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The Mueller Report Summaries, Volume 1

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The Mueller Report Summaries, Volume 1

Introduction to Volume I

For sure, no doubt, 100%, Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. There were two main ways they did so: 1) Using a social media campaign to support Trump and disparage Clinton, and 2) hacking the DNC/Clinton campaign and releasing stolen documents. The investigation also found numerous links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. However, the Special Counsel couldn’t establish conspiracy or coordination, even though both parties would benefit from such an agreement.

An important line that I’m going to quote is in regard to how the Special Counsel qualified the actions they investigated. When they had enough evidence to state with confidence that a certain action or event occurred, they did so. But — and this is the important line — “a statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts.”

In terms of the Special Counsel’s evaluation of these actions, they used the framework of conspiracy over collusion, as collusion doesn’t have as set of a definition as conspiracy. They also looked into “coordination,” which requires more than two people or parties acting in response to one — or both! — of their interests. This “something more” element is why the Special Counsel stated there was no coordination.

Volume I covers the Russian interference and Trump campaign interactions, while Volume II investigates Trump’s actions toward the FBI’s and Special Counsel’s investigations.


Executive Summary to Volume I

Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch with ties to Putin, funded the Internet Research Agency (IRA). The IRA’s goal was to sow discord in the United States. They shifted from a general focus in 2014 and 2015 to a pro-Trump/anti-Clinton focus in early 2016. Meanwhile, the GRU, a Russian intelligence agency, hacked and released material damaging to the Clinton campaign using the fake online personas DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0. The Trump campaign showed interest in these materials. Less than an hour after the release of the Pussygate video, WikiLeaks released John Podesta’s stolen emails.

Again, the Special Counsel didn’t find enough evidence for conspiracy. Still, there were numerous contacts between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, notably: 1) the Trump Tower Moscow deal, 2) Trump’s people requesting dirt on Clinton (Trump Jr, Kushner, and Manafort meeting with a Russian lawyer; the July 2016 release of DNC documents to WikiLeaks and, later, Podesta’s emails), 3) Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik meeting about the Ukraine, where Manafort shared polling data with the Russian, and 4) senior levels of the Russian government making inroads with the new administration after the November 8 election (Kirill Dmitriev wrote a plan that got to Kushner, who passed it on to Bannon and Rex Tillerson; Michael Flynn had sway over the highest levels of Russian government).

Finally, there’s a summary of the Special Counsel’s charging decisions. This comes in three parts: 1) the hacking and social media campaigns did, in fact, violate US criminal law, 2) although there were numerous links between the Trump campaign and Russia, there’s not sufficient evidence of conspiracy or coordination, and 3) several people in the Trump campaign lied about their interactions with Russia. This last point led to some difficulty in the investigation, because certain communications had been deleted or were on apps that used encryption, plus the fact that some people and documents were outside of the US. This is important to remember, as the Special Counsel “cannot rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed additional light on (or cast in a new light) the events described in this paper.”


I. The Special Counsel's Investigation

On May 17, 2017, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein appointed the Special Counsel to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The scope of the investigation was to find any links or coordination between the Russian government and people associated with the Trump campaign, as well as any matters that arose from that investigation. Most of the evidence the Special Counsel looked at came from the FBI’s own investigation that had begun 10 months prior to the Special Counsel’s.

Volume I is only a summary — not the entirety — of the information derived from the investigation. It is the most pertinent information that led to the Special Counsel’s decisions.


II. Russian "Active Measures" Social Media Campaign

Note: There’s a lot redacted in this section because it is “harm to ongoing matter.”

As early as 2014, the Internet Research Agency (IRA) targeted the United States to sow discord in the political system via social media. They posted as people or groups addressing divisive issues. By mid-2016, they supported Trump and disparaged Clinton. By November 2016 the IRA had the ability to reach millions of Americans, primarily through Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

It’s important to remember that the IRA is only one organization engaging in such activities — the Special Counsel is aware of other entities performing similar operations.

So, the IRA. Here’s what isn’t redacted about it: As an organization, it grew quickly. It’s a part of something called “Project Lakhta.” Yevgeiy Prigozhin, a wealthy businessman with ties to Putin, funded the IRA. By the spring of 2014, the IRA consolidated its US efforts into one department. Some IRA employees even visited the United States to gather intel.

