AND: Crikey its a rats nest of Trump linked Russia connections.
Maybe Vlad owns the Don!
Trump campaign members[edit]
Michael R. Caputo[edit]
Republican public relations and media consultant
Michael R. Caputo worked for
Gazprom in Russia, and later as an adviser on the Trump campaign. Caputo lived in Russia from 1994 to 2000, employed by
Gazprom-Media, and at the end of this period he contracted with Gazprom to do
public relations oriented towards raising Vladimir Putin's support level in the U.S.
[62][63][64] He returned to the U.S., where his former mentor
Roger Stone convinced him to move to
Miami Beach, Florida where Caputo founded a media advising company. Caputo moved back to Europe in 2007 while advising a politician's campaign for parliament in
Ukraine.
[65]Caputo worked as the campaign manager for
Carl Paladino's 2010 run to be Governor of New York state.
[66][67] Caputo was put in charge of the Trump campaign's communications for the New York state Republican primary from approximately November 2015 to April 2016, then left the campaign in the summer of 2016. In an inquiry by the
House Intelligence Committee as part of their investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election, he denied having ties to the Russian government while working on the Trump campaign.
[68][69]
Rick Gates[edit]
Rick Gates, a longtime business partner and protege of Paul Manafort, was a senior member of the Trump campaign. He continued to work for Trump after Manafort's resignation and Trump's election as president, but in March 2017, was forced to resign from a pro-Trump lobbying group due to questions about his Russia ties. Gates worked with Manafort to promote
Viktor Yanukovych and pro-Russian factions in Ukraine. Russian oligarch
Oleg Deripaska was also the biggest investor in Davis Manafort, a lobbying and investment firm that employed Gates.
[70][71][72]
In October 2017, Gates was indicted by a federal grand jury and arrested on twelve criminal charges including conspiracy, money laundering, failure to register as an agent of a foreign power, and false statements.
[73] The charges arise from his consulting work for a pro-Russian government in
Ukraine and are unrelated to the Trump campaign.
[74] Gates pleaded not guilty and was placed under house arrest.
[75]
Paul Manafort[edit]
Grand Jury indictment against Paul J. Manafort, Jr., and Richard W. Gates III, unsealed October 30, 2017
On February 14, 2017,
The New York Times reported that
Paul Manaforthad repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials during 2016. Manafort said he did not knowingly meet any Russian intelligence officials.
[25] Intercepted communications during the campaign show that Russian officials believed they could use Manafort to influence Trump.
[76]On June 2, 2017, special counsel Robert Mueller assumed the criminal probe into Manafort,
[77] which predates the 2016 election and the counterintelligence probe that in July 2016 began investigating possible collusion between Moscow and associates of Trump. Manafort was forced to resign as Trump campaign chairman in August 2016 amid questions over his business dealings in Ukraine years earlier.
[77] On September 18, 2017,
CNN reported that the FBI wiretapped Manafort from 2014 until an unspecified period in 2016 and again from the fall of 2016 until early 2017, pursuant to two separate
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)
courtorders. It has not been confirmed that Trump's conversations with Manafort were intercepted as part of this surveillance. CNN also confirmed that "Mueller's team ... has been provided details of these communications."
[78]
In October 2017, Manafort was indicted by a federal grand jury and arrested on twelve criminal charges including conspiracy, money laundering, failure to register as an agent of a foreign power, and false statements.
[73] The charges arise from his consulting work for a pro-Russian government in
Ukraine and are unrelated to the Trump campaign.
[79] Manafort pleaded not guilty and was placed under house arrest.
[75]
George Papadopoulos[edit]
George Papadopolous, of Chicago, Illinois, pleaded guilty on Oct. 5, 2017, to making false statements to FBI agents, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1001. The case was unsealed on Oct. 30, 2017.
In March 2016,
George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser on the Trump campaign, sent an email to seven campaign officials with the subject line "Meeting with Russian Leadership - Including Putin", offering to set up "a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump". Trump campaign advisers
Sam Clovisand Charles Kubic objected to this proposed meeting.
[80] In May 2016, Ivan Timofeev, an official for the
Russian International Affairs Council, emailed Papadopoulos about setting up a meeting with Trump and Russian officials in Moscow. Papadopoulos forwarded the email to Paul Manafort, who responded, "We need someone to communicate that [Trump] is not doing these trips. It should be someone low-level in the campaign so as not to send any signal."
[81][82]
Papadopoulos was arrested in July 2017 and has since been cooperating with Special Counsel
Robert Mueller's investigation.
[83] In October 2017 he pleaded guilty to a single charge of making a false statement to FBI investigators.
[84] The guilty plea was part of a plea bargain in which he agreed to cooperate with the government and "provide information regarding any and all matters as to which the Government deems relevant."
[85]
Carter Page[edit]
In a March 2016 interview, Trump identified
Carter Page, who had previously been an investment banker in Moscow, as a foreign policy adviser to his campaign.
