Trump caps off the week with an interview with 60 Minutes’ Lesley Stahl. In the interview he says even though he mocked her at a rally, he treated Blasey Ford with respect; says it doesn’t matter whether Blasey Ford was telling the truth because “we won”; misrepresents both NATO and the EU; and blames Obama for both the family separation policy and the current environment of divisiveness in the U.S. And finally, this: “Lesley, it’s okay. In the meantime, I’m president–and you’re not.” (Neener-neener-neener) I wrote up more highlights from the transcript, if you’re interested.

Here’s what else happened last week…

Russia:

1. While Russia was pressing forward with their trolling campaign in our 2016 election, Rick Gates requested proposals from Israeli company Psy-Group on ways to use social media to manipulate those elections. Proposals included:

• • Creating fake online identities to influence 5,000 delegates to the Republican National Convention.
  • Opposition research and intelligence activities on Clinton.
  • Exploiting existing divisions and sowing further division among opposing factions.
  • Planting disinformation among Republican delegates and voters in the primary elections.

2. Though the proposals have surfaced, there’s no evidence the campaign acted on them. Donald Jr. did meet with the company’s owner, though.
3. Andrew Miller, who worked for Roger Stone and is refusing to testify in Mueller’s case, filed a suit to invalidate Mueller’s prosecutorial authorization. He lost and is appealing, because he says now that Kavanaugh’s on the bench, he feels better about his chances.
4. Court documents show that Paul Manafort lobbied Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) as part of his lobbying for Viktor Yanukovych, a former Ukraine pro-Putin president. In 2013, Rohrabacher started to advocate for Yanukovych. Rohrabacher and Manafort met that year, and Manafort made a small donation to Rohrabacher’s campaign.
5. In response to a lawsuit against the Trump campaign that they illegally conspired with Russians to orchestrate the release of Clinton’s hacked emails, the campaign argues that the First Amendment protects their “right to disclose information – even stolen information.”
6. Trump and Rod Rosenstein finally have their meeting. It turns out Trump won’t be firing him, at least not right now.
7. Dutch security services catches four Russian hackers trying to hack into the Netherlands-based Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). One of their laptops is linked to the hacking of an investigation into Malaysian flight MH-17 and to the hacking of the World Anti-Doping Agency. The phones they were using were activated near GRU headquarters.
8. Republican funder Peter Smith raised $100,000 in 2016 to obtain Hillary Clinton’s stolen emails. He then directed the money to the “Washington Scholarship Fund for the Russian students” a few days after the email started leaking. The scholarship fund doesn’t appear to exist, and emails referencing the fund talk about email releases.
9. The U.S. government freezes all of Oleg Deripaska’s assets based in the U.S. Deripaska is a Russian oligarch who is knee-deep in Mueller’s Russia investigation thanks to his ties with Manafort.
10. Kirill Dmitriev, who was part of the infamous Seychelles meeting, reached out to at least three people in contact with the Trump transition team just before Trump’s inauguration.
11. Reddit’s CEO says that they’ve seen activity by suspicious Russian accounts over the past month.
12. Richard Pinedo, who pleaded guilty to felony ID fraud based on his work with Russian trolls, receives a sentence of six months in prison followed by six months of house arrest.
13. Someone throws a molotov cocktail into the offices of the Russian troll farm in St. Petersburg, starting the offices on fire.
14. Trump’s legal team starts responding in writing to Mueller’s questions about any Trump campaign involvement in the Russian meddling in our 2016 elections.
15. Facebook purges 559 pages and 251 accounts that they say are hyper-partisan and post spam. Facebook only purged based on the ways these pages and accounts spread content, and didn’t take political leaning into account (according to Facebook).

Courts/Justice:

1. Trump says that Christine Blasey Ford made up her accusations and they’re a disgrace. He says Kavanaugh got caught up in a hoax set up by Democrats. Just a reminder, after Blasey Ford’s testimony, Trump said he found her credible.
2. During Kavanaugh’s swearing in, Trump says “On behalf of our nation, I want to apologize to Brett and the entire Kavanaugh family for the terrible pain and suffering you have been forced to endure.” He also says, incorrectly, that Kavanaugh was proven innocent. Nothing was proven either way.
3. Kavanaugh takes his seat on the court.
4. GoFundMe campaigns for both Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh have raised over $600,000. Blasey Ford is using hers to pay for security and housing, since she’s unable to return to her home due to threats. The guy who started Kavanaugh’s campaign has been unable to work with Kavanaugh’s people to get him the money.
5. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill nominates Blasey Ford for a Distinguished Alumna Award for “speaking truth to power.”
6. FBI Directory Christopher Wray confirms to the Senate that the White House limited the scope of the investigation into Blasey Ford’s claims, but that it was normal procedure to do it that way.
7. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts refers over a dozen misconduct complaints against Kavanaugh to the 10th District Court of Appeals. The court is likely to dismiss the complaints now that Kavanaugh’s on the Supreme Court.
8. Senate Democrats agree to confirm 15 judges for lifetime appointments in return for Mitch McConnell letting them go home to campaign. The reasoning being that they all would’ve been confirmed no matter how long Democrats tried to drag it out, so they might as well cut their losses.
9. Fox News reports on leftist radical violence after the Kavanaugh confirmation, but in reality, politicians from both sides of the aisle are getting threats of violence and death.

Healthcare:

1. Trump places an op-ed in USAToday decrying what he calls the Democrats’ call for Medicare for All. Not only does he use debunked claims as proof, but he links to sources that dispute his claims.
2. Once again, the administration plans to take down the ACA sign-up sites for maintenance during the sign-up period like they did last year. The fact check is too long to include here, so here’s the link.

International:

1. According to Mike Pompeo, Kim Jong Un says he’ll let foreign inspectors take a look at the nuclear testing site he claims to have destroyed. But he won’t provide an inventory of their nuclear arsenal.
2. Nikki Haley resigns as U.S. Ambassador to the UN, and is leaving on good terms with Trump. She’s one of the few remaining cabinet members with approval from both sides.
3. Trump says that no one would be a better replacement for Haley than his daughter Ivanka, but he can’t appoint her because he’d be accused of nepotism.
4. The Turkish government releases American Pastor Andrew Brunson, whom they arrested along with over a dozen others in relation to the attempted coup against Erdogan’s government. The Trump administration is still working on releasing the rest, who they’re calling political hostages.
5. According to the Turkish government, Washington Post journalist Jamel Khashoggi was killed by a Saudi security team inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey. The Turkish government says they have audio and video recordings of the Saudi security team torturing and killing the journalist, and that the security team then dismembered Khashoggi to remove his remains.
6. Saudi Arabia denies that they’re behind this. Trump says even if they are, he wouldn’t sanction Saudi Arabia and definitely wouldn’t stop a deal to sell them arms. Just FYI: It’s not really a “deal” yet.
7. Trump says this happened in Turkey and Khashoggi isn’t even a U.S. citizen, so maybe we don’t need to do anything.
8. Meanwhile, Marco Rubio says that our “moral credibility” is on the line if we fail in our response to Khashoggi’s murder.
9. Then Trump threatens action if we do find that Saudi Arabia is responsible. So the Saudi government threatens to manipulate oil prices among other things. Then the Saudi stock market tanks and international businesspeople pull out of Saudi economic forums.
10. China detains Interpol President Meng Hongwei, whom they say they’re investigating for bribery.

Legislation/Congress:

1. Washington state abolishes the death penalty, the 20th state to do so. The state’s Supreme Court ruled that the penalty is applied unevenly. Duh.

Family Separation:

1. The Trump administration is looking into new ways to separate children from their parents at the southern border.
2. According to an ACLU lawsuit, the government actually is still separating families; they’re just doing it quietly.
3. State judges can hand over immigrant children who we separated from their parents to American foster families without notifying the children’s parents. Because immigrants were deported and coerced into signing paperwork they didn’t understand, they might have signed away rights to reunite with their kids.
4. Children as young as two continue to appear and testify in court with no representation or parents. How can a two-year-old testify as to their asylum request?
5. Officials gave a five-year-old child who was separated from her grandmother legal papers for her to sign away her request for a Flores Bond Hearing. She could’ve been deported if not for the months-long effort of advocacy groups.
6. A Phoenix shelter housing undocumented immigrant children separated from their parents closes after staff members were found to have abused the children. Southwest Key was already in danger of losing their license.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. The Trump administration proposes limiting protests near the White House and the National Mall, and possibly charging fees. Charging fees has already been deemed an infringement of the First Amendment.
2. Trump makes up a brand new, fake Senate bill in a campaign rally “Every single Democrat in the U.S. Senate has signed up for the open borders – and it’s a bill. And it’s called The Open Borders Bill. What’s going on? And it’s written by – guess who – Dianne Feinstein.” FYI: The bill doesn’t exist.
3. Contradicting what he told Congress, it turns out that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross did speak with Steve Bannon and Kris Kobach about adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. Ross also says the reason for the questions is to strengthen the Voting Rights Act, but emails contradict that, saying that the reason is to make sure undocumented immigrants don’t get representation. Ross is about to be deposed for a related lawsuit.
4. Following a speech in New York by the founder of the Proud Boys, an all-male, far-right hate group, violence breaks out between protestors and Proud Boys members. Police arrest three men, but it’s not clear whether they’re members of the Proud Boys or if they were protestors. The bigger question is why the New York Republican party a) thought it was a good idea to invite them and b) appears to embrace the Proud Boys overt racism.
5. Earlier in the day, anarchist symbols were spray painted on the building where the founder was about to speak.
6. A FOIA request shows that the ICE sweep in February in Oakland, CA detained 111 people who had no criminal convictions. Only 47 of the 233 who were detained had major criminal convictions. ICE said they were only going after known criminals.
7. EPA head Andrew Wheeler engages with and likes conspiracy theorist and racist content on social media. As recently as last week.
8. Melania says she’s one of the most bullied people in the world. Uh, how about this? And this?
9. Representative Kevin McCarthy introduces a bill to fully fund the wall, in an apparent attempt to bolster his chances at becoming the GOP House leader. The Senate is already indicating they won’t pass it.
10. 20 years ago this week, Matthew Shepard succumbed to his injuries from being beaten and left tied to a farm fence for being gay. Now his remains will be interred at Washington National Cathedral.
11. The MacArthur Foundation gives Pastor Williams J. Barber a $625,000 genius award for his activism against poverty and racism. They couldn’t reach him to tell him because he was being arrested at the time for protesting low wages in front of MacDonald’s headquarters.
12. Harvard University gives Colin Kaepernick the W.E.B. DuBois award for his work against racial inequality.
13. Seattle dismisses over 500 pot convictions after a court rules the convictions were unfairly applied to people of color. Again, duh.
14. A judge rules that Trump can’t deny federal funding to San Francisco over it’s sanctuary city policies.
15. A man who ICE detained while he was delivering pizza to a military base earlier this year is released, because it turns out that ICE had no reason to detain him.

Climate/EPA:

1. Here’s a little more on that UN report that found we have 12 years to address climate change to mitigate the most extreme effects.

• • Unless we make drastic changes within the next few years, we’ll see $54 trillion in damages.
  • We’ll see a major increase in food shortages, wildfires, and dying coral reefs within 20 years.

2. ExxonMobil plans to spend $1 million lobbying for a carbon tax and dividend program.
3. Hurricane Michael hits Florida’s panhandle as a category 4 storm, flattening much of Mexico Beach, FL and causing flooding and power outages from the panhandle up to the Carolinas. It’s the fourth most powerful storm to make landfall in the U.S., and it leaves 16 dead and 1.27 million without electricity.
4. The Senate votes to confirm a climate skeptic and former industry lawyer to the environment division of the DOJ.
5. The Trump administration plans to remove a federal ban on selling high-ethanol gas blends in the summer. These blends contribute to smog on hot days. The corn industry supports this, while the gas and oil industry oppose it.
   
6. The EPA disbands their panel of air pollution experts, which determines safe levels of pollution for us to breathe.
7. Elon Musk redeems himself a bit by donating money to Flint, MI schools for water fountains with filtration systems, so schools finally have clean drinking water.
8. The Supreme Court refuses to hear a lawsuit against an Obama-era ban on new uranium mining in the Grand Canyon, which mean the ban remains in place.

Budget/Economy:

1. The budget deficit for the 11 months through August rose to $898 billion. Spending increased by 7% while revenue only increased by 1%. Revenue from corporations fell.
2. After the Dow Jones falls by over 800 points, Trump blames the Fed for raising interest rates and calls the Fed loco. He won’t fire Jerome Powell, though.
3. Larry Kudlow says we shouldn’t take what the president says seriously. Ignore the tweets, ignore the rallies.
4. In all, the Dow Jones drops 1,800 points before starting its way back up.
5. After a federal judge rules against Betsy DeVos’s attempt to roll back Obama-era rules that protect students from predatory lenders, the Education Department says it will stop trying to delay the rules.
6. Ford plans to lay off around 12% of its global workforce as part of a reorganization. They say Trump’s tariffs, which have had a $1 billion impact on the company, are throwing a wrench into their reorg.
7. The DOJ approves the $69 billion merger between CVS and Aetna.
8. American weapons sales to foreign countries are up 33% from the previous year.

Elections:

1. Accusations of voter suppression abound in the weeks before the midterms.

• • The Supreme Court upholds a North Dakota voter ID law that could suppress the Native American vote. The law says you must have a street address on your ID, and a large portion of Native Americans only have a P.O. Box. County coordinators are working overtime to generate addresses for everyone (yep, they pretty much just make them up, so I’m not sure why that’s any more secure). They’re generating new IDs so fast, their machines started melting the IDs.
  • In Georgia, Secretary of State Kemp has been overseeing voter roll purges affecting mostly minority voters at a time when he is in the race for governor running against one of those minorities. Over the years, he’s purged 700,000 voters from the rolls.
    • 70% the 53,000 voter applications placed on hold this year are African-American voters.
    • Activists file a federal lawsuit against Kemp, saying his methodology is racially biased.
    • Kemp ran into legal trouble before with his “exact match” method of purging voters. Everything must match exactly, or the voter is purged or placed on hold. I worked in name and address matching for nearly 20 years. You have no idea how many different ways people can screw this information up.
    • Georgia tried the exact match system nearly a decade ago, but it was blocked in court due to violations of the Voting Rights Act. After SCOTUS gutted the Voting Rights Act, Georgia reinstated the program.
    • Remember that Kemp refused federal assistance to bolster Georgia’s voting system in 2016 saying it’s ridiculous to think that Russia could break into their system. Hours later, someone called Kemp to let him know Georgia’s voter registration system was wide open to the public.
    • Mueller’s indictment against Russian GRU agents for hacking election systems specifically mentions their hacking attempt on Georgia’s system.

2. In good voter ID law news, Missouri’s voter ID law doesn’t hold up in court. This is the ninth time a court has found in favor of the voting rights group Priorities USA.
3. California’s motor voter program is not working as intended. First they found that around 23,000 registrations had errors, mostly minor and none including ineligible voters. Until now… when they found that they registered 1,500 ineligible voters due to human error. None were undocumented immigrants, but they were not eligible to register just the same. All the errors have since been corrected.
4. Two Arizona Republican field organizers used aliases to try to make a donation to Democratic candidate Tom O’Halleran from a Communist Party group in an attempt to link O’Halleran to far left politics. The campaign returned the money to the Republican field office where the two worked. And also, it’s a crime to donate under a fake name.
5. Federal officials arrest a man who planned to set off a 200-pound bomb in Washington’s National Mall on election day. He said it was to draw attention to his political belief of sortation, which is a way of randomly selecting government officials.
6. Sheldon Adelson donates $10s of million more toward Republican campaigns to hold on to their power in Congress. This comes on the heels of a report that Trump worked with Shinzo Abe to get Adelson a casino license in Japan. I do not want to hear another word about George Soros. Big donors exist on both sides.
7. You know who votes at a higher rate than U.S. citizens? Mexican citizens for one. And South Koreans. Also most of Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. So get off your butt and vote!

