Trump associates charged with campaign violations

Two Soviet-born American businessmen linked to President Donald Trump and his associates have been indicted in connection with funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars of campaign contributions to Republicans through a shell company.

Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman were arrested as they tried to leave the country. They donated $325,000 through the shell company, Global Energy Producers, to a political action committee (PAC) supporting Trump's re-election campaign, according to the indictment and news reports.

In all, $694,000 was donated to Republicans, the Palm Beach Post reported.

Parnas and Fruman also worked with Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani to persuade Ukrainian officials to investigate the son of former Vice President Joe Biden.

Biden is a potential Democratic challenger to Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

Trump withheld military aid for Ukraine while he pressured the Ukrainian president to cooperate with Giuliani's efforts, leading to the current impeachment inquiry.

Worked to force out U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine

In 2018, Parnas and Fruman met with then-Rep. Pete Sessions, promising to raise at least $20,000 for his re-election campaign, according to the indictment and news reports. Sessions then wrote to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calling for Marie Yovanovitch - the ambassador - to be dismissed.

Parnas and Fruman each later contributed $2,700 - the maximum allowed - to Sessions' campaign.

Yovanovitch had contradicted the Trump administration narrative regarding a Ukrainian prosecutor considered to be to have allowed corruption to take place in Ukraine. The administration recalled Yovanovitch in May,

Unclear whether Parnas and Fruman worked for Giuliani, or other way around.

Giuliani was paid $500,000 last year by a Florida-based company co-founded by Parnas, named Fraud Guarantee. Giuliani said the payment was for business and legal advice. He did not say where the money originally came from.

The charges

Parnas and Fruman were charged with conspiring to make contributions in connection with federal elections in the names of others, and with making false statements and falsifying records to the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

They also were charged - along with Americans David Correia and Andrey Kukushkin - for a scheme to conceal contributions from a Russian businessman to promote a planned medical marijuana business.

Update 2019-Nov-4: Parnas will testify in impeachment inquiry

Parnas is prepared to comply with requests for documents and testimony, his lawyer, Joseph Bondy, told Reuters.

Bondy said Trump is falsely denying his relationship with Parnas.

Numerous photos have emerged of Trump and Giuliani with Parnas and Fruman, including ones taken at the White House and Mar-a-Lago. The earliest known photo of Trump with Parnas dates to 2014.

It's unclear how much information Parnas will provide to the impeachment inquiry, given ongoing criminal charges against him. Bondy said it's possible his client will assert his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

For more, read the Vox story.

Click here to read the indictment.

In 2017 Trump told Russians interference doesn't concern him

Trump told Russian officials in 2017 he wasn't concerned about Moscow's interference in U.S. election.

Whistleblower: Trump is soliciting foreign election interference

A whistleblower's complaint that President Donald Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine has been made public.

The complaint, which was declassified and released with few redactions, states that Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani is a "central figure in this effort," and that Attorney General William Barr "appears to be involved as well."

"I am deeply concerned that the actions described below constitute 'a serious or flagrant problem, abuse, or violation of law or Executive Order,' the whistleblower wrote, quoting the federal law that protects whistleblowers from retaliation.

"I am also concerned that these actions pose risks to U.S. national security and undermine the U.S. government's efforts to deter and counter foreign interference in U.S. elections."

Evidence cited by the whistleblower includes:

The whistleblower was not a direct witness to most of the events, but heard about them from more than half a dozen U.S. officials. The Inspector General of the intelligence community found the complaint an "urgent concern" that "appears credible."

The allegations also line up with events that were not publicly known at the time, but subsequently have been verified.

Click here to read the whistleblower's declassified complaint.
Click here to read Inspector General Michael Atkinson's letter about the complaint.

Trump pressured Ukranian president to investigate Biden

President Donald Trump in July repeatedly pressed the president of Ukraine to investigate former vice president Joe Biden and his son, according to multiple reports. Biden is a Democratic candidate to challenge Trump for the presidency in 2020.

Trump urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden, who sat on the board of one of Ukraine's largest private gas companies, about eight times during a July 25 phone call, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Ukraine's prosecutor general has said there is no evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens.

Trump has acknowledged discussing Joe Biden in his conversation with Zelensky.

Trump may have conditioned anti-Russia military aid on investigating Bidens

In August, Politico revealed that Trump was holding back $250 million in military aid for Ukraine allocated by Congress. An additional $141 million from the State Department also was part of the U.S. defense aid offered to Ukraine.

The aid was to support the effort to counter Russia's military intervention in Ukraine. Trump also has refused to meet with Zelensky since he was elected in April, overruling other administration officials.

Subjects of investigation include Trump and his attorney

House Democrats have launched an investigation into whether Trump sought to pressure Ukraine into investigating Biden in exchange for receiving U.S. foreign aid.