The IRA had specialists for Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr. By 2015 they created larger social media organizations, posing as anti-immigrant groups, Tea Party activists, and Black Lives Matter protesters. By February 2016, these specialists were given directions to oppose Clinton and support Trump and Bernie Sanders. IRA employees are on record as acknowledging they worked to influence the election.

Facebook was the IRA’s main focus. They created both liberal and conservative groups. They spent around $100,000 on 3,500 Facebook ads to promote their fake groups, as well as anti-Clinton and pro-Trump ads. Individual IRA accounts had hundreds of thousands of followers, with a reach of anywhere from 29 million to 126 million people.

The IRA also had a big presence on Twitter. They had two goals: 1) To create fake US personas, and 2) To use bots to amplify existing content. The fake personas posted content and also messaged users directly. These fake accounts even got picked up by the media. Multiple people from the Trump campaign promoted tweets created by the IRA.

The Twitter bots posted 175,000 tweets in the ten weeks prior to the election. Again, this was just the IRA. Twitter found around 50,000 automated accounts with ties to the Russian government that tweeted more than a million times in that same period.

The IRA also organized and promoted political rallies in the US while posing as activists, and they closely monitored the reach and success of these rallies. The earliest evidence of such a rally was a “Confederate rally” in November 2015. Starting in June 2016, the IRA-organized rallies were all pro-Trump/anti-Clinton, and they were held in states such as New York, Florida, and Pennsylvania. The IRA recruited Americans on both sides of the aisle who could amplify their content the most. The IRA also tracked certain people to see who did what they wanted.

The IRA and the Trump campaign were connected in two main ways: 1) Members of the Trump campaign liking or reposting IRA content, and 2) IRA’s use of fake US personas to get assistance from the Trump campaign for coordinating rallies. For example, Don Jr. retweeted IRA content, as well as Eric Trump, Kellyanne Conway, and Michael Flynn. Most of this content was about voter fraud or Hillary’s mishandling of sensitive information. The IRA monitored who in the Trump campaign and, later, Trump administration responded to their content.

All of the above thus establishes that Russia did indeed interfere in the 2016 presidential election.


III. Russian Hacking and Dumping Operations

In March of 2016, the GRU (a Russian intelligence agency) hacked the Clinton campaign. In April they hacked the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The Trump campaigned showed interest in these materials — materials which were designed and intended to be released at times to undermine the Clinton campaign.

The GRU had several departments that focused on different objectives. Some developed malware, others conducted phishing campaigns, and some mined bitcoins. Another unit focused on promoting the release of stolen material, as well as hacking computers for state boards of elections and other technology used to administer US elections.

The DNC and DCCC hacks were targeted attacks — not a crime of opportunity. The GRU compromised approximately 29 computers on the DCCC network. About six days later, they hacked into the DNC network, gaining access to more than 30 computers. They then installed malware that logged keystrokes, took screenshots, and gathered other data, as well as malware that made large-scale data transfers possible — all of which went undetected at the time.

The GRU stole from the DCCC and DNC documents about internal strategy, opposition research, fundraising data, and emails. They got 70 GB of data from the DCCC and around 300 GB of data from the DNC. Altogether, that’s 370 GB! Of data! That’s a shit ton of data. The GRU then used bitcoin to purchase the domain dcleaks.com to release these documents. They also used Facebook and Twitter to promote the release of this material. DCLeaks.com was active until March 2017.

GRU used the persona Guccifer 2.0 to release other DNC and DCCC documents on a WordPress blog from June to October 2016, as well as to contact reporters (like The Smoking Gun) to give them early access to those documents. Meanwhile, WikiLeaks DM’d Guccifer 2.0 on Twitter to ask for more documents, as they (WikiLeaks) would have “a much higher impact than what you are doing.” Even before contact with the GRU, WikiLeaks (and its founder, Julian Assange) opposed Clinton.

Unfortunately, both the GRU and WikiLeaks have worked to hide their communication, mostly by making it hard for the Special Counsel to access the communication between them. However, here’s what we know: WikiLeaks released 20,000 emails three days before the Democratic National Convention. From October to November 2016, they had 33 separate releases of stolen emails. Five hours after Trump’s “Russia, if you’re listening…” remark, the GRU targeted the Clinton’s personal office.

Meanwhile, the GRU continued to target more people, notably election administrators in several states. These included tech firms who made or administered election-related software and hardware. In June of 2016, the GRU hacked into the Illinois State Board of Elections and gained info on millions of registered Illinois voters and thousands of US voters. They performed similar actions for more than two dozen states. In Florida, the GRU infected a computer responsible for administering the 2016 election and gained access to its network. This is chilling.