Miscellaneous:

1. From 2015 to 2018, Google exposed data of hundreds of thousands of Google+ users and didn’t tell us until now. Their response? They’re shutting down Google+.
2. Trump says he’s lost $2 or $3 billion since becoming president. Uh-huh.
3. Documents show that Jared Kushner has likely not paid federal income taxes for years. Though he made millions in income, he used depreciation on many of his properties to avoid paying taxes. Note that this is likely legal.
4. Hope Hicks, who left the White House in April, takes a job at Fox as Chief Communications Officer.
5. A Los Angeles judge dismisses Stormy Daniels’ defamation suit against Trump, saying the tweet in question was covered under Trump’s First Amendment rights since she’s a public figure. The judge also ordered her to pay Trump’s legal fees. Her attorney, Michael Avenatti, says they’ll appeal.
6. Kanye West visits the White House to meet with Trump about prison reform and gang violence. I don’t necessarily find this newsworthy, except that it got a little circus-like in the Oval Office and he did use some colorful language on live TV.

Polls:

1. 51% of Americans disapprove of Kavanaugh’s confirmation, compared to 41% who approve.
2. 53% support further investigation into Kavanaugh, while 43% are opposed.

Trump pretty much sums up the week by live-tweeting segments from Fox and Friends and then giving them an interview on the White House lawn where he says:

• The IG report exonerates him (it doesn’t).
• Comey is a criminal.
• The FBI is a “den of thieves.”
• Democrats are at fault for separating families at the border (they aren’t).
• It’s great that he gave Kim Jong-Un credibility because he deserves it.
• The reporter asking questions is obnoxious for pushing him on his about-face on Kim Jong-Un’s human rights record.
• He hates the “war games” with South Korea (“war games” is what North Korea calls our military exercises).
• Manafort had nothing to do with Trump’s campaign (except that he was the campaign manager, I guess).
• Obama is at fault for Russia having annexed Crimea.
• Oh yeah. And he wants his people to stand up at attention for him like Kim’s people do.

So yeah, it was that kind of week. Here’s what else happened…

Russia:

1. Russian intelligence agencies continue to attempt to meddle in our elections, this time in the 2018 midterms, according to a court filing by Robert Mueller. He’s using this as a reason to withhold certain evidence from Russians who have been charged.
2. Newly released memos in the Paul Manafort case describe his attempts to influence Congress and the media on behalf of the Ukrainian president.
3. Mueller requests 150 blank subpoenas in the Manafort case, which could mean up to 75 witnesses.
4. Court filings in the Mueller investigation reveal the names of members of the Hapsburg group, European politicians who participated in Manafort’s Ukraine lobbying efforts. They include former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, former Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer, former Spanish NATO head Javier Solana, Belgian Judge Jean-Paul Moerman, and the head of the German Federal Chancellory Bodo Hombach.
5. The same filings reveal some of the content of the texts Manafort sent in an alleged attempt to tamper with witness testimony.
6. In the context of alleged witness tampering, a judge revokes Manafort’s bail and sends him to jail until his trial starts.
7. Shortly after Manafort goes to jail, Giuliani dangles the possibility of a pardon, saying that when this is all over, things will get “cleaned up with a few presidential pardons.”
8. A network of companies related to Cambridge Analytica is being investigated in Canada and the UK. One of these companies, AggregateIQ, based in British Columbia, Canada, is a vendor that had an exclusive intellectual property license with a company that is part of the network funded by Robert Mercer and run by Steve Bannon (which also includes the now defunct Cambridge Analytica).
9. It turns out that Roger Stone did meet with at least one Russian national in 2016 despite testifying that he hadn’t. The Russian national offered Stone dirt on Hillary in return for $2 million dollars, but Stone didn’t rise to the bait.
10. A judge refuses to grant a restraining order for Michael Cohen against Michael Avenatti. The restraining order was to force Avenatti to stop talking about the Stormy Daniels case.
11. Cohen mentions to friends that he might be willing to cooperate with the prosecution. So the White House launches a campaign to discredit him before he does cooperate.
12. Cohen’s lawyers will all stop representing him in the coming weeks. Rumor has it that this is because of an issue with high fees.
13. We learn that White House counsel Don McGahn recused his entire staff from the Russia investigation because they were all involved in it at some level (mostly in the firings of White House officials).
14. DOJ officials say that Rod Rosenstein will ask the House general counsel to launch an investigation into the conduct of House Intelligence Committee staffers in their handling of the Russia investigation.
15. The DOJ inspector general releases his report on FBI and DOJ integrity in investigating Hillary Clinton’s emails. Just for reference, the IG is a Republican politician.

• • The IG did find evidence of anti-Trump sentiment among some of the investigators. However…
  • The IG also found that there was no impropriety in how the investigation was conducted, including no political bias.
  • Even though there was no bias, Comey’s actions were still damaging to America’s perception of the FBI, and he deviated from standard procedures to the point of insubordination in his public announcements around the Hillary Clinton email investigation.
  • The text messages between agents Strzok and Page, while biased, had no influence or effect on the integrity of the investigation.
  • And also, Comey was using personal email for government business while investigating Hillary for using personal email for government business.

16. Here are a few reactions to the IG report:

• • James Comey disagrees with parts but says the conclusions are reasonable (even though the report didn’t take it easy on him).
  • Republicans on the Hill say the report shows there are serious problems with the FBI and the DOJ and how they handled the email investigation.
  • Democrats on the Hill say the report shows the FBI didn’t follow the rules and that ended up hurting Clinton’s campaign and helping Trump’s.
  • Trump thinks the report exonerates him, even though it had nothing to do with him. It was solely about the investigation into Hillary’s emails, though there are a few mentions of the Russia investigation since they were concurrent.

17. After the IG releases his report, FBI agent Peter Strzok says he’s willing to testify in front of Congress without immunity and without invoking the 5th amendment.
18. Devin Nunes continues to push the DOJ and FBI to release classified documents relevant to their ongoing investigations.

Courts/Justice:

1. The Supreme Court avoids ruling on the legality of partisan gerrymandering by sending the Wisconsin case back to the lower courts and asking that the plaintiffs do more work to prove injury from the gerrymandering.
2. In a second gerrymandering case, the Supreme Court rules that the plaintiffs in Maryland waited too long to file a suit and that the gerrymandered districts will remain for the 2018 midterms. There is a third case, involving North Carolina, still to be heard.
3. My take on it: These cases involved both Republican and Democratic gerrymandering, both of which should be illegal. Repressing anybody’s vote is simply unAmerican.
4. The state of New York brings a lawsuit against Trump, Ivanka, Eric, and Don Jr. alleging illegal conduct by the Trump Foundation, including campaign fraud and self-dealing. The state request that the charity be dissolved and the family be prevented from running another charity in the state for 10 years. Trump says he won’t settle the suit. The New York’s AG refers some of their findings to the IRS, so keep an eye on this one.

Healthcare:

1. Joel McElvain, a senior DOJ official, resigns just one week after the Trump administration announced it would stop defending the ACA and would actually argue that parts of the ACA are unconstitutional. It hasn’t been confirmed whether there was cause and effect here.
2. Massachusetts sues Purdue Pharma, the company that makes OxyContin, saying the company purposefully misled both doctors and consumers about how dangerous Oxy really is.

International:

1. After a contentious weekend with the G7, where Trump pretty much isolated us from all our allies, Trump continues to push his idea of inviting Russia back to the G7, or G8 as it would then be. He feels Putin is a better friend to him than our allies.
2. Trump aides say that the reason Trump came across so tough at the G7 was to give him the upper hand in the North Korea negotiations.
3. A coalition of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and the U.S. military bomb a Doctors Without Borders cholera facility in Yemen.
4. Trump meets with Kim Jung-Un in a historic summit. They sign a joint statement agreeing to work toward nuclear disarmament.
5. Trump does not bring up North Korea’s human rights violations during the summit.
6. Trump is open to having a U.S. embassy in North Korea.
7. Afterward, Trump says they have a special bond and a terrific relationship.
8. Trump announces that he agreed to suspend certain military exercises with South Korea, much to the surprise of South Korea and to the U.S. military.
9. Trump says people have it rough in North Korea, but there are other places where it’s just as rough. According to Human Rights Watch, North Korea is “one of the most repressive authoritarian states in the world.”
10. The White House produces and releases a bizarre short propaganda film about the summit that you have to see to believe.
11. Here are the key points of the joint statement:

• • It establishes U.S.-DPRK relations.
  • It affirms that the two countries will work together toward peace.
  • It reaffirms that North Korea will work toward denuclearization.
  • Both countries commit to recovering and repatriating missing POW remains.

12. Mike Pompeo says that the only outcome we’ll accept from the North Korea negotiations is “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization” of the Korean peninsula.
13. Even though North Korea announced an incremental plan of give and take between the two countries, Mike Pompeo says that sanctions will remain in place until North Korea is completely denuclearized.
14. News agencies obtain a classified Israeli report casting doubt on the progress touted by the Trump administration in North Korea. But however this goes, the report says this process will not be quick.
15. Our unmanned drone policy is more unrestrained and less transparent than before, and Trump is on track to outpace Obama in drone strikes. We had plenty of complaints about Obama’s use of drones, but Trump has reversed measures intended to make the use of drones more transparent, to narrow the scope of the targets, and to reduce collateral damage.
16. Italy blocks a rescue boat with around 600 refugees on board from docking on their shores. Spain agrees to take in the migrants. And THEN, Italy blocks two more ships from docking.
17. The Korean peace talks have laid the groundwork for Russian energy company Gazprom to start planning an oil pipeline through North Korea to deliver fuel to South Korea.
18. The U.S. is expected to pull out of the UN’s human rights council because of what Trump sees as an anti-Israel bias. This will take away our leadership role in preventing human rights abuses around the world.
19. Trade advisor Peter Navarro apologizes for his comments about Justin Trudeau that “there’s a special place in hell” for leaders who cross Trump.

Legislation/Congress:

1. Democrats in Congress introduce a bill to stop Trump from separating families at the border.

Separating Families:

This issue hit a fever pitch this week, with congressional and press visits to the detention facilities. So I figure it deserves its own section.

1. The Trump administration continues its policy of separating families at the border, as announced by Jeff Sessions in April. As of this week, around 2,000 children have been separated from the parents at our southern border. They are being held in makeshift detention centers, including an old Walmart. The administration is also looking at tent cities.
2. Why is this happening? No, it’s not a Democratic law or policy. It’s the Trump administration’s decision to start treating border crossings as criminal cases rather than civil cases, which requires the separation of children from their parents who are charged. He could treat these as civil cases and send them to immigration courts instead. His administration brought this idea up in early 2017, so it’s something they’ve wanted for a while.
3. Workers at the detention centers are not allowed to hold and comfort the children, and some have even prevented the children from comforting each other.
4. Trump blames Democrats for this policy, even though they literally have nothing to do with it. Nearly every legal expert agrees that this is 100% a result of Trump’s policies and if he wanted to stop it, he just needs to make a phone call.
5. Trump himself says he’s using this as a negotiating tool (in other words, he’s treating people like animals for political gain).
6. Democrats and Republicans in Congress put forth a bipartisan plan (this is the third one since last fall) that would give Trump most of what he wants, including $25 billion toward his wall. But Trump says he won’t sign it. There’s another more conservative plan going around that is also likely to fail.
7. In response, the White House says that Trump misunderstood the question, but it could be too late because Republicans in the House are already saying they’ll stop supporting the bill if they can’t get it past Trump.
8. Lawmakers from both parties have denounced the policy of separating families, and every single Democratic Senator has signed on to a law preventing it. No Republicans have signed on yet.
9. Republicans say the bills they’re putting forth will help families; Democrats say those bills will make it worse for families. I haven’t read any of the bills yet to find out if either are right.
10. For more than a decade, the Office of Refugee Resettlement has funded organizations that represent unaccompanied minors in immigration court. Now that the new zero-tolerance policy is creating even more unaccompanied minors, the ORR has told these organizations to stop taking new cases because the program is being defunded.
11. The administration started separating families months before they officially announced it, and the ACLU brought a suit against them over family separation, saying the government isn’t doing this to protect the children. A judge rules that the case has merit and that it can go forward.
12. Members of the Bush and Obama families call on Trump to stop this heartless policy.
13. The UN commissioner on human rights calls for an immediate stop to this practice that he characterizes as abuse.
14. Jeff Sessions and Sarah Huckabee Sanders both quote passages from the Bible to justify the separation of families. Notably, the passage Sessions quoted is followed by “Love your neighbor as yourself. 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”
15. Ted Cruz defends the policy of separating families.
16. Anne Coulter accuses these children of being child actors. And exactly how would a child actor get themselves detained?
17. Don Jr. liked a tweet that accused the children of being coached by liberals and given scripts to read. This is either extremely disingenuous or extremely dumb.
18. In an informal poll, 56% of Americans oppose this policy and 27% approve of it. Which just goes to prove Trump’s point that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose his base.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. Jeff Sessions ends asylum protections for immigrants trying to escape domestic violence or gang violence.
2. As part of a lawsuit, the Commerce Department releases over 1,300 documents about the decision to add a citizenship question to the next census.

• • It will be a costly change.
  • The change was pushed by Steven Bannon and Kris Kobach, both of whom are explicitly anti-immigrant.
  • One of the reasons for the change seems to be concern over determining the number of congressional seats for each state.

3. The Trump administration is combing through decades of fingerprint records in order to find and deport immigrants who might have lied on their forms. This is a rare and drastic action usually only used for deporting people who commit egregious crimes. And yes, this is what they are spending our tax money on.
4. South Carolina’s governor Henry McMaster seeks an exemption for the Miracle Hill Ministries foster care agency to allow the agency to discriminate against non-Christians. I predicted that allowing foster agencies to discriminate based on closely held religious beliefs would not just hit the LGBTQ community but also communities of faiths other than Christian.

Climate/EPA:

1. Several House Republicans send Trump a letter urging him to forward the (Obama-era) Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol to the Senate for approval. This amendment phases down refrigerant in appliances, and would help U.S. manufactures secure a lead in the global market. The letter makes no mention of climate change, though that is the point of the amendment.
2. Republicans in Congress finally start deserting scandal-ridden Scott Pruitt after we learn that he used his influence to get his wife a job. It’s interesting that his efforts at undoing what the military considers our national security (climate change mitigation) aren’t what upset legislators. Also interesting that his previous scandals didn’t make them blink.
3. An exhaustive study of Antarctica’s ice sheet shows that it’s losing ice faster than originally thought, and that there were sharp increases in ice loss in 2010 and 2012. The sheet lost over 3 trillion tons of ice over the last 25 years. Much of this loss comes from ice that is below sea level, a result of warming oceans.

Budget/Economy:

1. May numbers show that inflation increased at its highest pace in 6 years while wages remained flat.
2. The courts allow the merger between AT&T and Time-Warner and just like that, the deal is done.
3. The Fed raises interest rates and predicts two more raises by year end.
4. The Senate blocks Trump’s efforts to save Chinese company ZTE from the sanctions we placed on them.
5. The U.S. and China have been playing at trade wars since March, but now Trump announces a 25% tariff on $50 billion in Chinese imports. China retaliates with its own announcements of equivalent tariffs on U.S. imports.

Elections:

1. The courts uphold Ohio’s voter roll purge. The rule is if you don’t vote for two years, you’re sent a notice. If you don’t return the notice and you don’t vote in the next four years, they remove you from the voter rolls. Records show that this affects Democratic districts twice as much as Republican districts, and really hits poor black neighborhoods.
2. Maine tries out ranked-choice voting for the first time, and ranked-choice voting itself is on the ballot. They vote to keep it. Keep an eye on how it worked out for them.
3. Because lesson not learned, Trump’s 2020 campaign hires Data Propria for voter targeting similar to what Cambridge Analytica did in 2016. But of course they did. The company is run by former Cambridge Analytica officials.

Miscellaneous:

1. After criticizing Prime Minister Trudeau for his words about trade with the U.S., economic advisor Larry Kudlow suffers a heart attack, landing himself in the hospital. Kudlow says Trudeau was trying to make Trump look weak on his way into his summit with North Korea.
2. Mari Stull, who was hired by the White House two months ago, makes lists of government officials and employees of international organizations who are loyal to Trump. Any support of any of Obama’s policies is considered disloyal. He was appointed two months ago. Stull is a former food lobbyist and a wine blogger.
3. Financial disclosures show that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump made at least $82 million last year, including income from Trump businesses and properties.
4. Chief of Staff John Kelly calls the White House a miserable place to work.
5. Apparently Trump has long had a habit of tearing up papers during meetings, and his staff is having a hard time training him that any document he touches cannot be destroyed and must go to the national archives. So the White House has a group of staffers whose job is to tape back together the pieces of paper that he tears apart before they get forwarded to the national archives.
6. New Jersey signs six new gun bills that include improvements to background checks, limits on magazine sizes, and the ability to remove guns from people considered an extreme danger.
7. The White House is holding a job fair to get staffed up.
8. Trump orders Giuliani’s son Andrew to be personal assistant to the president, but John Kelly revokes Andrew’s access to the West Wing.
9. Andrew McCabe sues the FBI and the DOJ for additional information around his firing.

