RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE IN 2016 US ELECTION & SPIN-OFF INVESTIGATIONS

[HairOfTheDog]

January 6, 2017

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence releases its report “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections." Then FBI Director James Comey said that he met with the president-elect that same day at Trump Tower in New York, a meeting that Comey would later testify was tense and made him so uncomfortable that he immediately created a written record of it.

January 10, 2017

BuzzFeed publishes a document prepared by Christopher Steele, a former British spy who compiled a dossier on Donald Trump and his alleged ties to the Russian government. The dossier alleges that Russian operatives obtained potentially compromising personal and financial information about Trump. Moscow has denied having any "compromising materials" on Trump, who dismissed the reports.

January 11, 2017

Trump says in a news conference that while Russia was most likely behind the DNC election-year hack, “we also get hacked by other countries and other people.”

January 12, 2017

The Washington Post first reports that Michael Flynn and Russian Ambassador Kislyak had secretly spoken on Dec. 29.

January 13, 2017

Trump press aide Sean Spicer acknowledges one call between Flynn and Kislyak, but ge says it was for “logistical information.”

January 15, 2017

On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Vice President-Elect Pence discusses the calls between Flynn and the Russian ambassador, saying it was "strictly coincidental that they had a conversation."

[HairOfTheDog]

January 19, 2017

The New York Times reports that the FBI is leading an interagency task force probing ties between Russia and three close Trump associates: Roger Stone, Carter Page, and Paul Manafort (pictured below).


January 20, 2017

Trump takes the oath of office, becoming the 45^th President of the United States.

January 22, 2017

Michael Flynn is sworn in as national security adviser, a position that does not require Senate confirmation.

January 24, 2017

Michael Flynn denies to FBI agents in an interview that he discussed U.S. sanctions with Russia before Trump took office, a statement he has since contradicted in a guilty plea to federal charges brought by the special counsel that he lied to the FBI in that interview.

January 26, 2017

Acting Attorney General Sally Yates informs the White House counsel that Flynn lied about the nature of his calls with Kislyak and is vulnerable to blackmail. Trump would later fire Yates in the midst of the controversy over his travel ban.

[HairOfTheDog]

January 27, 2017

Then FBI Director James Comey has testified he had a private dinner with President Trump at the White House.

Comey's written testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee months later described how the president told him at that dinner, "I need loyalty. I expect loyalty." Comey said of the exchange: "I didn’t move, speak or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed."

February 13, 2017

White House adviser Kellyanne Conway tells MSNBC that Trump has “full confidence” in Flynn. Hours later, Flynn resigns, saying he had “inadvertently briefed the Vice President-Elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian ambassador.”

February 14, 2017

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer says Trump asked Flynn to resign because of an “erosion of trust.” That same day is when James Comey, then director of the FBI, testified that President Trump met with him privately and pressed him to drop the investigation of Flynn. “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go," Comey quoted the president as saying. "He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go."

Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee during testimony months later that he was "so stunned by the conversation that I just took it in."

February 15, 2017

The New York Times reports that telephone records and intercepted calls show that "members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election."

[HairOfTheDog]

March 2017

Carter Page “was in a lobby near Lincoln Center in the upper west side of Manhattan" and FBI agents "just walked up to me,” according to his testimony to Congressional investigators. Page said this is when the FBI “first approached” him.

March 16, 2017

Documents released by U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, show Michael Flynn received $33,750 from Russia's state-owned television network for a 2015 speech he made in Moscow.

March 20, 2017

During a public hearing with the House Intelligence Committee, FBI Director James Comey publicly acknowledged that the bureau is investigating whether there was collusion between members of Donald Trump's campaign and Russia. Additionally, Comey dismissed Trump's claims that Trump was wiretapped by the Obama administration.

[HairOfTheDog]

May 9, 2017

President Trump fires FBI Director James Comey.

May 10, 2017

Trump met with top Russian diplomats in the White House, during which he reportedly revealed classified information. According to a later New York Times report, the president also told them that day, "I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off."

May 11, 2017

In an interview with NBC News, Trump called out Comey publicly: "Look he’s a showboat, he’s a grandstander. The FBI has been in turmoil. You know that, I know that. Everybody knows that. You take a look at the FBI a year ago, it was in virtual turmoil – less than a year ago. It hasn’t recovered from that." He also said that the Russia investigation was indeed on his mind when firing Comey.