A subsection pertaining to the Trump campaign and the dissemination of the hacked materials is also heavily redacted. However, we learn that Paul Manafort lied like a motherfucker and that Michael Cohen, though he admitted to lying to Congress, is way more reliable. Also, Trump really wanted those documents leaked.

On October 7, 2016, the Washington Post published the Access Hollywood “grab ‘em by the pussy” video; an hour later, (an hour later!!) WikiLeaks released Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s stolen emails. Throughout 2016, the Trump campaign expressed interest in Hillary’s emails. However, the Special Counsel couldn’t find enough evidence for coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. Still, there were a couple examples, such as:

1) Trump campaign advisor Michael Caputo brokered a meeting between Roger Stone and a Russian who claimed to have dirt on Clinton. This meeting happened, though Stone didn’t end up buying the info the Russian claimed to have.

2) Trump repeatedly asked people in his campaign to find Hillary’s emails. Michael Flynn contacted, among other people, Peter Smith, an investment advisor active in Republican politics. Smith created a company to find the emails and said he was in touch with hackers with “ties and affiliations to Russia” and that his efforts were in coordination with the Trump campaign. However, the Special Counsel wasn’t able to establish that Smith was actually in contact with Russians, and Hillary’s emails were never found.

A. Campaign Period (September 2015 to November 8, 2016)

There were multiple links or contacts between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. However, based upon the available information, there was no coordination. One of the longest paragraphs in the report thus far is a paragraph summarizing those links, all eight of which I’ll get into below.

First, the Trump Tower Moscow project. For most of 2014, Trump and his people were in talks with Crocus Group, a Russian real estate conglomerate, about building a Trump Tower in Moscow. Those talks fizzled out by November 2014. Around the summer of 2015, Michael Cohen took over as the head of this project. He was in touch with I.C. Expert, another Russian real estate development group. Sometime in October 2015, Donald Trump and the chairman of I.C. Expert signed a letter of intent to further facilitate discussions. The terms of this letter were very favorable for Trump — lots to gain without assuming any significant liabilities.

Cohen was also put in touch with Dmitry Klokov, director of a large Russian electricity company. It’s at this point in the report that we get to see two examples of Michael Cohen being kind of a bumbling doofus. The first is when he googled Klokov’s name and thought that he (Klokov) was a former Olympic weightlifter. The second example is when Cohen emailed the wrong Russian government address to reach Putin’s chief of staff. Instead of emailing “Pr_peskova@prpress.gov.ru,” Cohn instead emailed “Pr_peskova@prpress.gof.ru.” Expectedly, Cohen didn’t receive a reply to this email.

However, in January 2016, Cohen spoke on the phone with the Russian government’s press secretary’s personal assistant. They talked for about 20 minutes. The Special Counsel couldn’t find any indication that there was a follow-up to this call.

Meanwhile, Felix Sater, a NY real estate advisor who claimed to have high-level ties with the Russian government, contacted Cohen saying how eager Putin was to meet Trump but that it would have to be business related, not political. Sater wanted to coordinate a trip for Cohen and Trump to go to Russia and meet Putin. However, Cohen doubted the invitation he received was really from Russian officials, so he didn’t go. Also, Trump’s campaign schedule was too demanding for him to make a trip to Russia.

The second big link between Russia and the Trump campaign was George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy advisor from March to early October 2016. When in Rome, Papadopoulos met Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese professor working in London who knew several high-level contacts in the Russian government. Mifsud introduced Papadopoulos to a former student of his who offered to help Papadopoulos establish contacts in Russia.

At a March 31, 2016 meeting, Papadopoulos brought this up to, among others, Trump and Jeff Sessions. Trump was interested in and receptive to the idea of meeting Putin. Since Papadopoulos wasn’t told not to, he went back to London to resume these efforts with Mifsud. Mifsud also introduced Papadopoulos to a member of the Russian International Affairs Council. Papadopoulos conversed multiple times with this contact over the next several weeks.

In April 2016, Mifsud went to Moscow, and when he came back he told Papadopoulos the Russians had dirt on Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. Papadopoulos later told this to a representative of a foreign government who, after the WikiLeaks release, contacted the FBI which began their investigation in late July 2016.