Polls:

1. 54% of Americans don’t think the Korean summit will lead to denuclearization.
2. 42% of Americans do think the summit reduced the chance of war.
3. 57% of Americans approve of Trudeau’s handling of the trade dispute. 37% approve of how Trump is handling it.

Stupid Things Politicians Say:

If you don’t think Trump lies, he tells you all the time that he does. On whether Kim Jong Un will follow through with agreement, here’s what he says:

“I may be wrong, I mean I may stand before you in 6 months and say, ‘Hey, I was wrong.’ I don’t know that I’ll ever admit that, but I’ll find some kind of an excuse.”

I decided to compile all the Russia recaps from the past year into one post just to have it all in one place. It turned out to be ridiculously long–almost 50 pages–but here it is. Everything we learned in the past year in one spot.

Week 1

1. Despite the growing mountain of evidence that the Russians deliberately interfered in our election, Trump continues to deny the intelligence community’s findings and instead favors Vladimir Putin and Julian Assange.

Week 2

1. A bipartisan bill is in the works to prevent Trump from being able to roll back sanctions against Russia without congressional approval.
2. Senators Graham and Whitehouse say the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism will investigate Russia’s influence in both our elections and EU nations’ elections.

Week 3

1. Officials have corroborated some of the information in the leaked Steele Dossier on Trump, confirming that some of the conversations described in the dossier took place between the same individuals on the same days and from the same locations as detailed in the dossier. This gives US intelligence higher confidence in the credibility of certain parts of the dossier as they continue to investigate. No content has been confirmed.
2. As part of the Steele Dossier corroboration, officials claim National Security Advisor Michael Flynn had discussions with the Russian ambassador to Washington prior to Donald Trump’s inauguration. The discussions were inappropriate and possibly illegal, especially if they were about easing sanctions. The content of the conversations has not been released, though.

Week 4

1. Intelligence leaks also claim that Trump’s aides had repeated contact with senior Russian officials during the 2016 campaign, and that Trump knew about Flynn for weeks.
2. Trump views the Russia problem as an issue with illegal leaks from the White House instead of viewing the actual contact with Russia as the problem. He also blames it on Hillary in a tweet.
3. Intelligence leaks indicate they are withholding the most sensitive information from the White House because they are convinced that the administration is compromised due to its ties with Russia and don’t want any confidential information getting out to Putin.
4. Newly confirmed Attorney General Jeff Sessions refuses to recuse himself from investigations into the administration’s relationship with Russia even though he is pressured to do so due to his campaigning for Trump in 2016.
5. Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, moves to investigate the Russia leaks from the White House rather than investigating any Trump ties to Russia. He also moves to look into the guy who set up the private email server for Clinton.
6. Russia deploys a cruise missile, violating an arms control treaty. Also, a Russian warship is seen off the east coast, though this is considered normal.

Week 5

1. Russia begins to put together a psychological profile of Trump for Putin. Their initial conclusion is that Trump is a risk taker and can be naive.
2. Russian officials have confirmed that they had contact with Trump aides during the 2016 campaign, while Russia was interfering in the election.
3. The week before Michael T. Flynn resigned, someone delivered a proposal to him outlining how Trump could lift the Russia sanctions.
4. Texts are hacked from Paul Manafort’s daughter’s phone that indicate threats of blackmail against Manafort. The alleged sender of the texts denies they came from him.
5. The White House makes a request to the FBI that the they publicly refute media reports about the Trump team’s communications with Russia. Director Comey rejects the request.
6. Rep. Darrell Issa (R) calls for an independent investigation into the ties between Trump and Russia. Note that this is a huge surprise to me because Issa is a strict party-line guy.

Week 6

1. Sean Spicer personally arranges for CIA director Mike Pompeo and Senate Select Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr to contact reporters to push back on the stories about Trump team’s communication with Russia, which they did without providing any details.
2. The House GOP votes against compelling the Justice Department to turn over documents and information on Trump-Russia ties.
3. It comes out that Sessions spoke twice with a Russian ambassador last year, but did not disclose this in his hearings. In fact, during his hearing he wasn’t asked directly whether he met with any Russians, but he offered up the information that he didn’t (…”I did not have communications with the Russians”). Also, in response to a written query from a senator asking whether he met with any Russians, Sessions answered “No.” This leads to a protest at the US Department of Justice and Sessions recuses himself from any investigation into Russian ties.
4. The Trump administration claims Sessions was acting as a Senator when he met with the Russian ambassador, though he paid his expenses for the trip using political funds instead of legislative funds. He also spoke about the Trump campaign during the event.
5. Carter Page says “I do not deny” meeting with the Russian ambassador, contradicting his previous statements that he did not meet with Russians last year.
6. Just when I thought we’d have a quiet weekend…In a series of tweets, Trump accuses Obama of wiretapping his phones at Trump Tower, a very serious charge if true. The White House staff backs up his accusations, but there is no evidence at this time and it is assumed by some that he got the information from a Breitbart article.
7. Trump urged legislators to investigate the above claims. Republicans have said this would likely be part of any investigation into Trump-Russia ties. Democrats, on the other hand, have criticized the tweets and requested evidence to back up the assertions.

Week 7

1. Despite his claims to the contrary, it turns out that Trump met with the Russian ambassador during his campaign (though it was brief and I can see how he might not recall it).
2. According to Bloomberg, Russian hackers target U.S. progressive groups in a new wave of attacks, scouring the organizations’ emails for embarrassing details and attempting to extract hush money.
3. Comey meets with the “Gang of 8” (congressional members who have access to the most highly classified material) to discuss Russian meddling in last year’s election. Public hearings for the House Intelligence Committee on everything Russia are set to begin March 20.
4. Michael Flynn says he worked as a foreign agent for the Turkish government, being paid about a half million dollars for his work. His work included investigating Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen in the U.S. This while he was also attending intelligence briefings. It’s extraordinary that no one on the transition team knew of his foreign agent status.
5. The ACLU formally files an ethics complaint against AG Jeff Sessions over his testimony denying contact with Russian officials.
6. Between this week and the previous, Spicer goes 7 days without holding a televised press briefing. The entire White House goes a little press-quiet in the days following Trump’s tweet about the wiretapping.
7. If you remember, last week Trump tweeted that Obama had wiretapped his phones. The White House says Trump isn’t under investigation, which would mean that what Trump tweeted was a lie. Well, either he just lied or he just implicated himself.

Week 8

1. Sean Spicer walks back its claim that Obama wiretapped Trump’s phones. From CNN: “Trump didn’t mean wiretapping when he tweeted about wiretapping.”
2. On Monday, the Justice Department fails to deliver the awaited evidence that Obama had wiretapped Trump. Devin Nunes, chair of the intelligence committee, threatens to subpoena any relevant information. He says  “clearly the president was wrong” if he literally meant that Obama had wiretapped his home.
3. Spicer says that he’s confident evidence will surface that will prove Trump’s wiretapping claims.
4. Kellyanne Conway introduces a novel way Obama was spying on Trump — through microwaves that turn into cameras
5. Documents reveal that Michael Flynn received payments from Russian-based companies in addition to state media RT. One was part of a corruption scandal that got them banned from selling to the UN, and another (Kapersky) was trying to expand U.S. business.
6. Flynn’s recent filling reveals that he had also worked for Turkish government agencies. Even though Trump’s transition team was told about Flynn’s foreign agent status, he was still allowed to attend security briefings.
7. The DOJ announces indictments against two Russian spies in the FSB along with two hackers in the case of the 2104 breach of Yahoo’s networks (unrelated to the investigations around election interference).
8. A Secret Service agent in New York leaves her laptop, containing highly sensitive information, in her car from which it is stolen. Said laptop contains floor plans for the Trump Tower and details on Clinton’s emails.
9. The Russian bank that seemed to be communicating with a Trump server last year claims that it was hacked and is being set up.
10. Comey meets with top senators to brief them on the ongoing Russia investigations. Whatever they talked about is classified; no one said much on the way out.
11. And even after this meeting, Sean Spicer continues to stand by the wiretapping claims tweeted by Trump. Trump says he will provide evidence very soon. Senate Intelligence Committee leaders say they haven’t seen evidence of this, even after meeting with Comey on highly classified material around this.
12. Trump and Spicer both accuse British agents of being involved with the [alleged] wiretapping. The GCHQ (British equivalent of the NSC) says that’s ridiculous. The White House later apologizes, but Spicer later denies there was any apology. It turns out Trump got this news from Fox and Friends, where the analyst they were speaking with got his news from Russian state media, RT.
13. Representative Adam Schiff of the House Intelligence Committee said this of the Russia ties: “There is circumstantial evidence of collusion. There is direct evidence, I think, of deception and that’s where we begin the investigation.”

Week 9

1. James Comey and Mike Rogers testify in front of the House intelligence committee over Russian collusion and Trump’s wiretap accusations. Here’s what we found out:

• • Russia meddled in our elections and favored Trump over Hillary.
  • The FBI is investigating members of the current administration for coordinating with Russia.
  • The FBI has no information to support Trump’s claims of wiretapping.

2. Prior to the testimony, Trump sends out a series of tweets saying the Democrats made up the Russia story and that it’s fake news when the media reports that there’s no evidence to support his wiretapping accusations.
3. House Republicans ignore the testimony and focus on the leaks coming from the White House.
4. Trump sends out multiple inaccurate tweets during the testimony, some of which Comey refutes in real time.
5. The FBI, the NSA, and the Department of Justice all refute Trumps accusations of wiretapping.
6. Sean Spicer tells the press that Michael Flynn was a volunteer in the election campaign and that Paul Manafort had a very limited role. Manafort was Trump’s campaign chairman from March to August (unpaid, though).
7. It turns out that Mike Flynn worked with Turkey to try to find a way to avoid the US extradition process to transfer Fethullah Gulen (the mullah blamed for the failed Turkish coup) to Turkey.
8. Documents reveal that Paul Manafort not only received payments from pro-Russian agencies in Ukraine, he tried to hide them. Manafort says the records are a forgery.
9. Manafort apparently worked for a Russian billionaire on behalf of Putin where his role was to come up with a plan to undermine anti-Russian opposition in former Soviet republics (source: AP). His strategy was to influence US and European politics, business, and news for Putin’s benefit. He used non-profit groups and media to undercut Putin’s adversaries in eastern Europe.
10. Allegedly, Manafort’s daughter sent these two texts (among many others) about her father to her sister: “He has no moral or legal compass” and “Do you know whose strategy that was to cause that, to send those people out and get them slaughtered.”
11. Officials reveal that the FBI is investigating collusion between Trump associates and Russian officials around information that was released that damaged Clinton’s campaign. Specifically, they have information that there may have been some coordination around the timing of the releases.
12. Breitbart and Info Wars are included in the investigation into the Russian meddling in the election.
13. Devin Nunes, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, secretly receives classified information revealing that some Trump communications, or those of his associates, were incidentally intercepted as part of surveillance of foreign nationals. Without briefing committee members first, he rushes to tell the president and the press that names were unmasked (they should have been hidden), seemingly giving some credence to Trump’s wiretapping accusations. The RNCC uses this in their marketing emails saying that the wiretapping accusations were confirmed. It is suspected, and later confirmed, that Nunes received the information from someone in the White House.
14. Remember when Roger Stone tweeted that something was about to go down with Podesta right before his emails were leaked? Stone’s over-familiarity with WikiLeaks are under increased scrutiny as part of the investigations into Russia’s meddling in the election.
15. Anti-corruption protests break out across Russia, mainly protesting Prime Minister Medvedev. Hundreds of protesters are arrested, including the organizer and Putin’s primary opposition leader, Alexei Navally.
16. Polling shows 66% of Americans want an independent investigation into Russia.

Week 10

1. After last week’s questionable activities on the part of Devin Nunes around classified Russia documents, Democrats call for him to step down from the House Intelligence Committee and Senator Schumer says he should be replaced.
2. Jared Kushner volunteers to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee in the Russia probe.
3. According to the DoJ, the Trump administration tried to prevent Sally Yates, the fired acting AG, from testifying to the House Intelligence Committee, citing executive privilege. Yates had previously written the DoJ to be sure she could testify about this in a public hearing. She says her testimony will contradict previous statements made by the administration.
4. Spicer refutes reports that the White House pushed to prevent Sally Yates from testifying in the Russia probe.
5. Nunes subsequently cancels the hearing this week where Yates was supposed to testify. House Democrats on the Intelligence Committee provide a witness list, yet Nunes accuses them of stalling the investigation. It seems by the end of the week that the House investigation is on hold.
6. It turns out Nunes did get his information about incidental surveillance last week from White House staffers Ezra Cohen-Watnick and Michael Ellis, who both work on national security.
7. In a twist of irony, Sean Spicer says in his briefing that it shouldn’t matter who talked to whom. That what’s important is the substance… Huh? I thought the leaks were the important thing in the Russia scandal, not the substance?
8. Mike Flynn says he’ll testify in the Russia probe if he gets full immunity, a request that both the Senate and House Intelligence Committees rejected saying it was too early to justify it.
9. The Senate Intelligence Committee begins their hearings on Russia’s meddling in the elections and ties to the administration. They have at least 20 interviews lined up. (FYI: Richard Burr (Rep.) and Mark Warner (Dem.) head this committee.)
10. A USA Today review of court cases and legal documents shows that Trump’s businesses have been linked to ”at least 10 wealthy former Soviet businessmen with alleged ties to criminal organizations or money laundering.”
11. It turns out that Russia wasn’t just helping Trump during the general election, they were helping during the primaries as well.
12. In the initial Senate hearings, we hear testimony that there were 15,000 operatives around world who were involved in creating and spreading fake news around the election.
13. Mark Warner says there are reports that Russia had upwards of 1,000 hackers working in a facility in Russia to troll social media and create fake news targeting key areas in the U.S. using a network of bots. They used advanced algorithms to directly pinpoint certain demographics with misinformation.
14. The FBI investigation goes back further than we thought. They are looking into whether the Trump campaign or its associates were complicit (knowingly or not) in assisting with the hacks of the DNC and others in early 2016.
15. While no evidence has surfaced to support Trump’s wiretapping claims, it is true that the Obama administration was careful to keep records of the investigation, including an indexed list of the existing documents on the Russian investigation out of concern for what might happen to the documents.
16. Trump continues to tweet about the unproven wiretapping claims and to call the Russia probe fake news.
17. Clinton Watts testifies in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. If you didn’t listen to it, you should. None of it should be much of a surprise, but the way he ties it together is interesting. Here are a few clips:

• • https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4664397/clint-watts-3302017
  • https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4664379/clinton-watts-senate-intelligence-committee-hearing

Week 11

1. It turns out that Susan Rice did make multiple requests to unmask the identity of Trump associates who were incidentally surveilled last year. Trump accuses her of committing a crime with no evidence that what she did was wrong. The House Intelligence Committee wants her to testify.
2. In the days before Trump’s inauguration, Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, met in secret with a Russian associate of Putin in an attempt to create an alleged “back-channel line of communication” between Putin and Trump. The UAE  arranged the meeting. The FBI is investigating this as part of the Russia probe, but it isn’t clear whether Trump knew about the meeting nor what they actually talked about. Prince says the meeting was incidental.
3. Devin Nunes announces that he’ll step down from heading the house committee investigation into Russian ties. On the same day, the house ethics committee announces that Nunes is under investigation for possibly leaking classified information. He’s replaced by Mike Conaway of Texas.
4. We find out that senior lawmakers in Washington knew last June about the intelligence community’s information that Russia was actively trying to get Trump elected. This was earlier than we were previously led to believe.
5. I had hope that the Senate Intelligence Committee would handle their investigation more professionally than the House, but it turns out that the head of the committee, Richard Burr, was not only an avid supporter of Trump on the campaign trail but he also claims to have been instrumental in the FBI investigation into Hillary’s emails. Some Republicans say they need to remove any appearance of bias, but others vouch for Burr’s honesty. So for now, he’s the leader on this.
6. A majority of Americans want an independent investigation of this. I think we’re all tired of the partisanship on display.

