June 16 — Trump announces that he is running for president.
July — The Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, which is responsible for intelligence collection for the Russian military, gains access to the Democratic National Committee computer network and maintains that access until at least June 2016, when the hacking plot was publicly disclosed. (This is according to a report issued Jan. 6, 2017, by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.)
Oct. 13 – Felix Sater, a Trump business associate, sends an email to Michael Cohen, executive vice president of the Trump Organization, about a proposal to build a Trump-branded residential and commercial building in Moscow. Sater’s email includes a letter of intent signed by Andrey Rozov, owner of I.C. Expert Investment Co., of Moscow, to build “Trump World Tower Moscow.” Sater, an American citizen who was born in Russia, tells Cohen to have Trump sign the agreement and send it back. The agreement would have given the Trump Organization “a $4 million upfront fee, no upfront costs, a percentage of the sales, and control over marketing and design.” Sater writes, “Lets make this happen and build a Trump Moscow. And possibly fix relations between the countries by showing everyone that commerce & business are much better and more practical than politics. That should be Putins message as well, and we will help him agree on that message.” (CNN would later obtain a copy of the email and the agreement.)
Oct. 28 – Trump signs a letter of intent with a Moscow-based developer, I.C. Expert Investment Co., to pursue “Trump Tower Moscow” – a licensing project in which Trump would be paid for the use of his name on a building in Moscow. (Cohen would later disclose the project in a statement provided to congressional investigators on Aug. 28, 2017, according to the Washington Post. “The decision to pursue the proposal initially, and later to abandon it were unrelated to the Donald J. Trump for President Campaign,” Cohen told Congress.)
December — Some social media accounts apparently tied to a Russian online propaganda operation start to advocate for Trump’s election. (This is also according to the DNI report issued Jan. 6, 2017. That report attributed its source to “a journalist who is a leading expert on the Internet Research Agency,” a Russian online propaganda operation.)
Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn
Dec. 10 — Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn speaks at RT’s anniversary conference in Moscow. RT is a Russian government-funded TV station once known as Russia Today. Flynn, who would become a foreign policy adviser to Trump during the campaign and national security adviser in the Trump administration, sits next to Putin at the event. In remarks at the event, Flynn is critical of the Obama administration’s foreign policy and supportive of working with Russia to battle ISIS. (It’s later learned that he was paid $45,000 for his appearance, and failed to report the income on his government financial disclosure forms.)
2016
Mid-January — Cohen, chief counsel for the Trump Organization, writes an email to Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary to Russian President Vladimir Putin, seeking the Russian government’s help “regarding the development of a Trump Tower-Moscow project in Moscow City.” (Cohen would later disclose his email to Peskov in a statement to congressional investigators on Aug. 28, 2017, as reported by the Washington Post.)
Feb. 26 — Reuters reports that Flynn “has been informally advising Trump” on foreign policy during the presidential campaign.
March — Russian intelligence services probably begin the cyber operations that resulted in the compromise of the personal email accounts of Democratic Party officials and political figures. (This is according to the Jan. 6, 2017, report issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.)
March 3 — Trump names Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama chairman of the campaign’s National Security Advisory Committee. In a statement, Sessions says that Trump knows “our country needs a clear-eyed foreign policy rooted in the national interest.”
March 21 — At an editorial board meeting with the Washington Post, Trump tells the Washington Post that Carter Page, an American businessman who has worked in Russia and now owns a consulting firm called Global Energy Capital, is a member of his foreign policy team. (Seven months later, the FBI would receive court approval to monitor Page’s communications.)
Trump also names George Papadopoulos as one of his foreign policy advisers. “George Papadopoulos. He’s an oil and energy consultant. Excellent guy,” Trump tells the Post. (Papadopoulos would later plead guilty to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with people that he believed to have substantial Russian ties.)
March 29 — Trump announces that Paul Manafort, a longtime Republican operative, will be his campaign convention manager. Manafort had worked for more than a decade for pro-Russia political organizations and people in Ukraine — including Viktor Yanukovych, the former president of Ukraine and a close ally of Putin.
March 31 — Trump attends a national security meeting that was chaired by Sessions and attended by his foreign policy advisers, including Page and Papadopoulos. At the meeting, Papadopoulos says he has connections in Russia and could help arrange a meeting between Trump and Putin, according to the Justice Department.