Trump's push to investigate the Bidens has been supported by his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who planned to visit Ukraine in May to lobby for the probe. Giuliani canceled the trip amid widespread criticism, but has continued his efforts behind the scenes with the help of two Soviet-born Florida-based businessmen, including one linked to a Ukrainian oligarch with reputed mafia ties, according to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

Call may have been revealed by whistleblower

The Trump-Zelensky call reportedly is part of a whistleblower complaint filed by a U.S. intelligence official. Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire has refused to provide the complaint to Congress, despite the 1998 Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act requiring him to do so.

The administration eventually agreed to release the Ukrainian military aid - after the existence of the whistleblower's complaint was revealed and before a Senate Appropriations Committee vote designed to forcibly free up the funds.

Update 2019-Sep-25: The Trump administration has declassified and released a five-page memorandum of Trump's 30-minute call with Zelensky. It is not a verbatim transcript of the call. Instead, it records notes and recollections of Situation Room and National Security Council staff. Click here to read the memorandum.

For more, read this Washington Post story and this New York Times story.

For a timeline of the events surrounding Trump's call to Zelensky, read the Fortune report.

Click here to read a report from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project on Giuliani's attempts to persuade Ukrainian officials to investigate largely debunked claims about Biden and Hillary Clinton.

Stone indictment shows Trump campaign collusion - again

Update 2019-Nov-15: Stone has been found guilty on all counts.
Update 2020-Feb-20: Stone has been sentenced to more than 3 years in prison.

In April 2016, hackers linked to Russian military intelligence stole tens of thousands of emails from the Democratic National Committee. Three months later, WikiLeaks released them.

Shortly after that, a high-ranking official for Donald Trump's presidential campaign "was directed" to contact Roger Stone, Trump's longtime friend and political adviser, to get information from WikiLeaks about any future releases or damaging information about Hillary Clinton's campaign.

All of that is according to a new indictment by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

The charges against Stone

Stone was charged with obstructing investigations, lying to Congress and witness tampering.

From July to October 2016 Stone repeatedly reached out to WikiLeaks using intermediaries, according to the indictment. Those intermediaries are not identified in the indictment, but they have been revealed as right-wing political commentator Jerome Corsi and political satirist Randy Credico.

According to the indictment, Stone lied five times to the House Intelligence Committee, including saying that he didn't discuss his contacts about WikiLeaks with members of the Trump campaign.

"On multiple occasions, Stone told senior Trump Campaign officials about materials possessed by Organization 1 and the timing of future releases," the indictment said, referring to WikiLeaks.

The Russian connections

Stone had contacted Guccifer 2.0 - the hacker who had stolen the emails and provided them to Wikileaks. It now is known that Guccifer 2.0 was a Russian GRU officer.

This is at least the fifth publicly known instance of the Trump campaign seeking assistance from the Kremlin or its associates during the 2016 election, for both political and business reasons.

In all, Trump and his associates had more than 100 contacts with Russian nationals or WikiLeaks during the campaign and transition.

Note: The indictment does not identify the Trump campaign official who was directed to contact Stone. Nor does it identify who issued the direction.

Click here to read the indictment against Stone.

Trump hid details about Putin meetings

President Donald Trump concealed details about his meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin even from his closest advisers, the Washington Post reported.

2017: Hamburg, Germany

In at least one case, at the Hamburg G20 meeting in July 2017, Trump confiscated the notes from his own interpreter, who was ordered not to discuss what was said with other administration officials, the Post reported. Then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson attended the meeting.

On the same trip, though, Trump met a second time with Putin with no American present, relying on the Russian president's interpreter.

The meetings came two months after Trump reportedly disclosed highly classified information to Russian officials in the Oval Office.

2018: Helsinki, Finland

In Helsinki in July 2018, Trump and Putin met for two hours with no aides or cabinet members present. No detailed record of the meeting was provided either to the public or to U.S. officials afterward.

"I'm not in a position to either understand fully or talk about what happened in Helsinki," Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said four days after the meeting.

Aides are vital to national interests

Previous presidents had aides at such meetings to take detailed notes, which were later distributed to other senior officials. The practice prevents misunderstandings - or even deliberate distortions by an adversarial government - and allows the administration to follow up on any agreements.

Under Trump, there is no reliable record of his discussions with Putin, even in classified files, the Post reported. Officials sometimes have been forced to rely on reports by intelligence agencies tracking reaction in the Kremlin.

For more, read the Washington Post story.

Court filing reveals Trump campaign collusion with Russians

President Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort shared campaign data during the 2016 election with a Russian tied to Russian intelligence, according to a new court filing.

Manafort and deputy campaign manager Rick Gates transferred polling data to longtime business associate Konstantin Kilimnik in the spring of 2016 as Trump clinched the Republican presidential nomination, the New York Times reported.

Information from poorly-redacted court document

The new details were revealed in a court filing by Manafort's lawyers, who were responding to prosecution claims that their client lied to special counsel Robert Mueller's office.

They had blacked out the information in order to redact it. They did it in such a way, however, that it could be revealed by simply cutting and pasting the text.

Timeframe overlaps Russian disinformation campaign

Some of the data was developed by a private polling firm working for the Trump campaign. Manafort asked Gates to tell Kilimnik to pass the data on to two Kremlin-supporting Ukrainian oligarchs, the Times reported.