Week 12

1. American authorities request the arrest of Russian hacker Peotr Levashov in Spain. His wife had told Russian state media RT that he was one of the hackers involved in the 2016 U.S. elections.
2. Documents show that Paul Manafort actively courted Trump in order to get a foothold in his campaign. Manafort claims it was the other way around.
3. Tillerson says Russia needs to confront their meddling in our elections and Europe’s to evaluate how it fits in with their long-term goals. He also says that things won’t improve between our countries as long as this is ongoing.
4. Both Republicans and Democrats in the House review the documents that Devin Nunes saw at the White House and that he later said unmasked the names of Trump associates who were incidentally surveilled. Members of both parties agree that there’s no there there. Nunes’ original reaction appears to have led to Trump’s accusations of Susan Rice, but it seems Rice hasn’t done anything illegal or out of the usual.
5. We now know that the FBI obtained a secret FISA warrant last year to surveil communications of Carter Page, who was an adviser to Trump at the time. This indicates that federal agencies had probable cause to think that Page is or was an agent of a foreign power (or in layman’s terms, a spy).
6. Documents surface that confirm that a pro-Russian political party in the Ukraine made payments to Paul Manafort. This supports the “black ledger” that was found last year with a list of payments along with accusations that money was being laundered through his company.
7. British intelligence was aware of the links between members of Trump’s campaign and Russian operatives as far back as late 2015.
8. Paul Manafort borrowed $13 million from Trump-related businesses on the day he left the campaign.

Week 13

1. We learn that the FBI used the Trump dossier to obtain a FISA warrant to surveil Carter Page last year. This means that not only did the FBI think the dossier provided probable cause, but the courts thought so as well, lending credence to the information contained within the dossier.
2. Documents show that a Russian government think tank developed a strategy to swing the U.S. election to Trump and to undermine our trust in our electoral system. The project was requested by Putin.
3. U.S. Intelligence announces it’s preparing charges to arrest Julian Assange. A day later, U.K. Election Commission announces an investigation into Leave.EU, the organization behind Brexit led by Nigel Farage. Farage also has ties to Assange and has visited him in the Ecuadorian embassy.
4. Amidst all the Russian hacking accusations from last year, Trump promised to put together a team to give him a cyber security plan within the first 90 days of his presidency. As of now there is no plan and no team.
5. Russian military aircraft come near Alaska four times in four days, to be intercepted by American and Canadian fighter jets.

Week 14

1. The Senate Intelligence Committee adds more staffers to help investigate Russia ties after they are criticized for the slow pace of their investigation.
2. The slow pace also generates a bigger push for an independent investigation (73% of Americans want one).
3. Rep. Jason Chaffetz says that it appears Michael Flynn broke the law in accepting foreign money for appearances and lobbying because as a retired Lieutenant General he is required to obtain permission.
4. Sean Spicer shifts blame to the Obama administration for having given Flynn security clearance, though Obama had also fired Flynn. Meanwhile, the White House refuses to turn over the documents requested by the oversight committee, something Spicer denies.
5. The Defense Department inspector general also launches an investigation into Michael Flynn.

Week 15

1. Comey testifies to the Senate Judiciary Committee about events before last year’s election. Specifically about his announcement a week before the election, Comey says “This was terrible. It makes me mildly nauseous to think we might have had some impact on the election.” Thanks for that—it makes a bunch of us more than mildly nauseous.
2. Here are a few take always from Comey’s testimony:

• • He said that he had no choice about breaking the news of the newly found emails in the last week of the election, even though he knew he was affecting the election.
  • He wanted to go public with the Russian meddling last summer, but the Obama administration prevented it. The administration only made the info public after 17 agencies came forward in October.
  • He confirmed that Russia was behind the DNC hack.
  • He said that Russia will continue to meddle in our elections and politics because the outcome of the election showed that their methods work.
  • He confirmed that he is being investigated for his role in the email probe and the elections.
  • He confirmed that the FBI is investigating whether active FBI agents leaked info to Giuliani in the run-up to the elections.
  • He also said that Huma Abedin had forwarded classified material to her husband’s server (Anthony Weiner).

3. Hackers break into the campaign servers of French presidential candidate Macron (now President Elect) and dump 9 gigs of campaign documents just hours before the traditional media blackout France imposes in the 44 hours around an election. Macron wins the election handily anyway.
4. A month before Michael Flynn was caught on tape talking with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about lifting U.S. sanctions, Flynn was warned about U.S. surveillance of Kislyak’s conversations. Maybe he just forgot?
5. It turns out that Obama had warned Trump against hiring Flynn during the transition period, though Spicer continues to blame the Flynn problem on the Obama administration.
6. Trump criticizes Susan Rice for refusing to testify in the Russia hearings, though she says her reason is that it was a partisan request. The leading Republican on the committee wants her to testify; the leading Democrat disagrees.
7. Trump ends an interview abruptly when pushed on his accusation that Obama was spying on him.

Week 16

1. Trump abruptly fires James Comey. The termination letter indicates that the decision is based on recommendations from AG Sessions (supposedly recused from anything Russia related) and Deputy AG Rosenstein.
2. The White House gives mixed timelines for how long Trump has been considering this, starting anywhere from the day he was elected to a few months to a few weeks to just this week. The firing comes less than a week after Comey’s testimony to a Senate committee.
3. Despite praising Comey for months, Trump suddenly says he’s not doing a good job.
4. Comey is the third person investigating the Trump administration that Trump has fired (the other two are acting AG Sally Yates and NY U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara).
5. White House spokespersons scramble to get the right story out. Sean Spicer literally hides in the bushes for several minutes before finally coming out to speak with reporters.
6. Sarah Huckabee Sanders says that FBI agents, along with Trump and AG Sessions, had lost confidence in the director (later contradicted by Andy McCabe’s testimony).
7. Early talking points put Rosenstein’s recommendation front and center as the reason for firing Comey. He pushes back against that and asks the White House to correct the record. He put together a memo at the request of the president, who was looking for a reason to release Comey.
8. White House sources say that Trump made the decision after watching the Sunday talk shows over the weekend. He told some of his aides that there is something wrong with Comey.
9. The reasons given for firing Comedy start to unravel. I don’t even know how to put this all in order, so here’s a deep dive from WaPo if you’re interested.
10. By Friday, in an interview with Lester Holt, Trump calls Comey a “showboat” and “grandstander,” and says that he would’ve fired Comey regardless of the DoJ’ opinion.
11. In the same interview, Trump says he was thinking about the Russia probe when he decided to fire Comey. “In fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.’” This undercut the denials from the White House that Comey’s firing had anything to do with the Russia investigation.
12. Comey learns he was fired while speaking to a group of FBI employees in California when he sees his image on the TV behind the group of employees. At first he thinks it’s a joke. But nope, he really just got fired on live TV. It appears the termination letter was delivered to the FBI offices in Washington AFTER the news broke on TV.
13. Days before he was terminated, Comey reportedly met with Rosenstein to ask for additional resources for the Russia investigation. Andy McCabe later said he didn’t know about this.
14. AG Sessions will be instrumental in hiring a replacement for Comey, which would put him right back in the center of the Russian investigation he is supposed to be recused from.
15. FBI agents fear that the firing will disrupt the Russia investigation.
16. FBI morale plummets with many agents angry over Comey’s firing, throwing shade on Trump’s allegations that morale was at a low under Comey.
17. Trump plans a visit to FBI offices but later cancels when he learns he wouldn’t receive a warm reception there after firing a reportedly popular director.
18. We learn that Comey had apparently refused to give Trump aides a preview of the testimony he was planning to give to a Senate Judiciary Committee prior to his firing.
19. Comey’s scheduled testimony in the Senate is canceled, and acting director Andy McCabe testifies in his place. Congress invites Comey to testify next week behind closed doors and he says no thanks, I’d rather testify publicly.
20. Even Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) is scratching his head over this. He asked the inspector general to add Comey’s firing to the Russia investigation.
21. Trump suggests in a tweet that there he might have tapes of his conversations with Comey and warns him against “leaking to the press.” Comey says he isn’t worried about what might be on any tapes, if there are any.
22. Reportedly, Trump had asked Comey to pledge his loyalty to Trump more than once and Comey refused.
23. Sally Yates testifies to a Senate Judiciary committee. Here are the main takeaways:

• • Michael Flynn was at risk for being compromised by Russian blackmail.
  • There is overwhelming evidence that Russia meddled to help Trump into office.
  • She indicated that there is evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians (by saying she was unable to answer the question without divulging classified info).

24. The partisanship of the committee is on display, with Republicans focusing on Yates’ refusal to support the travel ban and Democrats focusing on Flynn and Russia.
25. After Yates’ testimony, Spicer downplays her warnings and accused her of having an agenda against Trump.
26. In James Clapper’s testimony, he says he hasn’t seen evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia. Trump jumped on that as vindication, saying Clapper said there is no evidence. Not the same thing.
27. During his testimony, Comey overstates the amount of email Huma Abedin forwarded to her husband’s server. He also mistakenly says the emails were marked as classified.
28. The day after he fires Comey, Trump hosts Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Survey Kislyak (Kislyak was the target of last year’s intelligence surveillance). The White House allows only a Russian photographer into the Oval Office and bars U.S. media. The White House is surprised to learn that the photographer, who they thought was Lavrov’s official photographer, also works for the Russian news agency Tass. They claim they were “tricked” when the photographs show up in Russian propaganda and social media.
29. Henry Kissinger also pays a surprise visit to the White House.

30. Even after Comey’s firing, Mitch McConnell continues to reject calls for an independent investigation, saying it will impede the current investigations.
31. Federal prosecutors issue grand jury subpoenas to associates of Michael Flynn, according to CNN. Note: Only CBS has confirmed this story so far.
32. The Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenas Michael Flynn to obtain documents surrounding interactions with Russians.
33. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) agrees to share financial information with Senate investigators regarding Russia ties. FinCEN tackles money laundering, and will provide financial records related to Trump or to his associates.
34. Trump hires a law firm to send a certified letter to Lindsay Graham saying he doesn’t have monetary dealings with Russia (excepting a Miss Universe contest and a real estate deal). The law firm, Morgan and Lewis, won the Russia Law Firm of the Year award in 2016.
35. Andy McCabe testifies to the Senate committee. The main takeaways from his testimony are:

• • Comey had not lost the support of FBI agents; he is respected and morale was high until his termination.
  • He knows of no attempts by the White House to impede the Russia investigation.
  • The Russia investigation will go on regardless of the change in leadership at the FBI.
  • This investigation is a very large part of what the FBI is working on now.

Week 17

1. Sources say that in Trump’s meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak last week, he described information related to ISIS threats around laptops in airplanes, highly classified information that jeopardizes an intelligence source. The  arrangement with the source is sensitive, and it’s restricted from our allies and within our government. Trump’s revelation endangers future cooperation. In other words, we’ve shared more info with Russia than with our own allies.
2. McMaster and others state that Trump didn’t disclose anything that wasn’t public to the Russians. Trump’s subsequent tweets indicate that he did.
3. Some foreign officials suggest they’ll stop sharing secrets with the U.S.
4. The source of the information Trump disclosed turns out to be based in Israel.
5. Putin offers to give us a copy of their transcripts of the meeting to prove that classified material wasn’t discussed.
6. Trump indicates that he records all his conversations, so Congress requests those recordings, especially after his disclosure during his meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak.
7. Memos written by Comey after his meetings with Trump indicate that Trump had asked him to lay off the Flynn investigation.
8. The Justice Department names a special counsel, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, to oversee the probe into Russia’s meddling in the election.
9. During the last seven months of last year’s elections, Trump campaign advisors, including Michael Flynn, had contact with Russian officials and Kremlin ties at least 18 times.
10. We learn that Flynn had informed the Trump campaign weeks before he was made security advisor that Flynn was under investigation for secretly working as a paid lobbyist for Turkey.
11. Trump tweets his anger about the appointment of a special prosecutor.

• • “With all of the illegal acts that took place in the Clinton campaign & Obama Administration, there was never a special councel appointed!”
  • “This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!”

12. In an interview, Trump says, “I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
13. A recording of a discussion between Republican representatives is publicized in which Kevin McCarthy jokes that Trump is being paid by Putin, and Paul Ryan says they should never talk about it.
14. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), chair of the House Oversight Committee, requests all “memoranda, notes, summaries and recordings” of Trump and Comey’s communications.
15. Investigators into Russia coordination with the Trump campaign says a current senior White House advisor is a person of interest and is under scrutiny.
16. White House lawyers begin preparing for an impeachment defense. Note that this is not an admission of wrongdoing; they just want to be ready.
17. After Rod Rosenstein briefed the Senate on the current state of the Russia investigation, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) says that the Russia probe looks more like a criminal investigation than a counter-intelligence investigation.

Week 18

1. The director of national intelligence (Daniel Coats) and the director of the NSA (Adm. Michael Rogers) testify before the House Intelligence Committee. We learn that in March, Trump asked both to deny publicly that there is evidence of collusion between his campaign and Russia during the 2016 election.
2. The Senate Intelligence Committee announces additional subpoenas to require Michael Flynn to turn over documents. He could be held in contempt of Congress if he refuses.
3. Joe Lieberman withdraws from consideration for the position of FBI director after Trump retains Marc Kasowitz to represent him on Russia issues. Lieberman cites conflict of interest, since he is currently senior counsel at Kasowitz’s law firm.
4. Former CIA director John Brennan testifies before the House Intelligence Committee, saying he saw intelligence that showed contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia, and that he is convinced that Russia aggressively tried to interfere in the election.
5. Brennan says that the CIA intelligence found that Russians discussed how to influence Trump advisors but whether they actually tried to influence either is still being investigated
6. There are currently at least five probes related to Russia, from ties with Trump campaign staff and associates to James Comey’s firing.
7. Fox News retracts a story about DNC staffer Seth Rich where they implied that he was the leaker to Wikileaks and that his death was related to the DNC. Sean Hannity refuses to let it go completely, despite all players saying there’s no evidence of either the contact with Wikileaks or the murder being anything other than a robbery gone bad.
8. Jeff Sessions says he was advised not to disclose his meetings with foreign leaders as a senator on his security clearance application, including meetings with Russian officials. It seems this is standard for legislators, since they meet with many officials, but still… you’d think he’d have thought this one through a little better.
9. The new person of interest this week in the Russia investigation is Jared Kushner. The Russian ambassador told Moscow that Kushner wanted a back door communication channel to the Kremlin.
10. The Wall Street Journal publishes a report about Aaron Nevins, a Florida-based Republican who was provided hacked DNC information from Guccifer 2.0 and shared that information with others in the GOP. The info was used by Paul Ryan’s campaign and PAC, among others.
11. According to Comey, he knew a piece of evidence he was working on in relation to Clinton’s email investigation was false and planted by Russian intelligence. There was a document indicating Loretta Lynch told the Clinton campaign not to worry about the emails–no charges would be brought. This led to Comey overriding Lynch last year when he made the public announcement that the investigation was over.

Week 19

1. The Russia investigation expands to include Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, who is refusing to cooperate with investigations, former adviser and White House aide Boris Epshteyn, and campaign aide Michael Caputo.
2. The Kushner investigation includes looking into why Kushner met with Sergey Gorkov, a Russian banker and associate of Putin’s. This is part of finding out why he was setting up a confidential line of communication.
3. Trump makes moves to reopen two Russian compounds in the U.S. that Obama had closed when he expelled 50 Russian spies last fall. Trump wants to return the compounds to Russia.
4. Putin changes his tune somewhat and says it’s possible that “patriotically minded” Russians might have been involved in last year’s email and DNC server hack, as well as in meddling in the elections. He still denies that the Russian government was involved, and adds that it could’ve been some kid sitting in their living room.
5. The house intelligence committee issues seven new subpoenas in the Russia investigation, indicating they are ramping things up. Three of these are about the unmasking, however…
6. …In an apparent misunderstanding of the word “recuse,” Devon Nunes, the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee who “recused” himself from the Russia investigation two months ago, issues subpoenas looking for info not about Russian ties or meddling, but about the unmasking of Trump associates caught up in foreign surveillance.
7. Almost immediately after taking office, Trump officials asked the State Department to work on lifting sanctions with Russia and returning diplomatic compounds in the U.S. to them. State Department officials were so concerned by this they began lobbying Congress to pass legislation to block it.
8. Special Counsel Mueller’s Russia probe is expanding to include the investigation into Michael Flynn and a criminal investigation into Paul Manafort, and it could be expanded to include the DoJ’s involvement in the Comey firing.
9. According to Mark Warner, Democrat ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, there are reports that the Kremlin paid over a thousand internet trolls to create fake anti-Clinton news stories and to use botnets to target the stories to key states. He reconfirms the hacking and selective leaks.
10. The Russia investigations hamper Trump’s ability to fill government jobs. There are hundreds of open positions, but candidates are nervous about coming on to this administration and the people who are doing the hiring are distracted by the probe. They’ve only nominated 117 out of 559 major Senate-confirmed positions.
11. NBC and CNN report that, according to several U.S. officials, the Russia investigations include a meeting in April of last year at the Mayflower Hotel between Trump, Sessions, Kushner and Kislyak.