May — Prior to the National Rifle Association annual convention in Louisville, Kentucky, a Trump campaign official receives a series of emails from a U.S. businessman discussing Russia’s interest in Trump’s candidacy. The emails discuss the possibility of setting up a “back channel” between the campaign and Russia and arranging a meeting at the NRA convention between Alexander Torshin, deputy governor of Russia’s central bank, and a top campaign official. One email says that Torshin wants to discuss “an offer he [Torshin] claims be carrying from President Putin to meet with DJT.” (The emails would later be disclosed in a House intelligence committee report written by the Republican staff on the Russia investigation.)
May 20 — Trump gives a speech at the NRA convention in Kentucky. Torshin also attends the convention and meets with Donald Trump Jr. (Alan Futerfas, lawyer for Donald Trump Jr., would later confirm that Donald Trump Jr. was introduced to Torshin at the convention and spoke with him. “They made small talk for a few minutes and went back to their separate meals. That is the extent of their communication or contact,” Futerfas told NBC News in a Nov. 18, 2017 story. Donald Trump Jr. told the House intelligence committee that he spoke to Torshin about “stuff as it related to shooting and hunting,” and the Republican staff report said no other witnesses interviewed by the committee “provided a contrary recollection.”)
April — The Internet Research Agency, a Russian online propaganda operation, begins to “produce, purchase, and post advertisements on U.S. social media and other online sites expressly advocating for the election of then-candidate Trump or expressly opposing Clinton.” (This is from the Feb. 16, 2018, indictment of the Internet Research Agency and 13 Russian nationals. The advertising continued through November 2016.)
April 26 — Papadopoulos meets with a man later identified as Joseph Mifsud in London. Papadopoulos would later tell federal prosecutors that Mifsud told him that the Russian government had “dirt” on Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails.” (The meeting would be disclosed later in a plea agreement between Papadopoulos and the Justice Department. Mifsud denied the allegation. In a statement stipulating the facts of the plea agreement, the Justice Department said that after the London meeting Papadopoulos “continued to correspond with Campaign officials” and Russian intermediaries “in an effort to arrange a meeting between the Campaign and the Russian government.”)
April 27 – Trump delivers a foreign policy speech at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. Sergey Kislyak, Russian ambassador to the United States, attends the event. Trump vows to improve relations with Russia by finding shared interests, such as combating terrorism. “I believe an easing of tensions and improved relations with Russia — from a position of strength only — is possible, absolutely possible,” Trump says. (Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, would later tell congressional investigators on July 24, 2017, that he spoke briefly to Kislyak and three other foreign ambassadors at the event. “[W]e shook hands, exchanged brief pleasantries and I thanked them for attending the event and said I hoped they would like candidate Trump’s speech and his ideas for a fresh approach to America’s foreign policy,” Kushner says. “Each exchange lasted less than a minute; some gave me their business cards and invited me to lunch at their embassies. I never took them up on any of these invitations and that was the extent of the interactions.”)
May 21 — Papadopoulos emails Manafort: “Russia has been eager to meet Mr. Trump for quite sometime and have been reaching out to me to discuss.” (The Post, which reported the email exchange in an Aug. 14, 2017, story, reported that Manafort forwarded the email to his deputy, Rick Gates, with a note saying, “We need someone to communicate that DT is not doing these trips.”)
June — The Internet Research Agency begins to organize political rallies in the U.S. (This is from the Feb. 16, 2018, indictment of the Internet Research Agency and 13 Russian nationals. The indictment provides examples of pro-Trump and/or anti-Clinton rallies during the campaign, including in Florida, Pennsylvania and New York. At “Florida Goes Trump” rallies in August, the Russians paid “one U.S. person to build a cage on a flatbed truck and another U.S. person to wear a costume portraying Clinton in a prison uniform,” the indictment says.)
June 3 – Donald Trump Jr., Trump’s eldest son, receives an email about information that could be damaging to the Clinton campaign that was purportedly “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” The email from music publicist Rob Goldstone says that Russian pop star Emin Agalarov reached out to him on behalf of his father, Aras Agalarov, a Russian real estate developer who has ties to Donald Trump Sr., including his 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. “Emin just called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting,” Goldstone wrote. “The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father. This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump — helped along by Aras and Emin.” Goldstone asks if Donald Trump Jr. would speak to Emin. The younger Trump responds, saying, “[I]f it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”
June 7 – Goldstone again emails Donald Trump Jr., saying: “Emin asked that I schedule a meeting with you and The Russian government attorney who is flying over from Moscow for this Thursday.”
Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager
June 9 – Donald Trump Jr., Manafort and Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Sr.’s son-in-law, meet with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower. The New York Times, which on July 8, 2017, broke the story of the meeting, said Veselnitskaya “has connections to the Kremlin.” (See the entry for July 8, 2017, for Donald Trump Jr.’s response to the story.) Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-American lobbyist, Ike Kaveladze, a vice president of a Russian real estate company, and Anatoli Samochornov, a translator and a former State Department contractor, also attend the meeting. (Kushner would later issue a statement to congressional investigators on July 24, 2017, about the meeting that says: “No part of the meeting I attended included anything about the campaign, there was no follow up to the meeting that I am aware of, I do not recall how many people were there (or their names), and I have no knowledge of any documents being offered or accepted.”)
June 14 — The Washington Post reports that hackers had gained access to DNC servers. It is the first public disclosure of the security breach.
June 15 — CrowdStrike, a computer security firm hired by the DNC to investigate the hacking, says that Russia is behind the cyberattack. In a blog post on its website, CrowdStrike co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch says that the company “immediately identified two sophisticated adversaries on the network – COZY BEAR and FANCY BEAR.” He writes that “both adversaries engage in extensive political and economic espionage for the benefit of the government of the Russian Federation and are believed to be closely linked to the Russian government’s powerful and highly capable intelligence services.”
Guccifer 2.0 takes credit in a blog post for hacking the DNC computers and releases a few documents, including the Democratic Party’s 200-page opposition research report on Donald Trump. “The main part of the papers, thousands of files and mails, I gave to Wikileaks. They will publish them soon,” Guccifer 2.0 says in its blog post. (U.S. intelligence would later identify Guccifer 2.0 as the “persona” used by Russian military intelligence to release hacked emails to media outlets and WikiLeaks.)
Trump releases a statement that says: “We believe it was the DNC that did the ‘hacking’ as a way to distract from the many issues facing their deeply flawed candidate and failed party leader.”
June 20 — Manafort becomes the Trump campaign manager. He replaces Corey Lewandowski, who was fired.
Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer, files his first of 16 memos on Trump’s connections to Russia. Fusion GPS, a research firm founded by former Wall Street Journal reporters Glenn R. Simpson and Peter Fritsch, hired Steele as part of an opposition research project paid for by a law firm representing Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
July 7 — Manafort offers to give “private briefings” to Russian aluminum billionaire Oleg Deripaska regarding the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. (The Washington Post disclosed the offer in a Sept. 20, 2017, story. The Post said there was no evidence that any briefings took place, and Manafort’s attorney said his client was offering a “routine” status update on the campaign.)
July 8 – Page, a Trump foreign policy adviser, visits Moscow and speaks at the commencement ceremony of the New Economic School. Prior to his trip, Page informed Sessions and some members of the campaign’s national security team about his Moscow visit. In his speech, Page is critical of U.S. policy toward Russia. (The Washington Post would later report on Sept. 26, 2016, that Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich also spoke at the graduation. Page told the Post that the two men only exchanged pleasantries at the event. The New York Times reported on Nov. 2, 2017, that Page said he met with two Russian government officials during his visit. “I had a very brief hello to a couple of people. That was it,” Page told the Times.)
July 15 — Flynn sends an email that says, “There are a number of things happening (and will happen) this election via cyber operations (by both hacktivists, nation states and the DNC).” The name of the recipient is not known. (Flynn’s email was contained on Page 72 of a redacted report issued by the Republicans on the House intelligence committee.)
July 20 – Sessions delivers a speech at “Global Partners in Diplomacy,” an event held during the Republican National Convention in Cleveland and sponsored by the State Department, Heritage Foundation and others. After the event, Sessions had what he would later describe as a “brief encounter” with Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the U.S. The event was attended by somewhere between 50 ambassadors, according to the Washington Post, and 100 ambassadors, according to Heritage. (Sessions acknowledged when he recused himself from the Russian investigation in March 2017 that he spoke twice with Kislyak, including at this event.)
July 22 — WikiLeaks releases nearly 20,000 DNC emails. It would eventually release more than 44,000 emails and 17,000 attachments, WikiLeaks says on its website.
July 25 – The FBI confirms it has opened an investigation into the hacking of the DNC computer network. “The FBI is investigating a cyber intrusion involving the DNC and are working to determine the nature and scope of the matter. A compromise of this nature is something we take very seriously, and the FBI will continue to investigate and hold accountable those who pose a threat in cyberspace,” it says in a release.
(A report by the Republican-controlled House intelligence committee would later say that the FBI in late July began investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the election and whether Trump campaign associates were involved in those efforts “following the receipt of derogatory information about foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos.”)