Meanwhile, Papadopoulos was updating Trump campaign officials about his contacts. He kept a journal during this time, but “Papadopoulos declined to assist in deciphering his notes, telling investigators that he could not read his own handwriting.” Regardless, he continued to try to arrange a meeting with Russians until he was fired from the campaign in October 2016 after he gave an interview to a Russian news agency that generated bad press.

A third major link is Carter Page, another Trump campaign foreign policy advisor from January to September 2016. Although Page advocated pro-Russian foreign policy and visited Moscow, the Special Counsel did not establish coordination.

Even before he started working for the Trump campaign, Page had A LOT of contact with Russian intelligence officers, though he claims he only gave them immaterial non-public information and didn’t see this as a backchannel. Anyway, once he joined the Trump team in January 2016, he bragged to campaign officials about his contacts in Russia and his ability to connect Trump with senior Russian government officials.

Page visited Russia in July 2016 to give a commencement speech for the New Economic School in Moscow. There he met the Russian Deputy Prime Minister, as well as other business contacts. In an email to Trump campaign officials the next day, Page mentioned how the Deputy Prime Minster expressed strong support for Trump and that this sentiment was shared at all levels of the government. Because the Special Counsel wasn’t able to obtain more evidence or testimony, Page’s activities in Russia remain not fully explained.

After returning to the US, Page’s trip to Moscow and his advocacy for pro-Russia policy drew a lot of press coverage, so the Trump campaign eventually fired him in September 2016. Later, when Trump won the election, Page applied to be a part of the transition team. He didn’t receive a reply.

A fourth link is Dimitri Simes and the Center for National Interest (CNI). The CNI is a think tank with connections to the Russian government, and Simes is its CEO. Both Sessions and Jared Kushner communicated with CNI or Simes.

Kushner asked Simes for help in March 2016 because the Trump campaign needed support from experienced foreign policy professionals. The two eventually met in person and spoke about arranging for CNI to host a foreign policy speech to be given by Trump. At a pre-speech meet, both Trump and Sessions met Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the US. Keep Kislyak’s name in mind, as he’ll come back later.

In conversations with Kushner after the speech, Simes warned Kushner and the Trump campaign that it was bad optics for them to develop hidden Russian contacts. Simes also sent Kushner a “Russia Policy Memo” full of suggestions about what to do and say in regard to Russia.

The fifth big link is the June 9, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower. Don Jr., Manafort, and Kushner met with Emin Agalarov (the son of Aras Agalarov, the president of the Crocus Group) who claimed to have documents and info damaging to the Clinton campaign. “I love it,” Don Jr. wrote back while arranging this meeting. Also present at this meeting was Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian attorney who worked with the Russian government. The Special Counsel spoke with everyone at this meeting except for Veselnitskaya and Don Jr. — “the latter of whom declined to be voluntarily interviewed.”

A couple days before the meeting, Don Jr. and Emin had multiple phone calls. Most of the people in the Trump campaign were aware this meeting was happening and that its primary goal was to get negative info on Clinton.

The meeting was around 20 minutes long. Veselnitskaya spoke about Bill Browder and the Ziff brothers — Americans with businesses in Russia who donated to the DNC. Veselnitskaya then discussed the Magnitsky Act, which prohibits the US adoption of Russian children. Kushner thought this meeting was a waste of time, so he sent two separate emails to assistants so that they’d call him and he could bounce like it was a bad blind date.

Around July 2017, when word got out about this meeting, Trump’s personal counsel sent the guy who set up the meeting, Robert Goldstone, a proposed statement to use in regard to this meeting. Basically, Goldstone was told to say that Don Jr.’s statement about the meeting was accurate. There’s definitely a lot of shady shit surrounding this meeting — the most out of any of the incidents so far.

The sixth and seventh links the Special Counsel investigated were in regard to the Republican National Convention and Trump campaign officials’ meeting with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Sessions gave a speech and talked with Kislyak — their second meeting (the first being the Trump foreign policy speech in April 2016). Our buddy Carter Page also met Kislyak at a reception that night. Later, at the convention, the Trump campaign toned down language in the Republican party platform regarding Russia as the US’s #1 threat.

Ambassador Kislyak continued to interact with Sessions and other Trump campaign officials responsible for foreign policy. However, the Special Counsel could not identify evidence in those interactions of coordination. In September 2016, Kislyak visited Sessions in Session’s Senate office. No one present at the meeting said they discussed Russian election interference. This appears to be the last time the two men met.