Week 20

1. The Great America Alliance PAC takes out an attack ad against Comey the day before he testifies. The White House tries to undermine Comey and the RNC mobilizes its base by issuing an email: “Talking Points and Digital Packet for Senate Intelligence Committee Hearing.” Tip: This is not a court of public opinion.
2. Trump’s lawyers urge him not to tweet during Comey’s testimony, and Trump’s staff keeps him busy throughout most of the hearing.
3. Comey testifies in front of a Senate committee (as if you didn’t know). Half of the committee asks about the Russia probe and alleged interference by Trump while the other half asks about Clinton’s email investigation. Main takeaways:

• • Trump wasn’t personally under investigation at the time of Comey’s firing, though the issue of collusion is being taken up by Special Prosecutor Mueller.
  • Trump asked Comey to take it easy on Flynn in a conversation where he asked everyone but Comey to leave the room. Mueller is looking into this.
  • The day after the above, Comey asked Sessions not to leave him alone with Trump, saying private interactions were inappropriate.
  • After Trump tweeted that he had tapes of their conversations, Comey leaked his own memo about the Flynn conversation in order to force the appointment of a special prosecutor. He has since provided copies of all his memoranda to Mueller. Note that this is not illegal but is also not consistent with FBI employment agreements.
  • Sessions never questioned why Trump kicked everyone but Comey out of the Oval Office for a private meeting.
  • Comey was so worried about misunderstandings and lies in his conversations with Trump, he made copious notes of all of them.
  • Comey suspected beforehand that Sessions would have to recuse himself and also didn’t seem to trust Sessions to keep sensitive information from the White House. The only way Comey would have known this beforehand is if Sessions’ name had come up in the investigation.
  • Comey believes Trump when he says he fired Comey because of the Russia investigation. Comey also accused the administration of defaming both him and the FBI as part of that firing.
  • Neither Sessions nor Rosenstein expressed dissatisfaction with Comey’s job performance prior to the letters they sent to Trump (at Trump’s request).
  • Russia interfered in our elections and will continue to do so.
  • There is still a lot of information Comey can’t talk about.
  • Comey said an article published last February in the NY Times was largely inaccurate, though the NY Times stands by their reporting and much of the substance of the story has already been shown to be true.

4. Paul Ryan defends Trump’s actions with Comey, saying “he’s new to this.”
5. Trump basically says Comey lied under oath and that he’d go under oath to dispute Comey’s testimony. But he also says that Comey vindicated him… so either Comey lied under oath or he cleared Trump.
6. Trump calls Comey’s testimony “an excuse by the Democrats, who lost an election they shouldn’t have lost,” though Comey’s a lifelong Republican. And also Republicans control congress and the committees investigating Russia ties.
7. In his rebuttal to Comey’s version of events, Trump’s lawyer gets the timeline wrong for what the NY Times reported and when they reported it in relation to the release of Comey’s memo.
8. Both sides are claiming victory here, or as was heard over the weekend “Comey Poisons Trump: Trump Claims Victory.”
9. Representative Al Green (D-Texas) begins writing articles of impeachment against Trump for his firing of Comey. #premature
10. A classified document shows that Russian military intelligence ran cyberattacks against voting system software vendors. They used the hacked data to send spear-phishing emails to over 100 local election officials before last year’s elections. They targeted multiple states and got into at least one voter database.
11. The above information was leaked to The Intercept. The Feds arrest the suspected leaker, Reality Winner, confirming the existence of the document.
12. It turns out that the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee, which recently issued subpoenas to learn more about the unmasking of names of U.S. citizens, had also themselves asked to unmask the names of organizations and individuals last year. Devin Nunes signed off on all subpoenas.
13. Putin denies that he has compromising information on Trump.
14. This was under International last week, but all things come around to Russia. After four nations—Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE, and Bahrain—cut ties with Qatar, the FBI joins the Qatar government in investigating the involvement of Russian hackers. They suspect the hackers planted a false story with Qatar’s state news agency, launching a Mideast crisis.
15. Trump is smart to get private counsel from outside the White House. When Ken Starr was investigating Clinton, he got attorney/client privilege thrown out when it came to conversations with White House counsel, setting a precedent that could still be used.
16. Intelligence Director Dan Coats corroborates Comey’s story that Trump requested that he lay off Flynn in the Russia probe. Officials corroborated that story in March. In testimony, though, both Coats and Rogers say they’ve never felt pressured to do something immoral, illegal, or inappropriate. They both refuse to discuss specifics of conversations between them and Trump, and refuse to answer questions directly.
17. The Kremlin turns its attention to our military members and veterans by ratcheting up hacks, trolling, fake news, and propaganda directed at them. Russians set up fake Facebook accounts posing as attractive young women to friend service members and target the DoD on Twitter for phishing attacks.

Week 21

1. A district court judge orders Jeff Sessions to make his clearance form public. This is the form that should’ve listed his contacts with Russian officials.
2. Rumors abound that Trump is considering firing special prosecutor Mueller. Trump’s representatives in the media start discrediting Mueller, even those who previously called Mueller a superb choice (which is most of them, but I’m looking at you, Newt Gingrich). They’re likely just testing the waters while giving Trump plausible deniability.
3. The investigation into Russian hackers discovers that the hackers tapped 39 states in their hacking efforts. They breached campaign finance data and voter data, and they tried to change or delete information in at least one voter database.
4. Jeff Sessions testifies in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, but doesn’t reveal much except for that he has a pretty lousy memory. He defended himself heartily, refused to answer questions about conversations with Trump (citing a non-existent guideline), contradicted himself a few times, and used “I don’t recall” throughout most of the hearing.
5. An American lobbyist for Russian entities contradicts Sessions’ testimony, saying that he himself attended two dinners with Sessions and Republican foreign policy officials.
6. Some Democrats call for Sessions to step down, saying that his refusal to appear before the Judiciary Committee indicates that the Russia probe is preventing him from doing his job.
7. Special Counsel Mueller interviews senior intelligence officials for more information about whether Trump attempted to obstruct justice. His group also starts looking into whether Trump associates committed any financial crimes. The focus of the Russia investigation has been mostly about Russia meddling in our elections; but since Comey’s firing, the focus seems to be expanding.
8. So to recap, here’s what Mueller’s investigating: 1) Russia meddling in the election, 2) possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, 3) possible obstruction of justice by Trump, and 4) possible financial crimes around any of the above. The House committee might also investigate the obstruction question, but the Senate committee is leaving it to Mueller.
9. Trump associates who are being investigated for financial and business dealings now include Jared Kushner as well as Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, and Carter Page.
10. Trump acknowledges in a tweet that he’s under investigation in the Russia probe for firing Comey, and seemed to blame Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein for what he calls a “witch hunt.” Later in the week, one of Trump’s lawyers walks that back, saying Trump is NOT under investigation for obstruction. But that was after he complained that Trump WAS being investigated for firing Comey even though the DOJ had recommended it.
11. Rosenstein faces pressure to recuse himself from the Russia investigation after the above tweet, and he acknowledges it could happen. This would definitely be unprecedented.
12. Rosenstein urges caution about believing information coming from unnamed sources.
13. Trump’s long-time personal attorney, Michael Cohen, retains a lawyer for himself.
14. Alexis Navalny, Russia’s opposition leader, is arrested just before an anti-corruption protest and receives a 30-day sentence for illegally staging anti-government rallies. Tens of thousands of Russians join the protest across the country. Side note: Navalny will likely run against Putin in the next election.
15. Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak hosts Washington insiders and diplomats to celebrate Russia Day. He seems to be trying to mend frayed relations between our countries, handing out pamphlets that talk about our close relationship, including this: “As an American, I love Russia because if not for Russia, there may not have been a United States of America.”
16. Paul Manafort continues to try to lure business partners with promises of access to Trump.

Week 22

1. We now know that Russian hackers launched cyber attacks last year on at least 21 state election servers, that they changed at least one voter roll, and that they stole voter records. Russian military intelligence also hacked a voting software vendor and sent spear-phishing emails to local election officials. Voting systems weren’t affected as far as we know.
2. Congressional committees are investigating whether any of the hacked data ended up with the Trump campaign.
3. We also know that even though senior government officials knew that Flynn was a security risk, they continued to give him security briefings.
4. The Washington Post timeline of events shows that Putin led the Russian meddling op and that his specific goals were to defeat or harm Clinton and help elect Trump.
5. We learn that partisanship slowed down our reaction at all levels.

• • Obama received intelligence about Russia meddling in a CIA report in August and wrestled with what to do. He didn’t want to be seen as swaying the election, leading Republicans opposed publicizing it, intelligence agencies were slow to move on it.
  • Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson (who also testified to Congress this week) tried to launch an effort to secure systems at a state level. However, he faced resistance from state officials who saw it as a federal takeover.
  • The bipartisan Congressional Gang of 8 was slow to schedule a meeting, though intelligence tried repeatedly.

6. Here are a few things that were done to address the problem:

• • Obama had a three-point plan: assess Russia’s role and intent, strengthen areas of vulnerability, and get bipartisan support from congressional leaders and states to accept federal help.
  • The Obama administration warned Putin several times, increased sanctions, closed down two Russian facilities in the U.S., and sent dozens of Russian agents packing.
  • Last fall there was a surge in requests for special visas for Russians with highly technical skills to work at Russian facilities. They were denied until after the election.
  • Obama approved planting cyber weapons in Russia’s infrastructure, which could be triggered if things escalate between our countries. It’s up to Trump to decide whether to use this.

7. Russia’s interference is unprecedented and mostly successful, though they were found out fairly quickly. So far, Russia hasn’t faced consequences proportionate to the damage caused by the attack.
8. Intelligence officials voice concern that the State Department is being too lax with Russian diplomats and say we should crack down on their travel in the U.S. since the evidence shows the diplomats are taking advantage of lax enforcement to continue running intelligence ops.
9. Bipartisan lawmakers complain that the administration is trying to delay their efforts to get tough on Russia.
10. Democratic representatives say Kushner’s security clearance should be suspended. They also criticize the White House for allowing Michael Flynn to have security clearance for three weeks while they knew of his Russian activities.
11. Jeff Sessions hires outside counsel.
12. Trump admits he doesn’t have and didn’t make recordings of his conversations with Comey. Ironically, if he never would have brought it up, Comey might not have released the memo and Trump might not be under investigation for obstruction.
13. Trump indicates that he bluffed about the tapes to influence Comey’s testimony. Note that this is witness tampering even if he was only trying to get Comey to be truthful.
14. Trump blames Obama for not taking enough steps to protect us from Russia’s meddling. In blaming Obama for not doing more,Trump inadvertently admits that Russia did meddle, something he has until now mostly denied.
15. Trump blames White House counsel Donald McGahn for letting the Russia probe spin out of control.
16. Trey Gowdy, who ran something like 8 hearings on Benghazi, says he won’t hold any hearings on Russia’s meddling nor on Jared Kushner’s security clearance. His predecessor on the oversight committee, Jason Chaffetz, held hearings.
17. The Kremlin calls Ambassador Sergey Kislyak back to Russia and will likely replace him with deputy foreign minister Anatoly Antonov.
18. It turns out that Europe has been working on ways to fight meddling from the Russians for years. They’ve been using the same tactics—spreading disinformation, hacking, and trolling—across the continent. Europeans feel they have a better handle on it than we do here, and say looking at us is like watching ″House of Cards.″
19. Spicer says he hasn’t talked to the president about Russia interference in the elections. Seriously?
20. More troubles for Michael Flynn. He didn’t report a trip to Saudi Arabia where he represented U.S., Russian, and Saudi interests. His former business partner is also under investigation around payments from foreign clients.
21. Tillerson has a plan for future relations with Russia: warn them about any more aggressive actions, work together on strategic interests, and emphasize stability.
22. The administration debates withdrawing from the INF treaty with Russia, a disarmament pact that bans a class of nuclear missiles. Welcome to the new arms race.

Week 23

1. Trump remains quiet about what he plans to do to prevent Russian interference in our elections in the future. He has never asked Comey how to stop a future cyber/disinformation attack, and Jeff Sessions has never received a classified briefing on the issue.
2. Paul Manafort reveals that his firm received over $17 million from the Ukraine’s Party of Regions, which is affiliated with the Kremlin. He didn’t reveal this at the time it happened, which is required by law.
3. Matt Tait, a security consultant, says that Peter Smith, a Republican opposition researcher, recruited him to authenticate the veracity of some hacked emails that were claimed to come from Clinton’s private server. He never completed the task and the emails seem to have been a hoax, but…
4. It turns out that Smith claimed to represent Michael Flynn in an effort to find emails that Clinton deleted hoping to use them against her in the election. Smith also supported Flynn in his effort to establish relations with Russian officials. Smith spoke to the Wall Street Journal about this story 10 days before he died on May 14 (at age 81, no foul play suspected). Interesting fact: Smith funded the troopergate investigation into Clinton, bankrolled David Bock to smear Clinton, and tried to find a woman who would initiate a paternity suit against Clinton.
5. Tait says he received a recruitment document from Smith listing these senior officials of the Trump campaign or staff: Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, Sam Clovis, Lt. Gen. Flynn, and Lisa Nelson.
6. The document also lists a company Smith had set up, KLS Research, to avoid campaign reporting. It’s not clear who all was involved in that.
7. U.S. intelligence reports that Russian hackers were looking for an intermediary through which they could get emails to Flynn last year, which fits into the role Smith was playing.

Week 24

1. Large U.S. oil companies lobby against the bills passed by the Senate to toughen sanctions against Russia and to make it harder for the president to rescind them.
2. Investigators look into whether Russia colluded with far-right, pro-Trump sites to spread fake stories smearing Hillary Clinton. There were at least 1,000 paid internet trolls in Russia putting out the information.
3. Trump meets with Putin at the G20. Before the meeting, Putin criticizes Trump’s trade policies and sanctions in an op-ed, and reaffirms Russia’s commitment to the Paris accord.
4. Tillerson says that Putin denied meddling in our elections when Trump pushed him on it. Like he would admit it?
5. Key points from the meeting:

• • Trump is ready to move on from the election hacking with no consequences for Russia.
  • The U.S. and Russia will cooperate on cybersecurity issues. Trump later walks this one back.
  • They agree not to meddle in each other’s domestic issues, making it sound like it was equally bad that we try to spread democracy while they try to undermine it.
  • They agree to a cease-fire in Syria, the fifth such agreement in six years.
  • They discuss the Ukraine, sanctions, and terrorism.

6. Trump, Tillerson, and Putin all emerge with differing accounts of the meeting.
7. Trump is reportedly focused on how to move forward in working with Putin.
8. Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov says that Putin denied involvement in our elections, that Trump said reports of meddling were exaggerated, and that Trump accepted Putin’s denials.
9. Russian hackers are suspected to be behind a breach of over 12 power plants in the U.S.
10. After the G20 Trump tweets, “Putin & I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded.” Republicans and Democrats alike say ummmm….no. Why don’t we just give them our passwords and be done with it?
11. New documents show yet another undisclosed meeting between Russians and the Trump campaign. This one occurred two weeks after Trump became the Republican nominee, and was between a Russian lawyer and Kushner, Manafort, and Donald Trump Jr. A spokesperson for Trump’s lawyer says the meeting was a setup.
12. Trump Jr. first explains the meeting as being about Russian adoptions, and then says it was supposed to be about obtaining dirt on Hillary but it ended up being about adoptions.
13. Trump says the media lied when they said that all 17 intelligence agencies signed off on the statement that Russia meddled in our elections, saying that only four did. Technically he’s right, but one of those four who signed off, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, includes the remaining agencies.
14. James Clapper warns that the 2016 meddling in the election was just a practice run for 2018.
15. The State Department continues to issue temporary visas to suspected Russian operatives.