[86] Page became a foreign policy advisor to Trump in the summer of 2016. During the investigation into the Russian interference in the 2016 elections, Page's past contacts with Russians came to public attention.
[87] In 2013 Page met with Viktor Podobnyy, then a junior attaché at the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, at an energy conference, and provided him with documents on the U.S. energy industry.
[88] Page later said that he provided only "basic immaterial information and publicly available research documents" to Podobnyy.
[87] Podobnyy was later one of a group of three Russian men charged by the U.S. authorities for participation in a Russian spy ring; Podobnyy and one of the other men was protected by
diplomatic immunity from prosecution; a third man, who was spying for the Russia under
non-diplomatic cover, pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an
unregistered foreign agentand was sentenced to prison.
[87] The men had attempted to recruit Page to work for the Russian
SVR. The FBI interviewed Page in 2013 "as part of an investigation into the spy ring, but decided that he had not known the man was a spy", and never accused Page of wrongdoing.
[87]
Page was dropped from the team after reports that he was under investigation by federal authorities over his Russian connections.
[89] The FBI and the Justice Department obtained a FISA warrant to monitor Page's communications during the summer of 2016, after they made the case that there was probable cause to think Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power (Russia). Page told
The Washington Post that he considered that to be "unjustified, politically motivated government surveillance". The 90-day warrant was renewed at least once.
[86]
In February 2017, Page stated that he had "no meetings" with Russian officials during 2016 but two days later said that he "did not deny" meeting with Russian ambassador
Sergey Kislyak during the
2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Page's reversal occurred after the news reports that revealed that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had likewise met with Kislyak. In March 2017, Page was called on by the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating links between the Trump campaign and Russian government.
[90][91] On March 9, 2017,
Hope Hicks, a Trump spokesperson, distanced the campaign from Page, stating that Page was an "informal foreign policy adviser" who did "not speak for Mr. Trump or the campaign."
[92] In September 2017, Page filed a defamation lawsuit against the media company
Oath Inc. for its outlets' reporting of his alleged meetings with Russian officials.
[93]
Roger Stone[edit]
Roger J. Stone Jr., a former adviser to Donald Trump and self-proclaimed political “dirty trickster”, admitted in March 2017 that during August 2016, he had been in contact with
Guccifer 2.0, a hacker persona believed to be a front for Russian intelligence operations who has publicly claimed responsibility for at least one hack of the
DNC.
[94] Stone is suspected of having inside knowledge of these hacks, predicting "Trust me, it will soon [
sic] the Podesta's time in the barrel" on
Twitter, shortly prior to the Wikileaks release of the
Podesta emails, a hacking incident now broadly understood to have been a significant contributing factor to
Trump's 2016 election victory against then-expected winner
Hillary Clinton.
[95] Stone denies this, stating that he was actually referring to reports of the
Podesta Group's own ties to Russia.
[96] In his opening statement before the
United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on September 26, 2017, Stone reiterated this claim: "Note, that my Tweet of August 21, 2016, makes no mention, whatsoever, of Mr. Podesta's email, but does accurately predict that the Podesta brothers' business activities in Russia ... would come under public scrutiny."
[97] Additionally, Stone has also reportedly stated privately to some Republican colleagues that he has "actually communicated with
Julian Assange" on at least one occasion, although Stone and his two Attorneys have since denied this.
[98] Instead, Stone has "clarified ... that the two have a mutual journalist friend," who Stone ultimately named as
Randy Credico.
[96][99]
Stone is under
FBI investigation over possible conspiracy between key figures in the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election.
[100][31]
Donald Trump Jr.[edit]
Main article:
Trump campaign–Russian meeting
On June 9, 2016, Trump campaign chairman
Donald Trump Jr.,
Jared Kushner, and
Paul Manafort had
a meeting with Russian lawyer
Natalia Veselnitskaya after being promised information about Hillary Clinton. Trump Jr. told
The New York Times the meeting was about the
Magnitsky Act.
[101] However, in emails proposing the meeting, publicist
Rob Goldstone did not mention the Magnitsky Act and instead promised "documents and information that would incriminate Hillary" as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump", to which Donald Trump Jr. responded "if it's what you say I love it".
[102][103]
On October 9, 2017, CNN reported that Scott S. Balber, formerly a lawyer for Donald Trump and now Agalarov's
[who?] lawyer, obtained a memo from Veselnitskaya which showed that her focus at the meeting was on repealing the
Magnitsky Act sanctions, "not providing damaging information on Clinton".
[104] Subsequently,
Foreign Policy published the full memo she took to the meeting.
[105]
Trump business partners[edit]
Michael Cohen[edit]
On May 30, 2017, as the inquiries into alleged Russian meddling in the US election expanded, both the House and Senate congressional panels asked President Donald Trump's personal lawyer who is one of Trump's closest confidants,
Michael Cohen,
[106] to "provide information and testimony" about any communications he had with people connected to the Kremlin.
[107][106]
On May 31, 2017, the House Intelligence Committee served Cohen with subpoenas for testimony, and production of personal documents and business records.