Prosecutors claim Kilimnik has ties to Russia's military intelligence agency, the GRU. They claim he had such ties in 2016.

At the time Manafort and Gates were sharing the data, the GRU and businesses affiliated with the Russian government were engaged in a disinformation campaign to boost Trump and hurt his opponent, Hillary Clinton, prosecutors say.

Motives may have been personal

Manafort may have been trying to curry favor with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who has claimed that Manafort owed him millions of dollars for a failed business venture.

Deripaska, who is close to the Kremlin and associated with Kilimnik, has been accused of having ties to Russian organized crime.

In April 2016, Manafort asked Kilimnik in an email how they could use his prominent position with the Trump campaign to "get whole," apparently referring to Deripaska. In July 2016, Manafort emailed Kilimnik offering "private briefings" on the campaign for Deripaska.

Manafort also discussed a Ukrainian peace plan with Kilimnik during the campaign, according to the new court filing. It's unclear if it's the same pro-Russian plan brokered by Michael Cohen and Felix Sater, and presented to then-national security adviser Michael Flynn in the early days of the Trump administration.

Trump denies any knowledge of Manafort's actions.

"No I didn't know anything about it," Trump said.

For more, read the New York Times story.

Click here to read the unredacted court filing.

Sanctioned countries hiring lobbyists tied to Trump

Targets of U.S. Sanctions Hire Lobbyists With Trump Ties to Seek Relief

Lawyer: Trump offered Putin $50M penthouse in Moscow tower

In the midst of his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump's company planned to give Russian President Vladimir Putin a $50 million penthouse in a proposed Trump Tower in Moscow, Buzzfeed News reported.

The offer was part of the Trump Organization's efforts to reach a deal on the tower. That effort began three decades ago. And it continued deeper into Trump's presidential campaign than Trump or his associates had ever acknowledged.

Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen has now pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about when those negotiations were taking place. Cohen had testified that the project ended in January 2016 - before the Republican primaries had begun. In his plea bargain, he acknowledged they actually continued until June 2016 - after the primaries and around the time Trump formally received the Republican nomination.

Cohen also acknowledged other lies to the Senate and House intelligence committees:

Cohen, who served as Trump's personal attorney from 2007 to 2017, previously pleaded guilty to eight felonies in a separate federal case in New York.

In his Nov. 29 court appearance for this plea deal, he told the judge,

"I was aware of [Trump's] repeated disavowals of commercial and political ties between himself and Russia, his repeated statements that investigations of such ties were politically motivated and without evidence, and that any contact with Russian nationals by [Trump's] campaign or the Trump Organization had all terminated before the Iowa Caucus, which was on February 1 of 2016.

I made these misstatements to be consistent with [Trump's] political messaging and out of loyalty to [Trump]."

Throughout all of it, he had "regular contact" with Trump's legal team, Cohen said.

For more, read the Washington Post story.

Click here to read the plea deal

Click here to read the criminal information

Manafort provided inside info to Trump on Mueller probe

Paul Manafort's lawyer was providing inside information to President Donald Trump's attorneys even after Manafort was convicted and agreed to cooperate with the investigation into the campaign's ties to Russia.

Manafort is Trump's former campaign manager.

The arrangement was reported by the New York Times on Nov. 27 and acknowledged by one of the president's attorneys, Rudy Giuliani. It came the day after Special Counsel Robert Mueller said in a court filing that Manafort had violated his plea agreement by repeatedly lying about several subjects.

Giuliani claimed the arrangement was a way to obtain insights into Mueller's inquiry that could help shape a legal defense strategy, the Times reported.

Some legal experts have said Manafort's actions may mean he trying to obtain a pardon from Trump.

In an interview with the New York Post the day after the arrangement was revealed, Trump said a pardon for Manafort was "not off the table."

For more, read the New York Times story.

Russian charged with interfering in 2018 elections

A Russian woman has been charged in connection with an alleged conspiracy to interfere in the U.S. election system, including this year's midterm elections. This is the first time prosecutors have alleged foreign interference in the 2018 elections.

According to the criminal complaint:

The complaint says the project advocated for or against candidates in 2016 and 2018. It also wrote about topics from "varied and sometimes opposing perspectives." Among them were...

Special Counsel Robert Mueller previously had charged 13 Russians, including Prigozhin, with the same alleged conspiracy regarding the 2016 election.

For more, read the Newsweek story.

Click here to read the Justice Department announcement of the criminal complaint.

Click here to read the criminal complaint against Khusyaynova

Trump adviser Papadopoulos to serve time in Russia probe

A former adviser for Donald Trump's presidential campaign has become the second person sentenced to prison in the investigation of the campaign's role in Russia's interference in the 2016 election.

George Papadopoulos was sentenced to 2 weeks in prison. In October of last year he pleaded guilty to lying to to federal authorities about his contacts with Russian operatives.

Investigators say that Papadopoulos' lies were especially damaging because they were made early in the investigation, and affected who would be interviewed.