Week 25

1. Last week we heard about Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer and the changing stories he gave around it. This week, he releases the entire email thread setting up the meeting. He says he’s just being transparent, but it turns out the New York Times was about to release them and were waiting his response. He scooped them.
2. The emails show he was looking for compromising information on Clinton and that he was OK working with the Russian effort to discredit her.
3. We learn the meetings were set up by British publicist Rod Goldstone, who offered to connect Don Jr. with sensitive documents from the Russia government that would be damaging to Clinton as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” To which Don Jr. said “I love it.”
4. Before we get ahead of ourselves, the meeting may have broken federal law, but doesn’t amount to treason. It might be conspiracy, but definitely not treason.
5. The meeting implicates Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner, who didn’t reveal this meeting in his security clearance forms. Since May, Kushner has added over 100 names of foreign officials he had contact with last year. In his defense though, it appears Kushner’s lawyers found the email thread and turned the emails over.
6. The Russian lawyer they met with says the meeting was always about sanctions, though the emails say otherwise.
7. We still don’t have a complete list of all who attended the meeting, though the list of Russians keeps growing. We now know a Russian lobbyist and an interpreter were there as well, and possibly two more people.
8. Trump Sr. says the Secret Service vetted the meeting. The Secret Service says that didn’t happen.
9. Trump Sr. denies knowledge of this meeting, but after the meeting ended, he tweeted out a dig about Hillary’s emails. Two days before the meeting, he said he’d give a speech the following week that would tell all about the Clintons. That speech didn’t happen.
10. It turns out that the White House crafted Trump Jr.’s initial statement about the meeting, which turned out to be untrue.
11. A democratic representative files the first formal articles of impeachment against Trump over obstruction of justice in the firing of Comey.
12. According to the Wall Street Journal, our intelligence agencies saw evidence of Russians attempting collusion with the Trump campaign in 2015, even before he officially declared his candidacy.
13. Kushner’s digital campaign program is under investigation to find out if they assisted the Russians in targeting specific voter markets during the election meddling. Intelligence officials are pretty sure they had U.S. help.
14. Trump backs off on the idea of a joint U.S. and Russia cybersecurity force saying that it can’t happen.
15. Democratic lawyers from the Obama camp sue Trump over invasion of privacy. They allege that the campaign was involved in what has been seen as a Russian operation, but which now seems to include campaign members. This operation resulted in the dumps of tens of thousands of emails that included private information.
16. After passing nearly unanimously in the Senate, the Russian sanctions bill stalls in the House while the White House continues pressure to soften the bill.
17. Mike Pence’s spokesperson refuses three times to answer whether Pence has had any undisclosed meetings with Russians.
18. According to a coroners report, Peter Smith asphyxiated himself. Smith died 10 days after an interview with the Wall Street Journal where he described his plan to work with Trump’s campaign to get dirt on Clinton. It’s not known whether Trump’s campaign was aware of Smith’s effort.
19. People start comparing the DNC getting opposition information from Ukraine sources with Trump Jr.’s effort get oppo on Clinton. Right now it looks like comparing a traffic ticket with totaling your car, but more info will come out on both.
20. Some of the memos Comey wrote summarizing his conversations with Trump contain classified information, but not the one that he leaked to the press. Comey said they were his personal memos, but the FBI now says they are FBI property and Trump accuses Comey of breaking the law. So now we’re looking at an investigation into Comey’s handling of the memos. Full. Circle.

Week 26

1. Revelations from the Russia/Trump Jr. meeting reveal that one of Russia’s goals in all this was to get the Magnitsky act repealed (in other words, sanctions).
2. Robert Mueller asks the White House to keep all documents around the above meeting.
3. Both Manafort and Trump Jr. make a deal with congressional committees to avoid a public hearing and instead to testify privately.
4. Two weeks before Kushner released the emails about the meeting, the Trump reelection campaign paid $50,000 to Kushner’s attorney.
5. It turns out Trump had a second meeting with Putin after their official 2 1/4 hour official meeting; this one was informal and lasted around an hour. The meeting was at a dinner at the G20, and the only other person speaking with them was Putin’s interpreter (though the other leaders and diplomats were around).
6. Trump says he and Putin talked about adoptions, which we now know is code word for sanctions.
7. Trump says he wouldn’t have nominated Jeff Sessions if he would’ve known he was going to recuse himself from the Russia investigation.
8. Trump warns Mueller against expanding the scope of his investigation to include financial and business transactions. The next day, we learn that Mueller is investigating business and real estate transactions between Russia and Trump businesses and associates.
9. Trump’s team of lawyers look into ways to undermine Mueller and his investigation, as surrogates make the talk show rounds to throw doubt on both.
10. Trump wonders if he can pardon his family and even himself. His lawyers are looking into it. There’s no real precedent, though documents from Nixon’s hearings could provide some guidance.
11. He later asserts that he can pardon himself, saying he has the complete power to pardon his family, aides, and himself.
12. The Senate Intelligence Committee thinks the Trump campaign digital team might have assisted Russians by boosting and helping to target fake stories. They’re investigating, but not likely to get help from companies like Facebook.
13. Manafort’s troubles keep growing. Mueller is investigating him for possible money laundering involving contacts in Russia and the Ukraine, and before joining the Trump campaign he was millions in debt to pro-Russia interests.
14. Trump’s personal lawyer, Mark Kasowitz, steps down as head of the legal team. The legal team’s spokesman, Mark Corallo, quits over disagreements about smearing Mueller and over all the infighting in the White House.
15. After Jeff Sessions denied any meetings with Russian operatives, we learn that he did meet with their ambassador to the U.S. After Sessions admitted to that meeting but denied they spoke about campaign or policy issues, intelligence intercepts show that they did indeed talk about such things (according to the ambassador).
16. The House finally reaches agreement on a Russia sanctions bill that would require congressional approval to lift sanctions on Russia.
17. Susan Rice meets with the Senate Intelligence Committee, likely around unmasking U.S. names in intercepts.
18. In case you were wondering, the special investigation into Bill Clinton headed by Kenneth Starr concluded that not even the president is above the law and therefore can be prosecuted. So yes, Trump could be prosecuted if Mueller’s investigation finds any illegal activity.

Week 27

1. Jared Kushner releases a written statement before testifying for Congress behind closed doors.
2. Kushner discloses yet another previously undisclosed meeting with Russian officials that happened last April at the Mayflower Hotel. Actually, he confirms that the meeting he was already suspected of having actually did happen.
3. Kushner also says he met with a Russian banker, Sergei Gorkov, to set up a private line of communication with Putin.
4. Brian Benczkowsi, the nominee to head the criminal division at the Justice Department, says he worked for Russia’s Alfa Bank last year. He helped them determine whether its computers contacted the Trump Organization.
5. The House finds agreement on the sanctions bill and forwards it to the Senate where it also passes.
6. Trump announces he’ll sign the sanctions bill after congress threatens an override.
7. In retaliation for the new Russian sanctions, Putin shuts down U.S. facilities in Russia and kicks out 755 U.S. foreign agents.
8. The EU says they support sanctions but also voice concerns over how this will affect their workers in the energy sector.
9. This part of the story is convoluted and I’m a bit confused about where things stand. I think we’ll have to wait for answers on this one. I am honestly not trying to ″Rachel Maddow″ the dots together here.

• • William Browder, an associate of Sergei Magnitsky, testifies to Congress.
  • He claims that Fusion GPS, the group that commissioned the Steel dossier, worked for Russian interests last year, including the Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. (Veselnitskaya).
  • Browder also says Congress should investigate Fusion GPS for not registering as foreign agents under FARA and that they were hired to smear him and Magnitksy.
  • Fusion GPS says that they did work for an American law firm and not Russian interests, and therefore didn’t need to register.
  • Sarah Huckabee Sanders asserts that the author of the Steele dossier was also being paid by Russia. I think that’s what she took away from Browder’s testimony.
  • Magnitsky had uncovered $230 million in tax fraud by Russian interests. His treatment and subsequent death in a Russian prison led to the Magnitsky Act (sanctions) and subsequent hold on adoptions of Russian children.
  • The meeting with Donald Jr. and Veselnitskaya last year was likely about the Magnitsky act, though she baited him with dirt on Clinton.
  • A few years ago, the U.S. began a lawsuit against Russian-owned Prevezon Holdings, which was using real estate holdings in New York to launder money (related to the fraud Magnitsky found).
  • Jared Kushner bought New York real estate from Africa Israel Investments (AFI), which is a partner to Prevezon Holdings.
  • The Prevezon case was abruptly settled in May for $6 million and no admission of guilt. Full circle, right?

10. Senator Lindsey Graham says he’s writing a bill that will protect the investigation and make it harder for Trump to fire special counsel Mueller.
11. It seems that Russia’s meddling in our election has so far backfired. Relations between our countries have sunk even lower, and Trump’s hands are tied with the latest sanctions bill.
12. Scaramucci, citing an anonymous source, says that if the Russians actually did hack our computer systems we’d never know it because they’re that good. They wouldn’t leave a trace. He later outs his own source—Trump.
13. Security software company Kaspersky Labs continues to take a hit over rumors that it leaves a backdoor open for Russian hacking.

Week 28

1. Trump signs the Russia/Iran/North Korea sanctions bill into law, though he calls it flawed and possibly unconstitutional.
2. Trump says U.S.-Russia relations are at an all-time low and that it’s Congress’s fault. John McCain’s response: “Our relationship w/ Russia is at dangerous low. You can thank Putin for attacking our democracy, invading neighbors & threatening our allies.”
3. We learn that Trump dictated Donald Jr.’s misleading statement about his meeting with Russians last year (or at the very least, he participated in forming it). This could put Trump Sr. and those who helped him in legal trouble.
4. Representative Tim Franks (R-AZ) tries to cast doubts on Mueller’s integrity due to his relationship with Comey, and calls on him to resign.
5. A new lawsuit accuses Fox and Ed Bukowski (a Trump donor) of creating a fake news story to move the attention away from Trump and the Russia investigation to the DNC and Clinton. Here are the moving pieces:

• • According to the suit Fox misquoted the plaintiff (Rod Wheeler) in a story about Seth Rich’s murder, in which Fox alleged that Seth had hacked the DNC for Russia and that’s why he was murdered.
  • The Rich family asked Fox to stop and Fox later did recant the story, but Sean Hannity kept it alive.
  • The lawsuit alleges that the White House knew about and supported the story, which Sean Spicer has denied.
  • A text between Bukowski and Wheeler indicates that Trump knew about the story.
  • Despite the retractions, the Fox story led to conspiracy theories, including that Hillary Clinton had Seth killed in retribution for hacking the DNC emails (adding just another dead body to her string of dozens—seriously there is no better serial killer mastermind than Hillary).

6. Kushner told interns on the Hill that Trump’s campaign wasn’t organized enough to collude with Russia saying, “they thought we colluded, but we couldn’t even collude with our local offices.”
7. Democrats move to revoke Kushner’s security clearance, though it’s doubtful it will go anywhere.
8. Robert Mueller now has 16 lawyers working on the special investigation.The latest lawyer to join used to work on fraud and foreign bribery for the DoJ.
9. The Russia investigation expands to include financial crimes.
10. Mueller launches a grand jury. A grand jury gives the investigation more power to obtain documents, question witnesses under oath, and obtain indictments.
11. The grand jury issues subpoenas for witnesses, as well as phone and other records, regarding the meeting Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner took with a number of Russians in June of last year. Congressional committees ask for phone records as well.
12. GOP staffers fly to England to try to get Christopher Steele, author of the infamous Steele dossier, to testify for the House Intelligence Committee.
13. The House Judiciary Committee prioritizes investigating Hillary Clinton over Russia meddling in the elections, possible collusion, and the firing of Comey. The chairman, Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), asks the DoJ to appoint a special investigator to investigate “troubling” and “unanswered” questions about Clinton and other Obama appointees.
14. The Senate Judiciary Committee, on the other hand, is very focused on the Russia investigation.
15. The RNC tells staff to preserve all documents related to the 2016 elections.
16. Acting FBI director Andy McCabe tells top FBI officials that they could be called as witnesses in the Russia investigation.
17. The Senate Judiciary Committee proposes a bill to protect the special investigator.
18. Sources say Kelly was so upset about Comey’s firing that he thought about resigning, but Comey told him not to.
19. Along with monitoring cyber threats on election day last year, FBI analysts also monitored social media for fake news. They had already identified several social media user accounts behind the stories, many from abroad.
20. Russia’s been circling the Baltic States, but this week NATO says ‘knock it off.’

Week 29

1. Two Republican house staffers make a surprise visit to the office of Christopher Steele’s lawyer (Steele wrote the dossier on Trump). No one in the committee knew anything about this, but we later find out they were there on Devin Nunes’ behest. Nunes is supposed to be recused from the investigation.
2. It comes out this week that the FBI executed a surprise search warrant on one of Paul Manafort’s homes a few weeks ago in the wee morning hours.
3. Financial disclosures for the lawyers working on the special investigation with Robert Mueller show that many left multi-million-dollar jobs in the private sector to work on this.
4. A Russian surveillance plane flies over the D.C. area, including the Pentagon, capitol buildings, and other government buildings.
5. Mueller requests documents from the White House on Michael Flynn, presumably to determine whether he was paid by the Turkish government to discredit a dissident.
6. Trump surrogates won’t confirm whether Trump wants to fire Mueller, but four Members of Congress have proposed bills protecting Mueller.
7. Trump says any investigation into his finances is off-limits, but the Deputy Attorney General says Mueller can investigate any crimes discovered in the course of the probe.
8. Trump periodically sends messages to Mueller of appreciation and just general greetings.
9. Federal investigators work on getting Paul Manafort’s son-in-law, who is also a business partner, to cooperate in the Russia probe.
10. Mueller subpoenas Manafort’s financial records.
11. The House Intelligence Committee wants to question Trump’s personal secretary.
12. Trump thanks Putin for expelling hundreds of diplomatic employees back to the U.S., saying he’s trying to reduce payroll (apparently not understanding that these State Department employees aren’t actually fired).

Week 30

1. One of the veteran FBI investigators working on the Russia probe, Peter Strzok, moves into a human resources position. We don’t know if it was voluntary or not.
2. Internal Trump campaign emails show that one of Trump’s campaign advisers, George Papadopoulos, tried several times to set up meetings between the campaign and Russian leaders during the run-up to last year’s election.
3. Mueller wants to talk to Reince Preibus in the Russia probe.
4. The Trump campaign and associates turn over around 20,000 pages of documents in the Russia investigation.

Week 31

1. Glen Simpson, cofounder of Fusion GPS, testifies to the House Judiciary Committee. Fusion GPS was hired by unnamed Republicans to get opposition research on Trump, and then after the primaries, they were hired by unnamed Democrats. Fusion commissioned the Steele dossier.
2. The Senate Intelligence Committee wants to declare WikiLeaks a “non-state hostile intelligence service.” This allows more surveillance of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, and makes intelligence agencies release information about Russian threats to the U.S.
3. New documents show that while Trump was running for office, his company was working on a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. They signed a letter of intent, but the project fell through and was abandoned in January of 2016.
4. Robert Mueller subpoenas testimony from associates of Paul Manafort for his grand jury.
5. Interesting side note: The PR company Manafort used, Mercury, worked with Anthony Podesta’s company (brother of Clinton campaign manager John Podesta) on a lobbying effort to improve relations between the Ukraine and EU.
6. Tensions escalate between Trump and some GOP Members of Congress after a series of conversations in which Trump complains to them about the Russia sanctions bill.

Week 32

1. Michael Cohen, who was helping Trump Organization in the effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, asked Putin’s personal spokesperson for assistance. Michael’s emails reveal the following:

• • While Trump was running for president, his company was working on a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow and Trump personally spoke with Cohen about it at least three times (despite him claiming over and over again that he had no dealings with Russia).
  • The people handling this for Trump said Putin would help Trump become president. And I quote: “Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it.”
  • Trump signed a letter of intent to develop the tower when he was four months into his campaign.