Trump told NBC's Lester Holt that he said to himself, in making the decision to fire the FBI director: "You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story. It's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won."

May 16, 2017

News breaks that Trump had asked Comey to close the investigation into Michael Flynn, the resigned national security adviser back in February. Comey kept detailed memos of his conversations with Trump, including of a dinner in which the president reportedly said, "I hope you can let this go."

May 17, 2017

The Justice Department taps former FBI director Robert Mueller as special counsel to lead an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Sources tell the New York Times that Trump’s team knew Flynn was under investigation for secretly working as a paid lobbyist for Turkey during the presidential campaign.

May 22, 2017

Flynn tells the Senate Intelligence Committee he will invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in declining to provide the committee documents related to its investigation into collusion between associates of Trump's campaign and the Russian government.

[HairOfTheDog]

June 7, 2017


^ Former FBI director James Comey says President Trump privately requested his loyalty and later urged him to drop the investigation into Flynn in written testimony released ahead of Comey's public questioning by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

July 6, 2016

Carter Page testified that he met with Andrey Baranov, head of investor relations at Rosneft, while in Russia. They watch the Portugal versus Wales soccer match at the Europa cup.

July 8, 2017

The New York Times first reveals the previously undisclosed meeting between Trump Jr., Kushner, Manafort and Veselnitskaya. The Times reported that Trump Jr. told them in a statement the meeting was “primarily about an adoption program. The statement did not address whether the presidential campaign was discussed.”

[HairOfTheDog]

July 9, 2017

The New York Times reports the presidential campaign was a topic of the meeting between Trump Jr. and the Russian lawyer. The article cited five sources who stated Trump Jr. agreed to the meeting on the premise that damaging information on Hillary Clinton would be provided.

Following the article, Trump Jr. confirmed he agreed to the meeting because of the information on Clinton, though the information provided was not useful and the meeting was actually about adoption: “It became clear to me that this was the true agenda all along and that the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting,” Trump Jr. stated.

July 10, 2017

The Washington Post reports the meeting between Trump Jr. and the Russian lawyer was arranged at the request Emin Agalrov by Goldstone. Later that evening, the New York Times reports Goldstone presented the meeting in an email to Trump Jr. promising information on Clinton.

According to the article, Trump Jr. did not indicate he believed Veselnitskaya was connected to the Russian government — something she has denied.

July 11, 2017

After several days of increasingly revealing statements, Donald Trump Jr. posts screenshots of the emails between him and Goldstone on Twitter.

He also includes a statement saying he believed the meeting would be about "Political Opposition Research" and originally wanted to have the meeting over the phone. "To put this in context," Trump Jr. stated, "this occurred before the current Russian fever was in vogue."

[HairOfTheDog]

July 12, 2017

President Trump, aboard Air Force One, tells reporters, "Don is — as many of you know Don — he's a good boy. He's a good kid. And he had a meeting, nothing happened with the meeting." The president said, "I only heard about it two or three days ago," but his understanding was the meeting was arranged to discuss some opposition research and nothing came of it. "Honestly, in a world of politics, most people are going to take that meeting," Trump said.

July 13, 2017

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said he wants Trump Jr. to testify before the committee and would be willing to issue a subpoena to compel his testimony if necessary.

July 14, 2017

NBC News reported that a Russian-American lobbyist who is a veteran of the Russian military also attended the Trump Tower meeting involving the Russian lawyer, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort. The lobbyist, Rinat Akhmetshin, confirmed to The Washington Post that he had been in the room, and said he had been invited to the meeting by Veselnitskaya.

[HairOfTheDog]

August 4, 2017

The New York Times reports Mueller asked the White House for documents related to Michael Flynn. The Times reported investigators questioned witnesses as to whether the Turkish government made secret payments to Flynn during the 2016 campaign.

August 5, 2017

Russia’s former ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, denies he discussed secrets or sanctions with Flynn. The comments were made during an interview on Russian television.

October 30, 2017


Manafort, Gates, Papadopoulos

Paul Manafort, a former campaign manager to President Donald Trump, and business associate Rick Gates were indicted by a federal grand jury on 12 counts including conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money and violating federal lobbying and banking laws.

News reports that former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos struck a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, secretly pleading guilty three weeks ago to lying to federal agents about his contacts with Kremlin-connected Russians.