Finally, the last pre-election link between the Trump campaign and Russia is Paul Manafort. Manafort worked on the Trump campaign from March to August 2016. His prior work for a pro-Russia regime in the Ukraine established many of his Russian connections. His main contact was Konstantin Kilimnik, one of his employees in Kiev who also has ties to Russian intelligence. Manafort told his deputy, Rick Gates, to keep Kilimnik updated on the campaign. This included sharing internal polling data.

Manafort met Kilimnik twice during the campaign period to give him info. During the second meeting, Kilimnik delivered a message about a peace plan for Ukraine that Manafort admitted was a “backdoor” means for Russia to control eastern Ukraine. The Special Counsel didn’t find evidence that Manafort passed this plan along to Trump or anyone else in the campaign. However, the Counsel didn’t have access to all his communication, and, as mentioned before, Manafort lied like a motherfucker. The Counsel also has no idea what the polling data Kilimnik received was used for, or who it was given to after that. Still, somehow, amazingly, bogglingly, they didn’t establish coordination.

Here’s Manafort’s origin story: In 2005, he started working for Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch who is closely aligned with Putin. Deripaska used Manafort to “install friendly political officials in countries where Deripaska had business interests.” But by 2009 their relationship deteriorated and they were suing each other.

Through Deripaska, Manafort met a Ukrainian oligarch who hired Manafort in 2005 to support the Party of Regions, a Ukrainian political party that aligned with Russia. The Party of Regions candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, won the presidency in 2010, and Manafort became one of his close advisors. Konstantin Kilimnik was a longtime Manafort employee who had close access to Yanukovych and communicated with other Ukrainian oligarchs. Manafort claims he didn’t believe Kilimnik was a Russian spy, but the FBI has several pieces of evidence that show his ties to Russian intelligence.

In March of 2016, Roger Stone recommended Manafort to Trump to manage the Republican Convention. Manafort agreed to work without pay. Once he was hired, Manafort wrote a press release about his appointment and willingness to work with the Ukrainians. He sent this press release to Kilimnik to translate and send out to “our friends.” Manafort was also sending internal polling data and other updates to Kilimnik to share with Ukrainian oligarchs.

Manafort met with Kilimnik twice in person: once in NYC on May 7, and again in NYC on August 2. This second meeting had a lot of coded language regarding a jar of black caviar — it’s very weird. The exact contents of this meeting are unknown, but there were three principal topics: 1) to create a republic in an eastern region of Ukraine and install ousted Ukrainian president Yanukovych as head of the republic (this was the plan Manafort later acknowledged was a “backdoor” means for Russia to control eastern Ukraine); 2) Manafort briefed Kilimnik on plans to win the election, including battleground states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota; and 3) financial disputes related to Manafort’s previous work in the region.

Two weeks after this meeting, Manafort resigned due to the negative media from his work in the Ukraine. But Manafort continued to contact and advise members of the Trump campaign. On November 5, Manafort sent an email to Kushner expressing his worry that if Hillary lost, she’d immediately claim voter fraud and that Russians had hacked voting machines and tampered with the results. Manafort also continued to discuss a Ukrainian plan with Kilimnik, even though he repeatedly lied about his continued contact with Kilimnik. In early 2018, Manafort used his polling firm to poll Ukrainians about the plan and how they would feel about it. But the Special Counsel couldn’t find evidence that Manafort brought this plan to the attention of Trump campaign officials or the Trump administration.

B. Post-Election and Transition-Period Contacts

As soon as news broke that Trump won the election, Russian government officials and Russian businessmen tried to make inroads with the new administration. For example, at 3am on election night, Hope Hicks got a call from someone conveying a message from Putin. The next day, she received an email with Putin’s congratulations. On November 14, Trump and Putin spoke on the phone in the presence of transition team members. Also around this time, Peter Aven, the head of Alfa-Bank, Russia’s largest commercial bank, met with Putin. Putin told him to protect himself and Alfa-Bank from possible sanctions by using alternative channels of communication.

Here’s another example: Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian national who reported directly to Putin, met with Erik Prince, an associate of Steve Bannon. Although Prince wasn’t a formal member of the transition team, he was seen as a trusted associate. Dmitriev was mostly interested in meeting with Kushner or Don Jr., but in the end he agreed to meet with Prince. Dmitriev wasn’t super enthused about this plan, even though Prince made it seem like he’d pass on whatever info Dmitriev had to the transition team.