2. Trump refuses to call Russia a security threat.
3. The Kremlin confirms that Trump’s lawyer requested help from them with the stalled Trump Tower project.
4. Representative Ron DeSantis (R-FL) issues a proposal to reduce funding for the Mueller investigation.
5. The IRS Office of Special Investigations is helping Mueller in the Russia investigation.
6. Donald Trump Jr. agrees to testify in closed-door congressional hearings.
7. Trump’s calls Chuck Grassley to pledge support for the ethanol industry, an issue important to Grassley’s state of Iowa. Coincidentally, Grassley is investigating Trump Jr.’s meeting with Russians last year.
8. Mueller obtains a draft letter showing Trump’s original reasoning for firing Comey. White House counsel opposed the letter, so it was never sent, but it gives an idea of what was behind Trump’s thinking when he fired Comey.
9. Mueller coordinates with NY State Attorney Eric Schneiderman to share evidence on Manafort’s potential financial crimes.
10. In response to Russia kicking out hundreds of U.S. diplomats, the Trump administration closes several Russian consulates around the U.S. Russia calls it an act of aggression.
11. As a result of a Freedom of Information request, the DOJ confirms that there is no evidence that either the DOJ or the FBI were surveilling Trump Tower during the 2016 elections. This directly contradicts Trump’s wiretapping tweets where he accused Obama of illegally spying on him.
12. American-Russian lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin testifies before Mueller’s grand jury.

Week 33

1. In a review of their own operations, Facebook finds that 33,000 ads bought during the election have links to a Russian “troll farm” that pushes pro-Kremlin propaganda. $100,000 worth of ads lead to a Russian company that targeted voters in 2016.
2. As part of their audit, they also found nearly 500 suspicious accounts operated out of Russia. That actually seems pretty small in the scheme of things.
3. We learn that the House Intelligence Committee subpoenaed FBI and DOJ documents around the Steele Dossier a few months ago. According to the head of the House investigation, Republican Rep. Michael Conaway, “We’ve got to run this thing to ground.” Whatever that means?
4. Even though he stepped aside as the head of the House investigation, Devin Nunes (R-Cali) has been running his own side investigation into Russia, which might be hurting Trump’s case more than helping it.
5. Donald Trump Jr. testifies for five hours behind closed doors. The interview was mostly conducted by committee staff with only a handful of committee members attending.
6. In testimony, Don Jr. says he met with Russians last year because they said they had dirt and he was trying to determine Hillary Clinton’s “fitness for office.” He also denied that his father helped draft his original (and incorrect) statement.
7. Like Kushner, Don Jr. tries to paint the Trump campaign as too chaotic and disorganized to have had a plan for collusion.
8. There were gaps in Don Jr.’s testimony and he’ll likely be asked back for a public hearing.
9. Trump has already met with the new Russian Ambassador to the U.S. with zero publicity. It wasn’t on his public schedule and there are no pictures and no info from the White House. Why did we not hear about this in the news? Because American press wasn’t invited. However, Russian press did report on the meeting.
10. Around 3,000 cyber attacks hit Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party, some of which they traced back to Russian IP addresses. Hopefully Europe has learned from the Russian meddling in both England’s and our elections…
11. Mueller announces his intention to interview Sean Spicer, Reince Priebus, Hope Hicks, and several White House lawyers.
12. Ahead of next year’s elections, the DNC begins shoring up it’s cybersecurity. About time, no?

Week 34

1. Building on their revelations from last week, Facebook says that Russians used false identities to organize and promote political protests on Facebook. The most recent events were anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rallies in Idaho.
2. Mueller obtains a warrant for the records of the fake Russian accounts and their associated ads, an indication that he has already found reasonable proof that a crime was committed using those accounts.
3. The Department of Homeland security forbids federal agencies from using Russian-owned Kaspersky security software. Kaspersky has been linked to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and Homeland is worried about cyber security.
4. According to documents sent by House Democrats to Robert Mueller, Michael Flynn neglected to disclose yet another foreign trip on his security clearance. This trip was to the Middle East to look at a business deal between the Saudi and Russian governments.
5. Michael Flynn continues to refuse to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Flynn’s son is also being investigated as part of the Russia probe.
6. In closed-door testimony, Susan Rice says she unmasked American names in intelligence reports last year to determine what the crown prince of the UAE was doing in NY last year. Usually foreign dignitaries alert the White House before visiting the states, but the crown prince didn’t do that for this trip.
7. High-ranking members from both parties say they don’t think Rice did anything wrong.
8. Turf wars are surfacing around the Russia investigation. The Justice Department won’t let the Senate interview top FBI officials over Comey’s firing (which could just mean that Mueller is focusing on the firing too). The Senate Judiciary Committee won’t promise Mueller’s team complete access to Donald Trump Jr.’s testimony.
9. Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Lindsay Graham propose a bill to create a 9/11-style commission to study cyber attacks around the 2016 elections and to recommend ways to deflect such attacks in the future.
10. The FBI is investigating Sputnik, the Russian news agency, for possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which forbids acting as an undeclared propaganda arm of a foreign government in the U.S.
11. Russian parliamentarian Vyacheslav Nikonov says U.S. “intelligence missed it when Russian intelligence stole the president of the United States.”
12. The Senate Judiciary committee has two bills in development that would protect Mueller from being fired by Trump.

Week 35

1. Federal agents warn Paul Manafort that they plan to indict him. It looks like Mueller is backing him into a corner.

• • Likely Manafort will be given the option of testifying in return for a reduced sentence.
  • But with the signal Trump gave his friends by pardoning Joe Arpaio, Manafort might take his chances that Trump will pardon him as well.
  • So now Mueller is working with the NY State Attorney General on parts of the investigation, because Trump can’t pardon Manafort for state crimes.
  • Manafort was under surveillance starting in 2014 and during the time he was hired at the Trump campaign. The original surveillance came from his work for the Ukrainian government.
  • Note that while some people think the above justifies Trump’s claim that Obama was wiretapping him, the FISA warrant a) goes back to before Trump declared his candidacy, and b) isn’t issued lightly by the courts—you need solid evidence. Also, surveillance wasn’t resumed until after he left the campaign. It was discontinued this year at the request of Trump’s lawyers.
  • The current investigation into Manafort reaches back to events that occurred over a decade ago.
  • Manafort communicated with a Ukrainian political operative using his Trump campaign email account. He was trying to get paid for work he did there.
  • Among the emails Manafort turned over to Mueller’s office is an offer to give special private briefings on the 2016 presidential campaign to a Russian billionaire. I’m not sure for what purpose.

2. Michael Flynn’s family says that the legal fees required by former Trump staffers far exceed their ability to pay.
3. Lobbyists and political PACs help pay legal fees for people caught up in the Russia probe.
4. The Republican National Committee helps pay Trump’s legal bills in the Russian probe. So far, it’s paid $231,250, even though Trump himself claims to be worth more than $10 billion.
5. Mueller has been requesting information, documents, and phone records about Trump’s activities around firing James Comey and constructing a false statement for his son about a meeting with Russians last year.
6. A NY Times reporter out for lunch in D.C. overhears two White House lawyers discussing the Russian investigation and Trump’s strategy… loudly… in a public restaurant. The conversation highlights conflicts among members of the White House legal staff.
7. The Senate Intelligence Committee cancels Michael Cohen’s testimony after he breaks their agreement by publishing a statement to the press beforehand. Cohen was a White House lawyer for Trump.
8. Jon Huntsman, Trump’s pick to be ambassador to Russia, says there is “no question Russia interfered in the US election last summer.”
9. Facebook gives Mueller’s offices around 3,000 ads that were linked to Russian accounts during the 2016 election.
10. The federal government officially notifies 21 states that their election systems were targeted by Russians in last year’s election. Only a few states have made that information public so far.
11. In response to Morgan Freeman’s short video about Russia meddling and hacking in the 2016 elections, state-owned Russian media goes after him, calling him a propagandist and saying he has a Messiah complex from playing God in too many films. Ye, this is the world we live in now.

Week 36

1. The Russian ads and accounts turned over to Congress by Facebook were designed to create and spread divisive messages on hot-button topics like LGBT rights, race, immigration, and guns. They exploited our differences and used them against us.
2. Russian ads on Facebook during the 2016 campaign:

• • Promoted votes for both Jill Stein and Bernie Sanders in the general election after Hillary had won the primary.
  • Started rumors that Clinton created, funded, and armed ISIS, and alternatively that John McCain started ISIS.
  • Criticized Clinton and questioned her authenticity while promoting Trump.
  • Impersonated black lives matter activists.
  • Impersonated a real, but obsolete, Muslim group in the U.S.
  • Seemed more intent on increasing the divide between us than pushing a certain candidate.

3. Facebook reveals that they notified the FBI last summer that they saw what looked like Russian espionage. Later they reported that Russians were feeding the information they stole back into social media.
4. Twitter goes before congress this week. They’ve also found social media accounts linked to Russian Facebook ads. In fact, there’s evidence that Russians used Twitter more extensively than Facebook to sow division.
5. In an indication that Russia is still trying to affect the electorate and amplify division, hundreds of Russia-linked Twitter accounts tweet about the NFL controversy on BOTH SIDES. Pay attention people! Stop feeding Russian propaganda.
6. According to experts, this is Russia’s method of creating chaos and division. They’ve been using similar tactics since the cold war.
7. A member of the Senate Judiciary Committee says he’s 99% sure that Mueller’s investigation will result in criminal indictments. My guess is the most likely to be indicted are Manafort and Flynn.
8. Sean Spicer lawyers up.
9. The IRS criminal division shares information with Mueller’s office in the Russia investigation.
10. The DOJ tells a company that provides services to RT America that they must register as a foreign agent under FARA. Russia warns the U.S. against taking any actions against the state-owned media groups Sputnik and RT.
11. Federal investigators are looking into whether RT and Sputnik were involved in Russia’s propaganda campaign in 2016.

Week 37

1. Mueller’s team starts researching limits on presidential pardons, an indication that they think Trump will try to pardon those involved in the Russia investigation or use the promise of a pardon as leverage. Trump himself has said he has the complete power to pardon.
2. The CIA denies the Senate Judiciary Committee access to certain information about obstruction of justice in the Russia case, though it allowed the Senate Intelligence Committee to see it.
3. From Facebook, we learn that:

• • Russia used a retargeting tool on Facebook, Custom Audiences, to target ads and messages to Americans who visited misleading web sites and social media sites that imitated political activist pages.
  • The ads’ purpose was to further divisiveness and specifically promoted anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiments.
  • The ads had an explicit pro-Trump and anti-Hillary tilt. One claimed that the only viable option was to elect Trump.
  • Russian-backed Facebook groups posing as U.S. activists groups liked and shared the ads.
  • Facebook estimates about 10 million people saw the ads and messages, but that doesn’t account for likes and shares. So the actual number is probably in the 100s of millions.
  • The ads targeted Michigan and Wisconsin, each of which Trump won by less than 1% of the vote.

4. Facebook didn’t identify Russians as the malicious actors at first, and removed mention of them from their reports.
5. The Senate Intelligence Committee leaders update us on the status of their Russia investigation. The issue of collusion and parts of the Steele dossier are still up for question, but here’s what they think so far:

• • Putin directed the hacking, propaganda, and meddling in our 2016 elections.
  • Russia was behind the hacking of John Podesta’s emails.
  • Russia tried to exploit our divisions using fake social media accounts.

6. Christopher Steele, the author of the Steele dossier, is in discussions to meet with congressional committees, but he already met with Robert Mueller.
7. Three Russians names in the Steele dossier sue Fusion GPS, which commissioned the Steele dossier. They previously sued BuzzFeed, which released the full text of the dossier.
8. U.S. Intelligence has verified parts of the Steele dossier, but won’t tell us which yet.
9. Demonstrators mark Putin’s 65th birthday by protesting in the streets in support of opposition leader Alexey Navalny.
10. Google also finds evidence of Russian meddling, saying they spread disinformation across Google’s products, including YouTube, Gmail, search, and the DoubleClick ad network. These don’t seem to be from the same troll farm as the Facebook ads, indicating that the propaganda effort was more widespread than originally thought.

Week 38

1. In contrast to what Donald Trump Jr.’s email records show, a lawyer for one of the Russians present at the Trump Tower meeting last year claims to have documents showing that the meeting was not about getting dirt on Clinton. This is likely going to be their defense against collusion.
2. Congressman Devin Nunes again puts himself in the middle of the Russia investigation (from which he is supposed to be recused), and signs off on new subpoenas to Fusion GPS. He seems to be doing this on his own without approval from the committee.
3. We learn where the Kaspersky Lab intel came from. Israeli intelligence watched in real time as Russian government hackers exploited software from Kaspersky Lab to search for American intelligence program code names. Israeli officials gave us the heads up. Ironically (and ICYDK) Kaspersky is security software.
4. Carter Page says he won’t cooperate with requests to appear in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and will plead the 5th if forced to appear.
5. Bob Mueller’s team interviews Reince Priebus.
6. Paul Manafort has business dealings worth $60 million with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who has close ties to the Kremlin.
7. The background check chief says he’s never seen the level of mistakes on any clearance form as were found on Jared Kushner’s.
8. Researchers find thousands of additional posts that were part of the Russian disinformation campaign but that had been hidden on Facebook. Also, due to their terms of agreement, Twitter had deleted several posts by Russian agents, and they aren’t sure whether they can retrieve that information.
9. Cambridge Analytica, which is partially owned by Steve Bannon and which provided big data services to the Trump campaign, begins turning over documents to the House Intelligence Committee.
10. The House Intelligence Committee plans to release the Facebook ads bought and spread by Russians during the election. There are around 3,000 of them.

Week 39

1. Here’s what we learn this week about Russian troll farm workers:

• • They had a quota for the number of political and non-political posts they had to make, as well as for the number of daily comments. They wanted to flood social media with agitating propaganda (agitprop).
  • One troll worker says “Our goal wasn’t to turn the Americans toward Russia. Our task was to set Americans against their own government: to provoke unrest and discontent, and to lower Obama’s support ratings.” Well done, guys.
  • Their goal was to smear Hillary in three ways: Bill Clinton’s sex scandals, the Clintons’ wealth, and her use of a private email server.
  • They had to watch “House of Cards” to learn about American politics.
  • They organized events, rallies, and protests in the U.S. and hired activists to hold rallies. The activists didn’t know they were working for Russia.

2. U.S. investigators now believe that a man called Putin’s chef, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was behind one of the Russian troll farms.
3. Fusion GPS, the company that commissioned the Steele dossier, objects to the previous week’s subpoenas from the House Intelligence Committee, saying they aren’t even sure if Devin Nunes has the authority to sign off on them. Nunes is supposed to be recused from the investigation.
4. Facebook wants to hire people with national security clearance, likely to help prevent future attempts by foreign agents to manipulate information on the site.
5. Mueller interviews Matt Tait, the cyber expert who was recruited by Peter Smith to collude with Russia. He wrote a pretty interesting blog on it called The Time I Got Recruited to Collude with the Russians.
6. Sean Spicer meets with Robert Mueller’s team. They talk about James Comey’s firing and Trump’s meeting with Russian officials.
7. The Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenas Carter Page, who has been refusing to testify.
8. Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager, meets with the Senate Intelligence Committee.
9. Jeff Sessions testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee to defend the firing of James Comey. Sessions hasn’t been interviewed by Mueller yet.
10. Members of the House Oversight Committee push for subpoenas of the White House for documents about Michael Flynn. The documents they are looking for could lead to criminal prosecution, though, and Congress doesn’t prosecute crimes.
11. A bipartisan bill in the Senate would force social media companies to disclose who purchased an online political ad so we would know if it was Russian-sponsored.
12. Russian state-owned media RT misses its deadline to register as a foreign agent under FARA after a DOJ request to do so.
13. In an about-face, Putin says the American people need to stop disrespecting Trump.
14. In a tweet, Trump basically accuses the FBI, Russia, and the Mueller investigation of conspiracy to frame him.
15. Partisanship gets in the way of the congressional investigations of Russia, leading some to express concern that each committee will come to two different conclusions.
16. Mike Pompeo, head of the CIA, says Russian meddling didn’t affect the results of the election, even though the intelligence report concludes that was Russia’s aim. Whether they were successful hasn’t been concluded yet.