The first person sentenced to prison in the inquiry was Alex van der Zwaan, a Dutch lawyer who also pleaded guilty to lying to investigators. Papadopoulos is the first adviser to the Trump campaign to be imprisoned.

For more, read the New York Times story.

Did Putin say he ordered U.S. election interference?

If you watched President Donald Trump's July 16 news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin, you heard Putin being asked if he wanted Trump to win the election and if had directed any of his officials to help Trump win it. And you heard Putin reply "Yes, I did. Yes, I did."

Putin didn't say that

That isn't what you really heard, of course, because you don't speak Russian. But even if you do speak Russian, that still isn't what you heard.

So what did you hear? According to native Russian speakers consulted by The Atlantic, what Putin said was, "Yes, I wanted him to win."

The administration didn't say that

The White House transcript originally omitted the first half of the question, so nowhere in it was Putin asked if he wanted Trump to win.

Also, the transcript only included the incorrect translation of Putin's answer. It omits Putin saying that he wanted Trump to win - even though that's actually what Putin said.

As of this writing, the administration has added the first half of the question back to the official transcript. But the incorrect translation of Putin's reply remains.

Much of the media didn't say that, either

National Public Radio (NPR) has the correct translation, but many other media outlets have failed to update theirs.

The Washington Post's transcript, obtained from Bloomberg Government, was updated to include the full question but not the correct answer.

As of July 25, a week after The Atlantic reported what Putin actually said, cable news hosts continued to erroneously repeat "Yes, I did. Yes, I did." Even Politifact misquoted Putin.

A CBS News article on the "correction" - accepts the administration's incomplete fix as complete.

What did Trump say?

On July 24, Trump told a veterans group not to believe what they're reading or seeing.

Russian with ties to NRA, Kremlin charged as foreign agent

Update 2019-Apr-26: Butina has been sentenced to 18 months in prison. She faces deportation hearings once her sentence is completed.

A Russian woman with deep ties to the National Rifle Association (NRA) has been indicted for her alleged role in a covert Russian influence operation in the United States.

Maria Butina allegedly worked with a high-level Russian official "to develop relationships with American politicians in order to establish private, or as she called them, back channel lines of communication," according to court records.

The pair also established relationships with American political organizations, including a gun-rights organization, according to court records.

The Russian official is not named in court records, but his description matches Alexander Torshin, a Russian banker and former Russian senator with close ties to the Kremlin. Torshin was sanctioned by the U.S. in April. 

Spanish investigators have accused Torshin of laundering money for Russian organized crime figures when he served in the Russian parliament.

The FBI reportedly is investigating whether Torshin illegally funneled money through the NRA to support Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. The NRA donated three times as much to Trump as they did to 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Butina served as Torshin's unpaid special assistant from 2011 to 2017, according to her LinkedIn profile. The pair are lifetime members and active participants of the NRA - both in the U.S. and Russia.

Associations with Trump and other Republican groups

Shortly after Trump announced his candidacy in 2015, Butina asked him about U.S. sanctions on Russia at a conservative event.

Torshin tried twice to meet with Trump during the campaign, and did meet with Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. during a May 2016 NRA event.

Butina and Torshin also attended several events organized by Republican-linked groups, including two National Prayer Breakfasts.

In addition to her relationship with the Russian official, Butina was in contact with suspected Russian intelligence officers and two Russian oligarchs - one of whom is close to Putin - while she was in the United States, according to court records.

Butina's outreach to American political figures dates back years. She contacted an unnamed U.S. political operative in Moscow in 2013 who later arranged introductions to Americans with influence in politics, including the gun-rights group.

She developed a close relationship with longtime Republican Party activist and NRA member Paul Erickson. The two have known each other since 2013 and in February 2016 they formed the company Bridges LLC.

Erickson reportedly offered in May 2016 to set up a back-channel meeting between Trump and Putin through the NRA. Three months later, Butina obtained a student visa to attend American University in Washington, D.C.

After the 2016 election, Butina helped to set up a Russian delegation to the 2017 National Prayer Breakfast, saying in an email that it was an effort to "establish a back channel of communication," according to court records.

Butina also emailed a second unnamed U.S. citizen in 2016 and 2017 as part of her efforts to arrange "friendship and dialogue" dinners between Russians and influential Americans, according to court records. She wrote that a Kremlin representative had expressed approval "for building this communication channel."

After the 2017 National Prayer Breakfast, she thanked the second American in an email, according to the records.

"Our delegation cannot stop chatting about your wonderful dinner," she wrote. "My dearest President has received 'the message' about your group initiatives and your constructive and kind attention to the Russians."

Update 2018-Dec: Butina pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge and admitted she had worked secretly with a Russian government official and an American to infiltrate U.S. conservative groups, including the NRA.

For more, read the Mother Jones timeline of Butina and Torshin's interactions with the NRA.

For more about the Butina indictment, read the New York Times story.

Click to view the following court documents regarding Butina...
Indictment
Criminal Complaint
Affidavit and Background
Request to keep Butina under detention

Trump meets Putin privately under shadow of indictments

Three days after the Department of Justice indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers for meddling in the 2016 election, President Donald Trump stood side-by-side with Russian President Vladimir Putin and said he didn't "see any reason" the Kremlin would have done so.

