Analysis: Confused by yet another report on the Trump-Russia connection? Here's a guide to the key findings of four major reports.
using forensic evidence similar to the earlier indictment. A Russian millionaire with ties to the Kremlin was convicted in February of participating in an insider-trading scheme that involved the hacking of securities filing agencies to get advance knowledge of earnings reports.
The hacking was allegedly conducted by a Russian military officer, Ivan Yermakov — one of the Russian operatives who was charged with hacking into key Democratic Party email accounts.The FBI on July 31, 2016, opened a counterintelligence investigation, dubbed “Crossfire Hurricane,” into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. The team was set up because of a tip from an Australian diplomat: that a Trump campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, had disclosed in a May conversation that Russia had obtained damaging information on Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, and appeared willing to help the Trump campaign with it.hacked from Democratic National Committee servers, the Australian government thought the conversation appeared newly relevant, and on July 26 sent a cable to the State Department summarizing what Papadopoulos had said. The cable said it was unclear how “Trump’s team reacted to the offer,” according to the Durham report.that the information received from Australia “was sufficient to predicate the full counterintelligence investigation because it provided the FBI an articulable factual basis that, if true, reasonably indicated activity constituting either a federal crime or a threat to national security may have occurred or may be occurring.” The Durham report is more circumspect. It says “there is no question that the FBI had an affirmative obligation to closely examine” the information received from Australia but concludes that “the investigation could have been opened more appropriately as an assessment or preliminary investigation.”The Durham report details how some investigators thought the information from Australia was “thin” and questions why the FBI in August so quickly elevated the probe into examining the activities of four Trump campaign advisers — Papadopoulos, energy consultant Carter Page, foreign policy expert Michael Flynn and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort. The distinction between a full and preliminary investigation is not especially important. A preliminary investigation would have had a time limit and allowed for fewer investigative tools, but if enough evidence had been developed, it could have been turned into a full investigation.The Australian tip led the FBI to investigate whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russian government. FBI officials were especially suspicious because then-candidate Trump openly called for Russia to interfere in the election.“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said at 10:30 a.m. on July 27, one day after the Australian cable was sent to the State Department. The Republican nominee was referring to a controversy over emails Clinton had deleted from a private email account she had used as secretary of state. It was midafternoon in Russia when Trump made his statement, and that same day, according to the Mueller indictment, Russian hackers “attempted after-hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a third party provider and used by Clinton’s personal office.” While none of the investigations revealed explicit coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives, Mueller’s report and the Senate report concluded that the Trump campaign welcomed foreign help — even though. The Durham report makes no similar assessment but instead focuses on how it believes the FBI did not follow investigative norms. “The investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts,” Mueller’s report said, even as it stated that it “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” For instance, when given a chance to obtain “dirt” on Clinton from a person that top campaign aides were told represented the Russian government, they eagerly gathered at Trump Tower in New York to collect it. The meeting came about after Donald Trump Jr. was told by a contact that the Russian government wanted to offer “official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary” to assist the campaign. “If it’s what you say I love it,” Trump Jr. responded in an email. In the end, what they received proved disappointing to the campaign. The Senate report said two Russian participants had “significant connections to the Russian government, including the Russian intelligence services.” The Mueller report said the special counsel decided not to prosecute the Trump campaign officials who attended the meeting in part because it could not determine whether the information had enough value to trigger a felony count, or even the $2,000 threshold for any criminal charge. Mueller considered whether to bring charges of conspiracy to violate laws prohibiting foreign contributions, especially because emails made it clear to the participants that the meeting concerned information from Russian sources. Trump Jr. did not consent to a voluntary interview, and Mueller declined to prosecute because his team “did not obtain admissible evidence likely to meet the government’s burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that these individuals acted ‘willfully,’ i.e., with general knowledge of the illegality of their conduct.” During the perjury trial of longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone — whose refusal to cooperate hampered investigations — Trump’s former deputy campaign managerthat Stone told Trump in a July 31 phone conversation that WikiLeaks planned to release “more information” hacked from the DNC. “We believed that if information [from the hack] were to come out,” Rick Gates said, “it would give our campaign a leg up.” He
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