[HairOfTheDog]

November 10, 2017

The Wall Street Journal reports Mueller is investigating Flynn and his son Michael Flynn Jr.’s attempts to forcibly remove a Muslim cleric from the United States. The Journal said the two were involved in a plan to deliver Fethullah Gulen to the Turkish government, which views Gulen as an enemy.​

November 23, 2017

News breaks that Flynn's lawyers told President Trump's legal team they can no longer share information about special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. A Trump administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, described the move as routine and that it would not affect the president.


December 1, 2017


Special counsel Robert Mueller charged former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn ^ with lying about his conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Flynn pleaded guilty.

The court filing, which was made public Dec. 1, states Flynn “did willfully and knowingly make materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statements” to FBI agents during a Jan. 24 interview.
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Time line source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017...914959001/

[HairOfTheDog]

In response to news of Flynn's guilty plea and agreement to cooperate with Mueller's investigation, President Trump tweeted:
------------------------------
@realDonaldTrump

I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!
9:14 AM - Dec 2, 2017
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The official story when Flynn resigned was that he was pushed out for lying to VP Mike Pence about not discussing sanctions with Russians prior to Trump taking office.

Pence told tv interviewers what Flynn told him, thus repeating the lie to the public.

After Flynn's ouster, Trump called Flynn a great guy and said he thought Flynn got a bad deal from the press.

Now, Trump's tweet claims he knew that Flynn also lied to the FBI. If he knew, why didn't tell the FBI? That's the question.

The answer today comes from one of Trump's lawyers.

[HairOfTheDog]

The apparent admission by the president -- that he knew Flynn had lied to the FBI at the time of his firing -- seems to add a potentially explosive new dimension to the ongoing special counsel investigation.

If true, why then would Trump ask the FBI director to go easy on Flynn, as former FBI Director James Comey later testified? The message set off renewed talk of potential evidence of obstruction of justice.

So today, Trump's personal lawyer John Dowd is claiming that he wrote the "sloppy" tweet sent out by President Trump yesterday. It's very hard for me to believe a lawyer would be behind writing such a post.

It's unclear who actually tweeted out the message; it is unlikely Dowd has direct access to the president's official Twitter account and could have tweeted without his knowledge or involvement, sources said.

Story: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-lawye...ed-to-fbi/

[Duchess]

Super duper fantastic thread!

Looking forward to indictments with Jared & Don Jr.'s name on 'em!

[BigMark]

[Duchess]

The only people talking about Hillary is you and people like you. You can't quit her either.

[BigMark]

Your tears are delicious.

[Duchess]

Riiiight.

You do the very same thing other trump fans do, you pull Hillary out of your ass when you don't have anything else to say.

[HairOfTheDog]

Your tears are delicious.

That's not anybody else's tears your tongue is relishing Biggie. It's your own snot.

Some of us can follow facts and sequences of events without crying or deflecting and have done so for years.

That includes investigations into Hillary Clinton's private server, Anthony Weiner's sexting, Dennis Hastert's pedophilia, Trump's campaign interactions, and countless cases of misusing campaign finances for personal gain (on both sides of the aisle).

[Duchess]

That's not anybody else's tears your tongue is relishing Biggie. It's your own snot.

[HairOfTheDog]

Leaked emails show Flynn's right-hand woman, ^ KT McFarland, discussing Obama's Russia sanctions hours after they were announced.

McFarland said that the December 29 declaration was designed to get the incoming president to make rash tweet.

'If there is a tit-for-tat escalation Trump will have difficulty improving relations with Russia, which has just thrown USA election to him,' she wrote.

The White House lawyer dealing with the Russia probe said she was talking about how the election was portrayed by the Dems.

The email was also sent to Flynn, Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer and Steve Bannon; that day Flynn called a Russian ambassador.

The White House said Flynn had a mandate to call ambassador despite the Logan Act, and that Flynn's lies to the FBI were the only illegal act.

Story:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/02/us/ru....html?_r=0
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...-call.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/emails-kt...nn-2017-12
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McFarland's statement looks incriminating on the surface. I'm betting Mueller and the congressional investigators will want to speak with her soon.

As for Flynn...............the problem for the administration, in my opinion, is the obvious question, "why lie to the FBI if you aren't covering something up?" It's not like Mike Flynn is ignorant when it comes to national security protocols and laws.