Watergate pales really in my view compared to what we’re confronting now. I am very concerned about the assault on our institutions coming from both an external source—read Russia—and an internal source, the president himself.
—James Clapper, former director of National Intelligence
Understand the known evidence of Trump-Russia collusion and add to it as more comes to light.
A deep conviction that this president must be impeached.
Here is a timeline consisting of basic facts that we know about Trump’s campaign and Russia. Keep in mind this is the tip of the iceberg.
After several bankruptcies in the 1990s, American banks stopped loaning Trump money. He was bailed out by loans from Russian financiers with ties to Putin. In 2008, Don Jr. told investors that “a disproportionate percentage” of the Trump Organization’s money comes from Russia. Breaking with decades of tradition, Trump was the first presidential candidate to refuse to release his tax returns. The Steele Dossier alleges that Putin had been “cultivating” Trump for years and the Kremlin has a kompromat videotape of Donald Trump paying Moscow prostitutes to pee on a bed.
March 2016: Papadopoulos traveled to meet with a Russian who had promised dirt on Clinton in the form of e-mails. Papadopoulos later pled guilty to lying to the FBI about that conversation. Papadopoulos told Trump at a face-to-face meeting that he was an intermediary working to establish a Trump-Putin back channel. Trump expressed interest. In May 2016 Papadopoulos drunkenly bragged to an Australian diplomat that Russia had acquired political dirt on Clinton.
March 2016: Russia gained access to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s e-mails which they “weaponized” by releasing to WikiLeaks. The CIA, NSA, and FBI agree this was part of a coordinated effort by Russia to help Trump win the election. Russia also targeted the voting databases of twenty-one states, gaining access to voters’ personal information, and targeted American voters with pro-Trump ads on Facebook reaching 126 million people, half the total US voting population.
May 19, 2016: Paul Manafort became Trump’s campaign manager. His previous experience had been working for the Russian-backed ex-president of the Ukraine. Manafort offered Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire close to the Kremlin, “private briefings” on the Trump campaign. Michael Flynn joined the Trump campaign as its first major foreign policy adviser. In 2015, the Russian government paid Flynn $45,000 to attend a Kremlin gala and sit next to Putin.
June 3, 2016: When Don Jr. received an e-mail from the Russians offering illegally obtained dirt on Clinton, he responded “if it’s what you say I love it.” He set up a meeting to obtain the offered information. Trump Jr., Manafort, and Kushner all attended the meeting, which shows how seriously the campaign was taking the offer of Russian help in contaminating the election.
July 7, 2016: Carter Page, a Trump foreign policy adviser with experience working in the Moscow oil industry, flies to Russia for a meeting. At first he claimed this was for an academic meeting, however his story later changed to include meeting with Russian state officials and high-ranking members of Rosneft, the Russian oil company. The Steele Dossier alleges he met with the Rosneft CEO to be offered a slice of the profits from a huge Rosneft sale if Trump lifted sanctions.
Trump changed the language of the Republican Party platform to be pro-Russia: getting rid of language that endorsed providing arms to Ukraine’s government in its fight against being taken over by Russia. When asked about this change, Trump lied and said it never happened. At Trump’s first major foreign policy speech, he invited Russian agent Sergey Kislyak to sit in the front row as he promised Russia “a good deal” on sanctions.
July 18, 2016: Jeff Sessions met with Kislyak and discussed Trump’s campaign and presidential policy issues with the Russian ambassador before the election, multiple times. Sessions later lied about this and other Russian contacts, both verbally and in writing, under oath to Congress. US intelligence officials have described Kislyak as a top Russian spy and a recruiter of spies. This is, as they say, not normal.
July 27, 2016: At the last press conference of his campaign, Trump said on national TV, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the thirty thousand e-mails that are missing.” Trump encouraged a foreign power to meddle in our election, strong evidence that he was aware of the Russian hacking before the e-mails were released.
July 22, 2016: Russian hackers gained access to John Podesta’s e-mails as well as e-mails from the DNC server. These became the centerpiece of an ongoing campaign by Russia to “weaponize” the e-mails, releasing them to WikiLeaks and damaging the Clinton campaign in order to help Trump win the election.
August 19, 2016: Trump’s campaign manager had a long history of pro-Russia ties. Manafort and Trump had known each other since the ’80s. Manafort was indicted for working secretly as a foreign agent and then laundering tens of millions of dollars in order to not pay taxes.
August 21, 2016: Before any of the e-mails Russia had stolen from Clinton’s campaign chair were released, Stone, an informal Trump campaign adviser, tweeted that it “will soon be Podesta’s time in the barrel.”
September 2016: Sessions had a private meeting with Sergey Kislyak in his own office behind closed doors, at the height of what US intelligence officials say was a Russian cyber campaign to hack the US presidential election. He later lied about this conversation under oath during his confirmation hearing to become attorney general.
December 2016: Less than a month after the election, Kushner and Flynn sneak Kislyak into Trump Tower to discuss the creation of a secret backdoor line of communication. Kushner suggested to Kislyak a clandestine back channel between Trump and Russia. Given that America and Russia already have open lines of communication, the only purpose of a back channel would be to avoid monitoring by American intelligence. Kushner and Flynn don’t disclose this meeting with a hostile foreign power, which constitutes espionage.
After President Obama placed sanctions on Russia for the cyber attack on the presidential election, Flynn, with full knowledge of Trump’s transition team, conducted illegal discussions with Russia on lifting sanctions. Flynn made phone calls to the Russians to reassure them that Trump would lift sanctions against Russia. When asked about these conversations by the FBI he lied. When acting attorney general Yates warned Trump that Flynn—his national security adviser—had been compromised by Russia, Trump fired her and kept Flynn on board for eighteen days. Flynn has since pled guilty.
During his senate hearing, Sessions insisted he had no contact with Russian agents; when evidence proved this a lie he recused himself from the ongoing investigation into Russia. Sessions no longer being able to steer the investigation into Russia infuriated Trump.
Ex-mobster and Trump crony Felix Sater and Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen snuck a Kremlin-approved “peace deal” to Flynn. All involved lied about their actions. Days after taking office, Trump revealed a plan to drop all sanctions against Russia despite their unprecedented cyber attack on the American presidential election. Officials were shocked that Trump was going to give the Russians exactly what they wanted.
When it was revealed that Don Jr. was seeking illegally obtained “dirt” in meeting with the Russians, Donald Trump personally dictated the cover story that they were meeting to discuss “the adoption of Russian children.” One does not fabricate a lie except to hide the truth.
Trump invited Comey to a private dinner where he asked the FBI director to pledge his loyalty to Trump personally. Later Trump had a meeting where he asked everyone to leave the room so he could ask James Comey to stop investigating Flynn. When Comey would not cooperate with Trump’s obstruction of justice, Trump fired him. At first he lied about why he did this but soon admitted on national TV that he fired Comey due to “the Russia thing.” He also gloated in a private meeting with Russian agents—where no American press was allowed—that he had fired Comey to stop him from investigating Trump’s connections to Russia.
Any one of these points would be evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Considered together, they paint a damning narrative of active collusion. The odds that George Papadopoulos, Manafort, Flynn, Donald Jr., Jeff Sessions, Roger Stone, Carter Page, and Jared Kushner acted to collude with Russia without informing the person they were advising and working for are nil.
The only picture that explains the known facts is Trump and his administration actively worked with Russia, in collusion, to hack the American election. Trump made a deal to lift American sanctions on Russia in exchange for Russia’s help winning the election. Since becoming president, Trump has lied and obstructed justice to prevent the truth from coming to light.