[108][109]
Trump supporters[edit]
Nigel Farage[edit]
On June 1, 2017,
The Guardian reported that
Nigel Farage, former leader of the
United Kingdom Independence Party and one of the first non-American political figures to meet Trump following the election, was a person of interest in the FBI investigation, which Farage denied. Farage has previously met the
Russian ambassador to the United Kingdom Alexander Yakovenko, Roger Stone and Julian Assange, and
The Guardian's source was quoted saying "If you triangulate Russia, WikiLeaks, Assange and Trump associates the person who comes up with the most hits is Nigel Farage".
[110]
Erik Prince[edit]
On April 3, 2017,
The Washington Post reported that around January 11, nine days before Donald Trump's inauguration,
Erik Prince, the founder of the
Blackwater security company, secretly met with an unidentified Russian, who is close to Vladimir Putin, in the
Seychelles. The Trump administration said that it was "not aware of any meetings" and said that Prince was not involved in the Trump campaign. According to U.S., European, and Arab officials, the meeting was arranged by the
United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the purpose apparently was to establish a back-channel link between Trump and Putin. The UAE and Trump's associates reportedly tried to convince Russia to limit its support to Iran, including in Syria. He appears to have close ties to Trump's chief strategist
Stephen Bannon[citation needed]. The Seychelles meeting took place after previous meetings in New York between Trump's associates and officials from Russia and the Emirates, when any official contacts between Trump administration and Russian agents were coming under close scrutiny from the press and the U.S. intelligence community. U.S. officials said that the FBI is investigating the Seychelles meeting. The FBI, however, refused to comment.
[111]
Two intelligence officials confirmed to NBC News that the Seychelles meeting took place. One of them corroborated
The Washington Post's account, but said that it is not clear whether the initiative to arrange a meeting came from the UAE or Trump's associates and that no Trump transition people were directly involved. A second official said that the meeting was about "Middle East policy, to cover Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Iran", not Russia.
[112]
Prince's spokesperson said, "Erik had no role on the transition team, this is a complete fabrication. The meeting had nothing to do with President Trump. Why is the so called under resourced intelligence community, messing around with surveillance of American citizens when they should be hunting terrorists?". A senior Trump administration official called the story of a Trump-Putin back-channel "ridiculous."
[113]
Peter W. Smith[edit]
In a May 2017 interview with the
Wall Street Journal,
Peter W. Smith, with a long history of Republican donation and support, said he had set up an operation to try to obtain emails he believed had been deleted from
Hillary Clinton's computer server from Russian hackers. He claimed to be working on behalf of Trump campaign advisor Mike Flynn.
[114][115] [116] In ill health, days later, the 81 year-old Smith committed suicide.
[117]
Trump–Russia dossier[edit]
Main article:
Trump–Russia dossier
August 22, 2017
Fusion GPSTestimony Transcript of
Glenn Simpson
On October 31, 2016, a week before the election,
David Corn of
Mother Jones magazine, reported that an unnamed former intelligence officer had produced a report (later referred to as a dossier) based on Russian sources and had turned it over to the FBI.
[118] The officer, who was familiar to the FBI and was known for the quality of his past work, was later identified as
Christopher Steele. The FBI found Steele and his information credible enough that it considered paying Steele to continue collecting information but the release of the document to the public stopped discussions between Steele and the FBI.
[119] Corn said the main points in the unverified report were that Moscow had tried to cultivate Donald Trump for years; that it possessed compromising or potentially embarrassing material about him that could possibly be used to blackmail him; and that there had been a flow of information between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin,
[120] which involved multiple in-person meetings between Russian government officials and individuals working for Trump.
[121][122] The dossier also claimed that the Kremlin's goal had been to "encourage splits and divisions in the Western alliance".
[118]
On January 10, 2017, CNN reported that classified documents presented to Obama and Trump the previous week included allegations that Russian operatives possess "compromising personal and financial information" about Trump. CNN stated that it would not publish specific details on the memos because they had not yet "independently corroborated the specific allegations".
[123] Following CNN's report,
BuzzFeed then published a
35-page dossier that it said was the basis of the briefing.
[124] It included unverified claims that Russian operatives had worked with the Trump campaign to help him get elected. It also alleged that Russia had collected "embarrassing material" involving Trump that could be used to
blackmail him.
[125] Trump denounced the unverified claims as false, saying that it was "disgraceful" for U.S. intelligence agencies to report them.
[126][127]
On March 30, 2017,
Paul Wood of
BBC News revealed that the FBI was using the dossier as a roadmap for its investigation.
[128] On April 18, 2017, CNN reported that corroborated information from the dossier had been used as part of the basis for getting the FISA warrant to monitor former Trump foreign policy advisor
Carter Page during the summer of 2016.
[129]
On January 9, 2018, Ranking Member of the
Senate Judiciary Committee,
Dianne Feinstein, unilaterally released the transcript of
Fusion GPS'
Glenn Simpson on August 22, 2017.
[130]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates_and_Russian_officials
