I just finished the book, Interference, written by three of the principle lawyers working for Bob Mueller’s investigative team to determine whether Trump committed any crimes working with Russia on his way to winning the 2016 presidential election. The way these events were reported in real-time on both sides of the partisan divisions muddied the waters so badly, I’m not sure how many people have an accurate understanding of the facts Mueller uncovered. This book was the lawyer’s attempt to set the record straight. My intention here is to try to succinctly summarize these findings as a reference for any future discussions where these facts are disputed.

Russian Collusion

George Papadopolous

• March 2016: Papadopolous joined the Trump campaign as an unpaid foreign policy advisor and was tasked to be someone who could “improve relations with Russia (pp. 69).
• In March 24, 2016 Papadopolous had a meeting in London with Josef Mifsud and Olga Polonskaya. Polonskaya claimed to be Vladimer Putin’s niece (she was not), but this gave Padapolous confidence that he could help facilitate a meetup between Trump and Putin. Papadopolous emailed Trump to tell him of this connection.
• March 31, 2016, Papadopolous met with Trump in person for the first time.
• Soon after, Mifsud put Papadopolous in touch with Timofeev, who lived in Moscow and worked for a Krelmin-friendly think tank called the Russian International Affiairs council.
• From April 18-25th, Mifsud traveled to Russian at the time Russian military intelligence were hacking into Clinton’s campaign’s email servers.
• April 26th, Mifsud met with Papadopoulos in London letting him know the Russian’s had dirt on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails.
• May 6th, 2016 Papadopolous told a “representative of a foreign government” of this dirt and that it could be used to assist Trump in the campaign.
• Mid June, 2016 this same representative told the FBI of this meeting with Papadopoulos.
• In early 2017, the FBI interviewed Papadopoulos who lied about the meeting with Mifsud claiming it happened before he joined Trump’s campaign and had nothing to do with his work for Trump.
• Mueller’s team arrested Papadopolous but he was ultimately uncooperative, served 14 days in prison, wrote a book about his experience and in December 22, 2020 received a full pardon from Trump.

Unanswered Question

“Did the offer of Russian assistance that had been delivered to Trump’s campaign advisor George Papadopoulos ever reach candidate Trump?” (pp 107).

Michael Cohen

• October 28, 2015, a few months before the first Republican primaries, Trump signed a letter of intent for the project (pp. 166).
• Through spring and early summer of 2016, Michael Cohen lead the effort for the Trump organization for a potential $1 billion deal to build Trump Tower Moscow, tying this effort directly to Trump’s presidential run (pp 166).
• As late as June 2016, Cohen pursued Russian government’s approval for the project but it ultimately fizzled.
• In October 2016, Michael Cohen created a shell company called Essential Consultants and from it made a payment of $130,000 to Stephanie “Stormy Daniels” Clifford. The records also showed deposits from a Russian-backed entity (pp. 164). The timing came just days after the public airing of the Access Hollywood tape that almost sabotaged Trump’s election. The hush-money possible campaign finance violation was referred to the Southern District of New York. It turns out the Russian deposits were unrelated to Trump’s campaign.
• Fall of 2017, Cohen lied under oath to Congress about payments to Daniels and details about Trump Tower Moscow.
• Through 2018, Trump paid Cohen’s legal fees and promised a presidential pardon if Cohen would hold the line, denying any connections between Russia and Trump during the investigations.
• August 21, 2018, Cohen flipped and “pleaded guilty to eight felony charges, including making illegal campaign contributions in the form of hush money payments” (pp 169) and said he was working in cooperation with Trump in making these payments.
• November 29, 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty about lying to Congress about Trump Tower Moscow (pp 178).
• Cohen ultimately spent a year in prison and longer in home confinement.

Unanswered Question

How much was Trump involved in Cohen’s attempts to get Trump Tower Moscow off the ground and to what degree was it involved in the presidential campaign?

Trump did not himself travel to Russia in 2016 on behalf of the Trump Tower Moscow project and the project fizzled without much proven Trump’s direct involvement. The Mueller investigation did uncover the Stormy Daniel hush money plot that ultimately resulted in 34 felony convictions for Trump in 2024.