The two met on January 11, 2017 at a hotel in the Seychelles. They had another meeting later that night which was very short. Afterward, Dmitriev expressed disappointment: 1) Because he wanted to talk to someone with more authority, and 2), because he found Prince insulting. Prince texted Bannon after these two meetings, but those texts — like many other communications between Prince and Bannon — weren’t obtained by the Special Counsel. Prince said he followed up with Bannon upon his return to the US but that Bannon said not to continue contacting Dmitriev. However, Bannon said he never discussed this topic with Prince. The Special Counsel can’t verify what happened because both Prince’s and Bannon’s phones were missing messages from this time period and neither one of them could explain why.

In late November 2016, Dmitriev also contacted Kushner’s friend Rick Gerson to figure out the best people to contact regarding a task Putin asked him to complete. That task was to work on a reconciliation plan with the US. Gerson and Dmitriev wrote the plan and passed it along to Kushner, who, in turn, sent it to Bannon and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Although Kushner claims neither Bannon nor Tillerson asked to follow up with him about it, Dmitriev was very happy with the Trump/Putin call in January 2017.

Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak reached out to Kushner’s assistant to set up a meeting in November 2016. Kushner and Michael Flynn met with Kislyak at Trump Tower. Kushner asked for the best person to talk to in the future — someone who could speak for Putin. Kislyak tried to set up a second meeting, but Kushner was all “nah,” and sent one of his assistants instead. That meeting was only a few minutes, and Kislyak offered Sergey Gorkov, the head of a Russian-government-owned bank. (Note: What’s interesting here is that, on the whole, the Russians weren’t satisfied with the Trump campaign people they had access to [Prince, Page, etc], and it sounds like the same is true for Trump campaign people with the Russians.)

On December 13, 2016, Kushner met Gorkov in Manhattan. Their accounts of the meeting differ. Kushner said it was mostly diplomatic, but Gorkov claims it was more about Kushner’s personal business. The Special Counsel wasn’t able to resolve this conflict. A few days after the meeting, Gorkov’s assistant texted Kushner’s assistant to say that “the information about the meeting had a very positive response!” Gorkov’s assistant tried to schedule another meeting, but, in light of press coverage about the Russian investigation, Kushner’s assistant never responded and didn’t tell Kushner about it.

Meanwhile, Peter Aven reached out to another Alfa-Bank employee named Richard Burt. Burt’s primary role at Alfa-Bank was to facilitate introductions to business contacts in the US. Aven told Burt that he wanted to establish communication between the Kremlin and the Trump transition team. Since Burt is also a board member of CNI, he contacted Dimitri Simes for help with this task. At the same time, Simes was lobbying the Trump transition team to appoint Burt as US ambassador to Russia. In the first quarter of 2017, Aven met with Putin and said there wasn’t any progress in this endeavor. Aven said that Putin continued to ask about forging these connections throughout 2017.

Separately, in December 2016, two months after he was fired, Carter Page was back in Moscow. According to Konstantin Kilimnik, Page was giving the impression he still had connections to Trump. Page had dinner with New Economic School employees as well as the NES chairman of the board who asked how he (the NES chairman) could help establish connections between the US and Russia.

But by far the primary conduit between the Trump transition team and Russia was Michael Flynn. Flynn had two major contacts with Russian ambassador Kislyak. The first was in December 2016 when Egypt submitted a resolution to the UN Security Council asking Israel to stop developing in Palestine. Trump and company called up foreign governments to rally support to delay the vote or defeat the resolution. Flynn spoke with Kislyak to ask Russia to vote no. However, Kislyak said Russia would not vote against the resolution.

The second major contact was in regard to US sanctions. In late December 2016, Obama signed an executive order to impose sanctions on Russia for their election interference. Kislyak reached out to Flynn to speak about this. The day the sanctions took effect, the Trump transition team was abuzz down in Mar-a-Lago. Flynn, who was on vacation in the Dominican Republic, understood that the transition team expected him to relay a message to Kislyak in the hopes that the sanctions with Russia wouldn’t escalate.

Flynn spoke with Kislyak and asked Russia not to escalate the situation. Kislyak said the Russians wouldn’t escalate because they wanted a good relationship with the incoming administration. Meanwhile, in Mar-a-Lago, Flynn’s deputy was letting everyone know Flynn was talking to Kislyak.