"My people came to me, [Director of National Intelligence] Dan Coats came to me and some others, they said they think it's Russia," Trump said on July 16 after the two leaders met in Helsinki. "I have President Putin; he just said it's not Russia. I will say this: I don't see any reason why it would be."

Trump went on to say that he holds "both countries responsible" for deteriorating relations.

"I think that the United States has been foolish," he said. "I think we've all been foolish."

Pronouncement comes days after indictments of Russians

Special Counsel Robert Mueller on July 13 indicted a dozen members of Russia's military intelligence agency, the GRU, accusing them of hacking the campaign of Trump's Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the Democratic National Committee.

Mueller previously had indicted 13 Russians and three Russian firms, accusing them of organizing social media campaigns and rallies to support Trump and other Clinton opponents.

Trump's July 16 statement contradicts not only Mueller's findings, but those of...

We don't know what Trump and Putin talked about in private, since only interpreters were present at the one-on-one meeting.

Similar meetings the year before

In July 2017, Trump and Putin had an hour-long discussion that the White House did not disclose. In that meeting, Trump and Putin were alone - with only Putin's interpreter present.

Click here to read the Justice Department indictment of the 12 Russian intelligence officers.

Click here to view all the indictments issued so far by Mueller.

Indictment: American demonstrators duped by Russians

In August 2016, grassroots groups supporting presidential candidate Donald Trump helped coordinate Florida Goes Trump rallies in the sunshine state.

One man was paid up to $1,000 to build a cage on a flatbed truck for the events, to be occupied by an actress in costume depicting Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in a prison uniform. Another shared information about the rallies with contacts on social media.

The individuals and groups were American, but their instructions came from Russia.

These are among the claims in a 37-page indictment released Feb. 16 by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The indictment accuses 13 Russians and three Russian businesses of conspiring to sow discord in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, including operations to support Trump, Clinton's Democratic primary challenger Bernie Sanders, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

What was in the indictment

The Internet Research Agency - one of the companies charged in the indictment - employed hundreds and had a monthly budget of up to $1.25 million (including money spent on projects aimed at a Russian audience). They tracked and studied social media dedicated to U.S. politics and issues starting in 2014.

The project was set up by Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a businessman with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. These close ties - as well as his profession as a caterer - earned him the nickname Putin's chef.

They operated by setting up group pages on social media tackling issues ranging from immigration to Black Lives Matter, garnering hundreds of thousands of followers. It created hundreds of social media accounts, developing fictitious U.S. personas into "leaders of public opinion."

From April through November 2016, the operation bought online ads supporting Trump or opposing Clinton, using the stolen identities of real Americans and virtual private networks to conceal their origin. The ads also accused Clinton of voter fraud and encouraged minorities not to vote.

The operation organized rallies posing as U.S. grassroots activists, soliciting the unwitting support of genuine activists and low-level members of the Trump campaign. The rallies attracted anything from a handful to thousands of people. The Russian operation influenced a host of actions by Americans...

Facebook has deleted 470 accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency, which purchased 3,000 political ads. Up to 126 million people may have seen content posted by the group.

For more, read the New York Times story.

Click here to read the indictment against the 13 Russians and 3 Russian businesses.

Trump 2017 real estate profit mostly from secretive buyers

President Donald Trump's companies sold more than $35 million in real estate in 2017 - most of it to secretive shell companies, USA Today reported.

The use of shell companies in Trump's real estate deals increased dramatically around the time he secured the Republican nomination in mid-2016. In the two years before the nomination, only 4 percent of buyers used shell companies. In the year after, it was 70 percent.

Meanwhile, an investigation by BuzzFeed News found that more than a fifth of Trump condo buyers since the 1980s have used shell companies and paid in cash - two factors that can indicate money laundering.

One Trump project in particular stood out. At the Trump SoHo hotel in New York, more than three out of every four condo sales were to buyers using shell companies who paid cash.

The Trump SoHo deals, first reported by Lobby99 in August, included seven condos sold to Russian buyers. Moscow addresses on four of those deeds were crossed out, and replaced with the address of the buyer's attorney.

Profits from Trump's real estate deals go to a trust run by the president's sons. Trump is the sole beneficiary.

Testimony further debunks Trump dossier narrative

Congressional testimony by the founder of the company hired to investigate President Donald Trump's connections to Russia has further debunked a false narrative attempting to discredit the findings of that investigation.

The testimony of Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson was released this week by Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Trump, along with some Republican members of Congress and conservative media outlets, has been claiming that the FBI investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia was sparked by a "fake" dossier paid for by the campaign of 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

There are three problems with the narrative, however...

Here's a timeline of how the investigation came about:

Late 2015
GCHQ, the British equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency, alerts U.S. intelligence agencies about suspicious contacts between members of the Trump campaign and suspected Russian intelligence operatives. Over the next six months, other western intelligence agencies provide similar information.