Paul Manafort

• Going back to 2006, Manafort and Rick Gates had received tens of millions of dollars for consulting pro-Russian Ukranian politicians and organizations (pp. 40).
• In 2007, Manafort set up a fund called Pericles Emerging Markets, whose sole investor was Oleg Deripaska, a multi-billionaire whose fortune came from aluminum and power companies.
• A series of “email exchanges in these accounts tood out, as they chronicled Manafort’s Russian and Ukranian relationships, including those he maintained while serving as chairman of the Trump campaign.” (pp. 85).
• One example:
  • March 2016, shortly after Manafort joined the Trump campaign, Manafort communicated with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian national and employee of Manafort stationed in Kyiv with ties to Russian intelligence. Kilimnik had ties to Yanukovych and Deripaska. The email conveyed Manafort’s involvement in Trump’s campaign and his interest to consult on Ukranian politics (pp. 85).
  • April 2016, Manafort followed up with Kilimnik to ensure Deripaska received news of Manafort’s role in Trump’s campaign (pp.85). Kilimnik confirmed the memo was sent to Deriipaska’s deputy.
  • Later that Spring, Manafort sent Kilimnik internal polling data from Trump’s campaign.
  • May, 2016, Manafort met with Kilimnik in New York to discuss Ukraine and the Trump campaign.
  • July 2016, Kilimnik emailed Manafort alluding to a potential peace plan in eastern Ukraine, placing Yanukovych in power over that region.
• June 9, 2016, a Russian government lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya and Rinat Akhmetshin met with Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Manafort in Trump Tower to discuss Russia’s interest in helping the Trump campaign. Veselnnitskaya wanted to discuss getting Trump’s help to rescind the Magnitsky Act and in exchange would provide damaging information on Clinton. However, she could not provide evidence of having damaging information and the meeting ended in 20 minutes. The Mueller investigation decided there was not enough evidence of willful violation of the law and dropped it.
• August 2016, Manafort was forced to leave Trump’s campaign over reports about these business activities.
• December 2016, Kilimnik sent an email to Manafort saying that all they needed was a slight push from Trump to get peace in Ukraine within a few months after his inauguration.
• October 2017, Manafort surrendered to the FBI charged with conspiracy. and money laundering.
• December 2020, Trump pardons Manafort.

Unanswered Question

What did Trump know about the Trump Tower meeting which had been prompted by Russian offers to assist in the campaign? (pp 107)

What did Paul Manafort tell Trump about his interactions with Kilimnik or Deripaska? (pp 107)

Rick Gates

Rick Gates was Manafort’s associate and was involved in many of the communications mentioned above. This section will point out only additional information.

• Gates told Mueller’s lawyers that by the late summer of 2016, the Trump campaign was “planning press strategy and messaging around dumps by WikiLeaks of Democratic information stolen by the GRU”. (pp. 142).
• Febrary, March 2017 Gates pleaded guilty after receiving an indictment from the Mueller investigation and began cooperation with the investigation.
• January 2018, Gates said Manafort assured him that he had “talked to the president’s personal counsel and learned that they were ‘going to take care of us.'” (pp. 169).
• Based on interviews with Michael Cohen and Rick Gates, Roger Stone was the “apparent connection betweeen the campaign and WikiLeaks and that he had spoken about WikiLeaks with senior campaign officials and, allegedly, with Trump himself” (pp 177).

Roger Stone

• August 2015, left the Trump campaign but kept close to the team and to Trump (pp. 142).
• June and July 2016, ahead of the Democratic National Convention, told the campaign “he had information indicating WikiLeaks possessed documents that would hurt Clinton” (pp. 142)
• July and August 2016 “Stone claimed to have heard via an intermediary from Julian Assange.. that his organization was planning to conduct a ‘very damaging’ dump against Clinton around October” (pp. 142)
• August 2016, Stone stated publicly he had communicated with Assange and said the next trenche of emails will be about the Clinton foundation.
• August 21, 2016, Stone said it would be “Podesta’s time” (pp 142).
• October 7, 2016, one hour after the Access Hollywood video came out, “WikiLeaks dropped a large batch of Podesta’s emails.” (pp. 142)
• Later that day, “the Office of the Director of National Security and the Department of Homeland Security issued a joint statement saying the US intelligence was confident the Russians were responsible for the hack-and-dump operation.” (pp. 143).
• October 12th, WikiLeads sent a DM through twitter to Donald Trump Jr. a link to their site suggested he tweet out a reference to the dump.
• October 14th, Trump Jr. tweets the link himself.

The Mueller team determined they did not have evidence sufficient to prove Stone was part of the conspiracy to hack and dump information from Clinton’s computer but he was guilty for “making false statements to Congress about his activities in and aroudn the WikiLeads dumps.”) (pp. 145)

Unanswered Question

“What, if anything, did Trump know about the Russian military intelligence hack-and-dump operation What did Trump know about Roger Stone’s potential advance knowledge of the dumping of those emails?” (pp. 107).

What was the nature of Roger Stone’s “apparent foreknowledge of WikiLeak’s impending dumps of Democratic data stolen by Russian military intelligence” (pp. 149).

Flynn

• February 13, 2017, Trump asked Flynn to resign as national security advisor for his interactions with Sergey Kislyak after Obama’ imposed sanctions on Russia for election interference and lying about it to Vice President Pence.(pp. 22)
• May 10, 2017, Trump meets with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lovrov and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak twenty-four hours after firing Jim Comey. Kislyak’s communications with Michael Flynn was part of that investigation. (pp. 5)

Unanswered Question

“What did Flynn tell Trump about his interactions with Russian ambassador Kislyak regarding US sanctions?” (pp. 107)