What the Mueller Report Says About Russian Contacts
After the 2016 election, Vice President-elect Mike Pence was asked if there was “any contact in any way between [Donald] Trump or his associates and the Kremlin or cutouts they had.” Pence answered, “Of course not. Why would there be any contacts between the campaign?”
Of course, there were contacts.
Throughout the federal investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, court filings and news organizations revealed numerous instances of campaign contacts with Russians that were not publicly known until after the election. Reports of these contacts fueled the federal probe, even as the president dismissed it as a “hoax” and a “witch hunt.”
A redacted report written by special counsel Robert Mueller’s office and released April 18 by Attorney General William Barr said there were “multiple contacts — ‘links,’ in the words of the Appointment Order — between Trump Campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government.” But “the investigation did not establish such coordination” between the campaign and Russia.
“In sum, the investigation established multiple links between Trump Campaign officials and individuals tied to the Russian government. Those links included Russia offers of assistance to the Campaign. In some instances, the Campaign was receptive to the offer, while in other instances the Campaign officials shied away,” the Mueller report said. “Ultimately, the investigation did not establish that the Campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities.”
Here we look at the contacts that the Trump associates had with the Russians, according to the Mueller report and other government sources that we cite in our timeline. The events, for the most part, follow in chronological order.
Trump Tower Moscow
The Trump Organization actively pursued a real estate project in Moscow during the 2016 presidential campaign, but the public didn’t learn about it until the Washington Post broke the story on Aug. 27, 2017 — about seven months into the Trump presidency.
Trump signed a letter of intent with a Moscow-based developer, I.C. Expert Investment Co., on Oct. 28, 2015. Michael Cohen, chief counsel for the Trump Organization, and Felix Sater, a Trump business associate, led the Trump Organization’s negotiations with Russian officials until at least June 2016. During that time, Sater repeatedly sought for Cohen and Trump to visit Russia and discuss plans for a Trump Tower in Moscow.
On Feb. 27, Cohen told the House oversight committee that Trump “knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it.”
Specifically, Cohen claimed that he was encouraged to lie in a statement in 2017, when he told two congressional committees that the company’s pursuit of the Moscow project ended in January 2016 before “the Iowa caucus and … the very first primary.” In fact, as he said in his guilty plea, the Trump Organization continued negotiations into June 2016 — a month before Trump was nominated at the Republican National Convention.
The Mueller report, citing Cohen’s statements to investigators, said Cohen and the president’s personal attorney were in “almost daily” contact during the drafting of the statement to Congress.
“While working on the congressional statement, Cohen had extensive discussions with the President’s personal counsel, who, according to Cohen, said that Cohen should not contradict the President and should keep the statement short and ‘tight,'” the report says. “Cohen recalled that the President’s personal counsel said ‘his client’ appreciated Cohen, that Cohen should stay on message and not contradict the President, that there was no need