2016, May
Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos drunkenly brags to an Australian diplomat that Russia had political dirt on Clinton.

2016, May or June
Fusion GPS hires Steele to explore Trump's connections to Russia.

2016, June 20
Steele issues his first report to Fusion GPS. He will produce 16 more through December 2016.

2016, May or June
Fusion GPS hires Steele to explore Trump's connections to Russia.

2016, Early July
Concerned that he might have uncovered a national security threat and "a crime in progress," Steele shows some of his early findings to an FBI agent. However, the New York Times reported, Steele's information "was not part of the justification to start a counterintelligence inquiry."

2016, July 7
Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page travels to Moscow to speak at the New Economic School. Page, who handed over unclassified documents to a Russian spy in 2013, delivers a speech criticizing the U.S. and other western democracies. The Trump campaign approved the trip, which "caught the attention of U.S. intelligence agencies."

2016, July 22
Wikileaks publishes about 22,000 emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee.

2016, July 25
The Daily Beast reports that the FBI suspects Russian government hackers stole the DNC emails. In response to this revelation, Australian officials tell their U.S. counterparts about Papadopoulos' claim two months earlier.

2016, July 27
Trump appears to call on Russia to hack Hillary Clinton's missing emails.

2016, Late July
The FBI opens a counterterrorism investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia.

2016, Early October
A team of FBI agents interviews Steele about the information he has uncovered.

Click here to read our discussion of the Trump campaign's ties to Russia.

Flynn pleads guilty to lying to FBI, may testify against Trump

Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, and reportedly has agreed to testify against President Donald Trump.

He is the first Trump administration official to be charged with a crime by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Flynn was charged with making false statements to the FBI in January - when he lied about his conversations with then-Russian ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition the previous month.

Flynn also will testify that Trump "directed him to make contact with the Russians," ABC News reported.

In addition, the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner instructed Flynn to contact foreign officials on the United Nations Security Council to influence their vote on Israeli settlements, Bloomberg News reported.

Kushner previously had been co-director of a foundation that funded an Israeli settlement, Newsweek reported. He did not disclose that relationship on financial records he filed with the Office of Government Ethics (OGE).

Trump repeatedly has denied having anything to do with Russia, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In a February press conference, he specifically denied directing Flynn to speak with Kislyak about sanctions.

If Mueller can prove that Trump or Kushner directed Flynn to negotiate with the Russian government before taking office, they could be in violation of the Logan Act, which prohibits private citizens from conducting foreign affairs without the permission of the U.S. government.

Did Trump obstruct justice?

Flynn's testimony also could bolster an obstruction of justice case against the president.

Former FBI director James Comey wrote in a memo that Trump asked him to drop the Flynn investigation in February. After Comey refused to comply, Trump fired him. Trump acknowledged the firing was partly because of "this Russia thing."

Trump called Sen. Chuck Grassley the day after it was announced that the president's son Donald Trump Jr. would testify before Grassley's Senate Judiciary Committee. He pledged his support for one of the senator's key issues.

Trump reportedly was involved in drafting a misleading statement by Donald Jr. about a meeting during the campaign with a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin.

Trump allegedly tried to persuade top Republican senators, including the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to end the Russia investigation, the New York Times reported.

In testimony before the House Intelligence Committee on Nov. 30, Attorney General Jeff Sessions refused to answer whether Trump ever asked him to obstruct the investigation.  

For more on Flynn's possible violation of the Logan Act, read the Washington Post story.

Click here to read the charges against Flynn.

Click here to read the Statement of Offense against Flynn.

Click here to read Flynn's plea agreement.

Campaign aide told Trump about Russian connections

A Trump campaign aide told Donald Trump in March 2016 that he had connections who could help arrange a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

That is according to a plea agreement by the aid, George Papadopoulos, who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. The plea was unsealed Oct. 30.

Papadopoulos learned in April 2016 that the Russian government had "dirt" on Trump's opponent Hillary Clinton from "thousands of emails," according to the agreement.

About a month later, Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian lawyer tied to the Kremlin who promised him damaging information about Clinton. The following month, WikiLeaks released nearly 20,000 emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee by hackers. U.S. intelligence agencies have stated they believe the hackers are connected to the Russian government.

Here's a timeline of how we got here...

2016, March 24
After he had been named foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, Papadopoulos met a London-based professor with ties to the Kremlin and a Russian woman he believed to be Putin's niece (she turned out to not be related to Putin).

After the meeting, Papadopoulos emailed a campaign supervisor and several other foreign policy advisers about the discussion, which he said was "to arrange a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss U.S.-Russia ties under President Trump."

The campaign supervisor replied that he would "work it through the campaign," but that no commitments should be made. He added, "Great work."

The "campaign supervisor" is unnamed in the records, but the Washington Post reports he is Sam Clovis - Trump's national campaign co-chairman who now serves as senior White House adviser to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

2016, March 31
Papadopoulos attended a national security meeting with Trump and other foreign policy advisers. He introduced himself to the group by saying he had connections who could help arrange a meeting between Trump and Putin.