The day after the sanctions took effect, the Russian Foreign Minister said that Russia would retaliate for the sanctions. However, two hours later, Putin released a statement saying that Russia would not retaliate. The next day, Kislyak called Flynn and told him the request had been received at the highest levels. There’s more on this situation — and how the Trump team handled the discussions — in Volume II.

Ultimately, while there were multiple, multiple links between Russia and the Trump team, the investigation didn’t establish coordination or conspiracy.

V. Prosecution and Declination Decisions

The Special Counsel had the authority to prosecute federal crimes arising from its investigation. When determining whether they would do so, they first evaluated if the conduct constituted a federal offense and whether there was enough evidence to convict. If so, they then considered whether the prosecution would serve a substantial federal interest, whether the individuals were subject to prosecution in other jurisdictions, or if there was a non-criminal alternative.

On February 16, 2018, the IRA and Concord Management and Consulting LLC were indicted with interfering in the US election and political process. The Special Counsel also charged one US national (Richard Pinedo) for supplying Russians stolen bank account info to circumvent online payment systems’ security features.

On July 13, 2018, the GRU was indicted with conspiring to hack the Clinton campaign, DNC, and DCCC. As of this writing, all 12 defendants remain at large. There’s also a long redacted part here, claiming harm to ongoing matter.

Again, the Special Counsel didn’t establish conspiracy or coordination. However, Paul Manafort’s pre-campaign work for the Ukrainian government violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which basically makes it illegal to act as an agent of a foreign principal without registering those actions with the Attorney General. Michael Flynn also violated FARA, but in regard to his work with Turkey, not Russia. As for the other Trump campaign officials, the Special Counsel didn’t find evidence that would prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they acted as agents of the Russian government.

The June 9, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower raises questions around campaign finance. Federal campaign finance law prohibits foreign nationals from making a contribution or donation of money or other things of value. Foreign nationals are also not allowed to pay for an electioneering communication — basically, an ad clearly referring to a candidate for Federal office.

Regarding the June 9 meeting, the Special Counsel would have a substantial burden of proof on issues of intent (“knowing” and “willfulness”) that the Counsel didn’t feel comfortable charging using the standard that they could sufficiently obtain a conviction. Also, there would be difficulty proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the info on Clinton exceeded the threshold for a criminal violation. There’s definitely a case to be made here, regarding derogatory information as a “thing of value.” However, the courts haven’t yet ruled on this, and it could raise much bigger/difficult questions.

But again, the larger issue here is demonstrating willingness. There isn’t evidence that the meeting participants were familiar with the foreign-contribution ban. In that way, their own ignorance is what saved them, because the “knowing” factor here means that you have to be aware of the fact that you’re breaking the law in order to be charged for breaking that law. Finally, it’s hard to assess the value of damaging information, even though it undoubtedly has some value. Thus, the Special Counsel didn’t charge anyone involved in this meeting.

Then there’s another whole section almost entirely redacted. This is also labeled harm to ongoing matter.

Finally, we come to the section on false statements. When it comes to false statements, the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the statement was false, that the defendant knew it was false, and that the false statement was material.

Papadopoulos lied about the timing and extent of his communication with Mifsud. He also minimized the extent and importance of his communication with Mifsud. (My favorite line is when Papadopoulos said to the Special Counsel that he thought Mifsud was “BSing to completely honest with you.”) These false statements impeded the investigation because it hindered investigators’ ability to effectively question Mifsud since they weren’t able to challenge him when he made what they learned later to be inaccurate statements. Papadopoulos was charged with making false statements to the FBI and pleaded guilty.

The second person is completely redacted.

The third person is Michael Flynn. Flynn lied about his conversations with Kislyak. In particular, Flynn lied about having told Kislyak how to vote on the UN resolution. The Special Counsel charged Flynn with making false statements, and he also pleaded guilty.

Next up is Michael Cohen. Cohen lied about the Trump Tower deal. He pleaded guilty to lying.

The fifth person is also completely redacted.

The sixth person is Jeff Sessions. The Special Counsel looked into his contact with Kislyak and considered whether his comments constituted perjury. However, in light of the wording and context of the questions he answered, there isn’t sufficient evidence to prove he knowingly gave false answers. Thus, no charges against Sessions.

There were other people the Special Counsel considered may have given false info (those people are also redacted), but no charges were made.