump Jr. tweeted out the link WikiLeaks had provided him. “For those who have the time to read about all the corruption and hypocrisy all the @wikileaks emails are right here: http://wlsearch.tk/,” he wrote.”The Atlantic
October 16, 2016: “Stone tells NBC News, “I have a back-channel communications with WikiLeaks.” NBC
October 17, 2016: “Butina allegedly asks Torshin if he has recommendations for the prayer breakfast seats.” Washington Post
October , 2016: “Kislyak denied that Russia was meddling in the election during an address to the Detroit Economic Club less than two weeks before the Nov. 8 election.” Washington Post
October 19, 2016: “During the final presidential debate, Trump casts doubt on the US intelligence community’s conclusion that the Russian government interfered in the election. He also denies having ever met or spoken to Putin, despite his previous statements to the contrary. “I never met Putin,” Trump says. ” I have nothing to do with Putin. I’ve never spoken to him.”Mother Jones NBC News “Trump dismisses the Oct. 7 US intelligence findings: “[Clinton] has no idea whether it is Russia, China or anybody else… Our country has no idea.”Bill Moyers
October 21, 2017Carter Page FISA warrant renewal
October 28, 2016: “In a letter to key leaders in the House and Senate, FBI Director Comey says that in connection with the bureau’s closed investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server, it was reviewing emails on a computer belonging to Clinton adviser Huma Abedin. Comey says nothing about the ongoing FBI investigation into connections between the Trump campaign and Russia. “[Added April 24, 2017]Bill Moyers “At a rally in New Hampshire, Trump said, “Hillary Clinton’s corruption is on a scale we have never seen before.” And the Republican National Committee added that the FBI’s decision to reopen the investigation ahead of the election “shows how serious this discovery must be.” No information was revealed about the content of the newly uncovered emails, but by the end of the day, sources had confirmed to NPR the emails were found through an unrelated criminal investigation of Anthony Weiner.”NPR
October 30, 2016:Sen. Minority Leader Harry Reid wrote the FBI requesting public disclosure. Questions of whether Comey violated the Hatch Act. CNN“According to reporting by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, the $100 million plane belonging to the Russian oligarch [Dmitri Rybolovlev, the “King of Fertilizer”],who had bought a [Palm Beach] Florida residence from Trump for $95 [$100] million in 2008 was in Las Vegas on the same day Trump was holding a rally there. “[Added March 6, 2017]Bill Moyers “Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) sends a letter to FBI Director James Comey calling on him to release what Reid calls “explosive” information about Trump’s Russia ties. “In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government,” Reid writes. “The public has a right to know this information.” Mother Jones “The FBI obtains the search warrant necessary to examine the newly found emails. At this point, there’s still no confirmation on whether or not the emails contained any new information or even whether they were sent or received by Clinton. During this time, the assistant attorney general wrote a letter to Democratic senators assuring them that the Justice Department was dedicating “all necessary resources” to go through the emails as quickly as possible. These stories illustrate the vague daily news dribble, spurred by Comey’s announcement, that helped get the words “Clinton” and “email” back into headlines, just a week before voters went to the polls.” NPR
October 31, 2016: Mother Jones reports that a veteran of a Western intelligence service (Christopher Steele) has given the FBI memos saying that Russia had mounted a yearslong operation to co-opt or cultivate Trump and that the Kremlin had gathered compromising information on Trump during his visits to Moscow that could be used for blackmail. The story notes that the FBI has requested more information from this source.“Asked about news reports that the FBI was investigating connections between the Trump campaign and Russia, former campaign manager Manafort says, “None of it is true… There’s no investigation going on by the FBI that I’m aware of.” [Added March 6, 2017]Bill Moyers