2016, April 26
The Kremlin-linked professor told Papadopoulos that the Russians had "dirt" on Clinton.

Over the next several months, Papadopoulos continued to try to set up a meeting between the campaign and the Russian government, and had multiple conversations with a man in Moscow who said he had connections to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In addition to Clovis, Papadopoulos wrote to campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and campaign chairman Paul Manafort about his efforts, the Washington Post reported.

2016, August
Clovis encouraged Papadopoulos and another foreign policy adviser to take a trip to Russia for meetings, although the trip never happened.

2017, July 27
Papadopoulos was arrested on suspicion of lying to the FBI for claiming his Russian contacts happened before he joined the Trump campaign. He has since been cooperating with investigators. He pleaded guilty Oct. 5.

2017, Oct 30
Papadopoulos' plea agreement was unsealed.

Earlier the same day, indictments against Manafort and associate Rick Gates on charges of money laundering and conspiracy were announced.

For more, read the Washington Post story.

Click here to read the indictment against Papadopoulos.
Click here to read the description of the charge against Papadopoulos.
Click here to read the plea agreement between Papadopoulos and the Department of Justice.

Former Trump campaign aides indicted for Ukraine deals

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and another campaign aide have been indicted on charges including money laundering and conspiracy against the United States.

Both Manafort and his associate - Rick Gates - have pleaded not guilty to the charges, which stem from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and potential collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

The 12-count indictment alleges that Manafort and Gates failed to disclose to the Department of Justice (DOJ) they were acting as agents of a foreign principal when they were paid to lobby for former pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and political parties allied to him. They also are charged with filing false statements with the Justice Department.

The indictment also charges Manafort and Gates with hiding that money - tens of millions of dollars - from the government, laundering it through U.S. and foreign corporations, partnerships and bank accounts.

If convicted on all counts, Manafort and Gates could face decades in prison.

For more, read the New York Times story.

For more about Manafort and his ties to Russia, read the Lobby99 report.

For more about Manafort's involvement with the Trump campaign, read the New York Times story.

Click here to read the indictment against Manafort and Gates.

Trump attorney asked for Kremlin help on deal

Felix Sater told Donald Trump's attorney in 2015 he could arrange a real estate deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin that would help Trump win the presidency.

Two months later, Michael Cohen - Trump's attorney and executive vice president for the Trump Organization - requested Putin's help developing a Trump Tower in Moscow, the Washington Post reported.

Cohen said in a statement to congressional investigators that he asked Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov for help at the recommendation of Sater - a longtime Trump associate who was convicted of assault and racketeering.

Sater also claims to have close relationships with the Russian government, and escorted Trump's children Ivanka and Donald Jr. on a 2006 Moscow trip to scout sites for a potential Trump-branded hotel. In emails to Cohen in late 2015, Sater wrote...

"Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it. I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this, I will manage this process."

"I arranged for Ivanka to sit in Putins private chair at his desk and office in the Kremlin. I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected."

Cohen wrote to Peskov using an email address for general press inquiries. He said in his statement that he did not recall receiving a reply, and that the Moscow project was dropped two weeks later.

Still, five months after that, Trump's son Donald Trump Jr., son-in-law Jared Kushner and campaign chair Paul Manafort met with Russians tied to the Kremlin in hopes of receiving damaging information about Hillary Clinton - his Democratic opponent in the election.

Investigators for Special Counsel Robert Mueller are "keenly focused" on what Trump knew about that meeting and whether he tried to conceal its true purpose, NBC News reported.

For more, read the Lobby99 summary of Trump's ties to Russia.

Trump's son met to get Russian government info on Clinton

President Donald Trump's son met during the presidential campaign with a Russian lawyer tied to the Kremlin - who promised him damaging information about Hillary Clinton.

The meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya took place at Trump Tower on June 9, 2016 - two weeks after Trump clinched the Republican nomination. Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and then-campaign chair Paul Manafort also attended the meeting.

Also attending the meeting were Irakly Kaveladze, a Soviet-born financier who once was the focus of a congressional probe into money-laundering; and Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-American lobbyist and ex-Soviet counterintelligence officer who was involved in two hacking-related cases after working for Russian businessmen tied to Putin. Akhmetshin denies being involved in hacking.

Veselnitskaya's clients include people and companies close to the Kremlin. She has campaigned against the Magnitsky Act, a 2012 law passed by Congress to punish Russian officials believed responsible for the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison. Magnitsky had uncovered a scheme involving the laundering of millions of dollars into New York luxury properties by Russian mobsters.

Veselnitskaya is the family lawyer for Denis Katsyv, the son of a senior Russian official and owner of Prevezon Holdings - the Cyprus-based company accused in the laundering scheme.

A four-year investigation into Prevezon was led by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who was fired by President Donald Trump in March. In May, the case was settled right before the trial was set to commence.

When the New York Times reported the Veselnitskaya meeting on July 8, Trump Jr. said in a statement that it focused on the adoption of Russian children by Americans - which had been barred by the Russian government in response to the Magnitsky Act.

Trump Jr. changed his story the next day to align with what three White House sources had told the New York Times - that he met with Veselnitskaya because she had offered "information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Mrs. Clinton."

An email to Trump Jr. proposing the meeting has since been reported by the New York Times, stating that information was coming from a senior Russian government official and was "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump."

Trump Jr. replied, "If it's what you say I love it."

For more, read the New York Times report. Also read this Vox analysis.

For more on the Prevezon case, read the CNN story.

For more on the email to Donald Trump Jr. proposing the meeting, read the New York Times report

Trump discloses classified Israeli intelligence to Russia

President Trump disclosed highly classified intelligence to Russian officials in a May 10 White House meeting with them.

The intelligence disclosed by Trump - concerning a terrorist threat - could expose intelligence sources and capabilities - hindering the United States' ability to detect future threats, the Washington Post reported.

It said to have come from Israel. The New York Times reports that Israel previously had warned the United States about the sensitivity of the intelligence.

Administration officials initially denied Trump's disclosure of the information, but Trump later confirmed it himself via Twitter.



During a later visit to Israel, Trump also appeared to confirm the source of the intelligence as Israel.

For more on the disclosure, read the Washington Post story.

For more on Israel as the source of the disclosed intelligence, read the New York Times story.

White House refuses Congress' request for Flynn documents

The White House is refusing a House Oversight Committee request for documents related to former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

The documents involve payments Flynn received for speeches and lobbying in Russia and Turkey.

For more, read the BBC story.

Kushner omits Russian meetings on clearance application

President Trump's senior advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner failed to disclose contacts with several Russians on his security clearance application, the New York Times has reported.

Kushner's contacts during the transition included Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Sergey Gorkov, head of the Russian state-owned bank.

The security clearance application requires the disclosure of all encounters with foreign officials in the past seven years, and warns that knowingly concealing material facts is a federal crime.

For more, read the New York Times story.

Update 2017-July-14: For an update, read this Business Insider story.

Paul Manafort proposed influence plan to Russia 10 years ago

In 2005, President Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort secretly worked with a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin on a plan to "greatly benefit the Putin government" by influencing politics, business dealings and news coverage in the United States and elsewhere," the Associated Press (AP) has reported.

Manafort proposed the plan to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

U.S. officials also are investigating Manafort's financial transactions in Cyprus, a country "once known as a haven for money laundering by Russian billionaires," the AP reported.

Those revelations were in addition to Manafort's previously disclosed work with Ukraine's pro-Putin former president, as well as with oligarchs in the former Soviet state. Ukrainian prosecutors want to question Manafort about his dealings there as part of a corruption investigation.

For more on Manafort's plan with Putin's ally, read the Associated Press story.

For more on the investigation into Manafort's financial transactions in Cyprus, read this Associated Press story.

Trump campaign aides had year-long contact with Russia

Associates of Donald Trump - including members of his campaign - had repeated contacts with senior Russian officials in the year before the 2016 election, the New York Times reported.

Phone records of the contacts were said to be obtained by U.S. intelligence agents.

There is no known evidence that the calls were used to cooperate in influencing the election, the Times states.

For more, read the New York Times story and this Guardian story.

Nat'l Security Adviser Flynn resigns - what we know

National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has resigned after it was revealed that he discussed Obama administration sanctions against Russia with the Russian ambassador before President Trump took office.

The Logan Act makes it a felony for unauthorized citizens to interfere in negotiations between the United States and foreign governments.

The Obama administration announced sanctions on Dec. 29, 2016 in retaliation for what intelligence officials said was Russian interference in the 2016 election to help Trump win the presidency.

The same day, Flynn discussed the sanctions with Russian ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak, according to the Washington Post. Officials who "routinely monitor the communications of Russian diplomats" said Flynn "urged Russia not to overreact" to the sanctions and made it clear that "the two sides would be in position to review the matter after Trump was sworn in as president."

The next day, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced he wouldn't immediately respond to the sanctions.

Over the next three weeks, White House officials, including Press Secretary Sean Spicer and Vice President Mike Pence, repeatedly denied that Flynn had discussed sanctions with Kislyak.

On Jan. 26, 2017, then-acting Attorney General Sally Yates informed White House Counsel Don McGahn that Flynn had in fact discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador, contrary to the administration's denials. Trump was "immediately" informed of the issue. Still, Flynn retained his position for 17 days.

On Feb. 10, the day after the Post broke the story about Flynn's discussion of sanctions with Kislyak, Trump told reporters he was "unaware" of the report but would "look into that."

Just hours before Flynn resigned Feb. 13, Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway said the president had "full confidence" in his national security adviser.

For more, read The Guardian story.

U.S. Intel - Russia tried to influence election

U.S. intelligence agencies have determined that Russia conducted a deliberate attempt to influence the 2016 presidential election.

A report released by the U.S. intelligence community concludes that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the action - in an attempt to damage Hillary Clinton's campaign while helping Donald Trump's.

For more, read the New York Times story.

Click here to read the unclassified version of the intelligence community assessment.