Week 40

1. Putin places Bill Browder on the Interpol list, which led to the U.S. border control temporarily halting his travel to the U.S. Browder was instrumental in the Magnitsky Act and he’s testified in the Russia investigation.
2. Kaspersky Labs allows outside experts to come in and look at their software to dispel any worries that the Kremlin uses their products to spy on the U.S.
3. Even though a foreign country worked to undermine our democracy, and even though we know they are still doing it and will continue doing it into the next elections, it doesn’t appear that Congress is motivated to do much about it. It’s up to us, people. Let’s not fall for the bullshit again.
4. The Trump administration still hasn’t implemented the sanctions on Russia that Congress signed into law last August. They’re almost a month past deadline to implement the policy.
5. It turns out that the reason behind the failure to implement sanctions is that Rex Tillerson dissolved the office responsible for that (the Coordinator for Sanctions Policy).
6. With big news coming up in the Russia investigation, there’s a new push to deflect attention to Hillary Clinton:

• • Devin Nunez announces a new congressional probe into Russia’s relationship with the Clintons regarding a 2010 uranium mine deal.
  • Trump personally tells the Justice Department to lift a gag order on an FBI informant around the uranium deal so the informant can testify to Congress. The U.S. has already prosecuted Russian agents for bribery and kickbacks to a trucking a company.
  • The House announces two committee inquiries into James Comey’s handling of the Clinton email case and into the FBI’s 2016 investigation of some members of Trump‘s campaign.
  • We learn that the Podesta Group and its chairman Tony Podesta (brother of Clinton campaign manager John Podesta) is part of the Mueller investigation for working with Paul Manafort’s agency on a pro-Ukraine PR campaign.
  • The original funder of Fusion GPS’s opposition research on Trump is a conservative website, The Washington Free Beacon, which hired Fusion GPS in fall of 2015 presumably on behalf of a Republican primary candidate. This initial research found Trump’s business interests were heavily weighted toward Russia.
  • Around the time the Beacon stopped funding the opposition (in May), the DNC and Clinton campaign (through a lawyer) hired Fusion GPS to continue their work (in April).
  • Since Fusion GPS’s previous research had already led them to Russia, they contracted Steele to continue that line of research.
  • The Campaign Legal Center files a complaint with the FEC against the DNC and Clinton campaign saying they hid payments to Fusion GPS on their FEC filings.
  • Trump personally tells the State Department to speed up the release of all remaining Clinton emails.
  • Hyperbole much? Sebastian Gorka says Hillary should be tried for treason and executed.

7. While much of the above is coming out now in an attempt to discredit the Steele dossier, the intelligence community came to their conclusions about Russia meddling without using the dossier at all.
8. A top employee at Cambridge Analytica, the firm the Trump campaign used to target certain demographics, says he contacted Wikileaks about Clinton’s emails, offering to help index them so they’d be more easily searchable online. Julian Assange refused the offer. This occurred in August 2016. After we knew Russia was behind the hack, and after Cambridge Analytica started working with the Trump campaign.
9. Trump plans to pay almost a half million dollars for his aides legal fees around the Russia investigation.
10. Mueller files the initial charges in the Russia probe. As of the end of the week, they’re still sealed under orders from the court.
11. After the charges are announced, Roger Stone unleashes a profane tirade on Twitter, which gets him banned permanently from Twitter.
12. Twitter bans ads from Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik.
13. Facebook, Twitter, and Google played a much bigger role in the election than we thought. The companies offered to embed their employees in both Clinton’s and Trump’s campaigns, though Clinton declined. Those employees created campaign strategies and communications for Trump’s campaign, including targeting voters and preparing responses to attacks.
14. Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. last year, says the information she had to share was from her own research, but it turns out that her paperwork included verbatim text from Russia’s prosecutor general.
15. To help combat the disinformation campaign, Quartz creates a bot that hunts down political bots on Twitter, @probabot. You can follow it on Twitter.
16. Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, meets with the House Intelligence Committee to discuss a request he made to Dmitry Peskov for help in building Trump Tower Moscow. The request was made during the 2016 campaign.

Week 41

Part I

1. Mueller unveils 12 counts against Paul Manafort and his associate Rick Gates, including conspiracy against the U.S., conspiracy to launder money, FARA violations, false statements, and failure to report financial information.
2. Trump tweets a response that this shows there was “no collusion,” which might have been a little premature, because an hour later George Papadopoulos, the Trump campaign’s former foreign policy advisor, pleads guilty to making a false statement to the FBI.
3. Documents show that Corey Lewandowski was also involved in discussions with Papadopoulos about Russia meetings.
4. Carter Page (also a foreign policy advisor to the campaign) says he spoke about Russia with Papadopoulos after originally denying it, and he also testifies that he told Sessions about a trip he took to Russia during the campaign. During this July 2016 trip, he met with Russian government officials. Remember, Sessions testified under oath to the Senate Intelligence Committee that he didn’t have any knowledge of Russian contact with the campaign.
5. Page emailed campaign staff about his findings from the trip, which were read at testimony
6. An email from Manafort to a campaign official says about the trips to Russia, “We need someone to communicate that DT is not doing these trips. It should be someone low level in the campaign so as not to send any signal.”
7. Manafort has a trial date in May of 2018.
8. Rick Gates was also being paid by the RNC for political strategy services.
9. Sam Clovis, who was about to go up for confirmation to the post of top scientist of the Department of Agriculture (even though he has no science background, but that’s another story), withdraws his nomination. It turns out he testified to the grand jury the previous week, which the White House didn’t find out until the media broke the news.
10. An email chain shows that Clovis discussed the potential Russia meetings with Papadopoulos, and Clovis is referenced in the court filing. And according to Papadopoulos’ plea agreement, Clovis impressed on him that relations with Russia were a primary focus of their foreign policy efforts.
11. Here’s a timeline of Russian contact to help you keep it all straight.

• • The Papadopoulos plea agreement and supporting documents reveal:
  • He met with a Russian agent (the Professor) in March of 2016 (after Papadopoulos knew he would be a foreign policy advisor for Trump’s campaign).
  • The Professor was only interested in him after finding out he was working with Trump’s campaign.
  • In April of 2016, the Professor told him that Russian agents have dirt on Clinton (a month after Papadopoulos joined Trump’s campaign).
  • The Professor then told him that the Russians had emails on Clinton, thousands of emails.
  • A person at the March 2016 meeting where Papadopoulos brought up meeting with the Putin says Trump didn’t dismiss the idea but Jeff Sessions did object.
  • In July 2016, Papadopoulos sent an email to his Russian contact the saying the meeting had been approved.
  • The above implies that the Trump campaign knew about the hacked emails long before they were released. And while both Trump and Jeff Sessions deny any knowledge of contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia, the latest court documents indicate otherwise.
  • Papadopoulos has been cooperating with the investigation since July 2017.

12. Jeff Sessions led the foreign policy group that Papadopoulos was part of.
13. Interesting note: It was Jared Kushner and Ivanka who pushed for Trump to hire Manafort to the campaign.
14. Also of note: Despite attempts by certain parties to draw the dossier into question, none of the charges revealed this week stemmed from the dossier.
15. Trump, conservative media, and some GOP politicians try to deflect attention off the charges by belittling Papadopoulos’ role in the campaign, by saying Manafort‘s crimes occurred long before Manafort was part of the campaign, and by focusing attention on Obamacare, Hillary Clinton, Democrats, the Fusion GPS dossier, tax cuts, the uranium deal, and Mueller’s (made up) conflict of interest.
16. Jared Kushner provides Mueller with documents related to his potential role in obstructing justice.
17. Representative Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) introduces a House resolution saying Mueller has a conflict of interest because he worked at the FBI with James Comey and he worked there when the Uranium One deal went through. A deal that had nothing to do with Mueller or the FBI. How did Mueller go from the perfect investigator for all sides to being compromised in the GOP’s view?
18. Tony Podesta steps down from his role at The Podesta Group. Even though the firm wasn’t named in the indictments and so far there are no accusations of wrong-doing, they worked with Manafort in the past to help improve the Ukrainian government’s image.

Part II

1. I‘m compiling a list of the fake stories and ads pushed by Russian troll farms to interfere with our elections just to see how many I saw last year. Here’s the first few. Feel free to add more in the comments if you know of any I missed.
2. And since we’re on fake news, former FBI agent Clint Watts says Russia’s been using this strategy to manipulate us since 2014. He testifies again to the Senate this week.
3. A Russian troll farm created a persona named Jenna Abrams in 2014. She built a solid base and, once established, she began posting divisive propaganda. Russia created a fake “real American” who showed up in most major news outlets.
4. Members of the Trump campaign followed Russian accounts on Twitter and shared their posts.
5. Facebook, Twitter, and Google testify in three hearings to a Senate Judiciary sub-committee. Here’s what we learn there:

• • Russian trolls used Facebook accounts to instigate violence against social and political groups, including undocumented immigrants, Muslims, police officers, Black Lives Matter activists, and more.
  • Facebook exposed Russia-linked pages to 126 million Americans, slightly less than the number that actually voted.
  • The posts by Russian trolls focused on our divisions in order to spread discord—primarily around race, religion, gun rights, and LGBTQ issues.
  • The posts also targeted users based on where they live, race, religion, and political leanings.
  • Instagram exposed Russian ads to millions of their users also.

6. Russian interests hold large stakes in Twitter and Facebook. Documents show that Yuri Milner, a Russian tech leader, invested in Facebook and Twitter through a Kushner associate and he has a stake in a company co-owned by Kushner.
7. Russian hacking didn’t stop with U.S. Democrats. They targeted thousands of national and international government officials and defense contractors during a multi-year attempt to break into email accounts worldwide. They mostly targeted the U.S. and Ukraine.
8. The DOJ says they have enough evidence to charge six Russian government officials who were involved in the DNC email hack.
9. Billionaire and conservative funder Robert Mercer sells his stake in Breitbart to his daughter and steps down from his company in an effort to distance himself from Trump and the Russia probe. Mercer was also a big funder for Cambridge Analytica, which provided big data and demographic targeting services for the Trump campaign.
10. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross has a stake in a shipping venture with Putin’s son-in-law, which Ross didn’t disclose during his confirmation process.
11. It’s proven that Guccifer 2.0 modified some of the campaign emails leaked on Wikileaks.

Week 42

1. Here’s a recap of the Trump associates that we know had contacts with Russian officials during the campaign or transition: Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Michael Cohen, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, J.D. Gordon, Michael Flynn (and his son), Wilbur Ross, and Jeff Sessions. There were 21 known meetings and at least 30 reported meetings. Additional associates knew about the meetings, including Corey Lewandowski and Trump himself. Might not have been such a big deal if they just ‘fessed up in the first place.
2. Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya says that Trump Jr. asked for evidence that donations were made to Clinton’s campaign using money that had evaded U.S. taxes. She didn’t have any such evidence.
3. Veselnitskaya also says that Trump Jr. said they’d look into rescinding the Magnitsky Act if Trump won the election.
4. Robert Mueller interviews Stephen Miller, who attended the meeting in March of 2016 where Papadopoulos said he could arrange a meeting between Trump and Putin.
5. Mueller questions witnesses about a meeting in September 2016 between Flynn and Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-Cal), bringing a member of Congress into the probe for the first time. We don’t know what was discussed yet, but Kevin McCarthy (R-Cal), once said, “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump.”
6. Corey Lewandowski, who previously had no recollection of conversations about Russia, now says Carter Page’s testimony has refreshed his memory and that he knew of Page’s trip to Russia in 2016 in which Page talked about the campaign with Russian officials.
7. Trump’s bodyguard testifies that while Trump was in Russia, Trump’s hosts offered to send 5 women to his hotel room but Trump declined.
8. Mueller requests documents relevant to the proposed Trump Tower in Moscow.
9. Mueller has enough evidence on Flynn and his son to charge them both. Charges include money laundering, lying to federal agents, and what sounds like conspiracy to kidnap. Flynn allegedly agreed to forcibly remove a Turkish cleric from the U.S. to Turkey for $15 million.
10. Jared Kushner didn’t disclose on his financial disclosure that a company he cofounded was partially funded by a Russian tech leader (Yuri Milner). Kushner said he never relied on Russian funding for his business ventures.
11. Unrelated to Russia specifically, the DOJ seeks a plea agreement with Manafort’s son-in-law, Jeffrey Yohai, related to financial crimes involved with Manafort’s crimes.
12. A federal judge places a gag order on the Manafort and Gates cases, forbidding them from making any public statements that could be prejudicial.
13. Russian trolls made a final propaganda push as soon as our polls opened on Nov. 8, 2016. They used accounts that they had started years ago to build large followings on social media. These “sleeper” accounts issued very targeted and metered tweets with praise for Trump and contempt for Clinton. This lasted from the time the first polls opened to the time the last ones closed.
14. Several of the Russian troll Twitter accounts that posted about our election also posted about Brexit, with a big push on voting day in Great Britain.
15. On his Asia trip, Trump reiterates that he takes Putin at his word when he says Russia didn’t meddle in our elections, contradicting the findings of our intelligence agencies. He says again that there was no collusion.
16. Trump then flip-flops and says that he believes Putin believes he didn’t meddle in the election, but that Trump himself is with our own intelligence agencies.
17. Previous intelligence officials say they think Trump is being played by Putin.
18. A group of House and Senate Republicans are working to discredit Mueller in order to force him out of the investigation. They say we’re in danger of a coup d’etat. They’re trying to tie Mueller to the 2010 Uranium One sale, Bill Clinton’s speeches in Russia, and the Steele dossier. The main players here are Representatives Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), and Louie Gohmert (R-TX).
19. It’s reported that Trump asked CIA Director Pompeo to meet with a conspiracy theorist who claims that the DNC leaked their own emails instead of the Russians hacking and releasing them. Even Pompeo says that’s wrong, though he once testified that Russia was unsuccessful in its attempts to meddle in our elections. The CIA later walked that back.

Week 43

1. Documents turned over by George Papadopoulos show that Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s top advisors, knew about conversations and potential meetings between campaign members and Russian officials.
2. Records show that Wikileaks was in contact with Donald Trump Jr. during the 2016 campaign, and that he let Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway know about it.
3. After Wikileaks contacted Don Jr. about leaks, Roger Stone tweets about upcoming leaks.
4. Fifteen minutes after Wikileaks contacts Don Jr. about dumping more Podesta emails (along with a link to said dump), Trump Sr. tweets praise for Wikileaks, and two days later Don Jr. tweets the link to the email dump.
5. Roger Stone claims ties to Wikileaks.
6. Mike Pence denies any ties to Wikileaks.
7. A House Republican produces a very complex chart linking Clinton and Obama and Uranium One and the Clinton Foundation, etc., etc. However, if you follow all the links, it’s pretty meaningless. Shep Smith does a pretty good breakdown debunking this story.
8. Sessions says there isn’t enough basis to assign a new special counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton.
9. The Senate Judiciary Committee says that Jared Kushner didn’t turn over a documents he has about a Russian backdoor overture, Wikileaks communications, and communications with a Russian businessman.
10. A worker at a Russian troll farm says their job was to turn out a “merry-go-round” of lies, and that trolls worked 24/7 shifts churning out misinformation. He also thinks they were connected to the Kremlin. They worked in different departments and different floors, so they were often commenting on each other’s posts and responding to each other’s comments, which just served to generate discord and start fights on social media. NBC has a pretty interesting piece on it.
11. As a result of the Manafort charges (and potential charges against Flynn), lobbyists in D.C. scramble to get lawyers and inform the government of any actions they took on behalf of foreign governments that fall under FARA regulations. Before now, prosecutors pretty much looked the other way.
12. A former CIA director says that Putin outsmarts Trump and that Trump doesn’t understand that it’s OK to tell Putin that you know he’s lying. In fact, Putin expects you to do that.
13. Members of the Russia elite have invested almost $100 million in Trump properties in the U.S.
14. Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak says it would take him too long to name all the Trump officials he met with.
15. Jared Kushner’s security clearance is still only temporary after 10 months in office.
16. Trump starts paying his own and some staff’s legal bills. Previously the RNC had been paying.
17. Christopher Steele, author of the Steele dossier, thinks the report is mostly accurate (70-90%).
18. Jeff Sessions appears before the House Judiciary Committee again, saying he didn’t lie under oath about knowledge of any Russia meetings and that he just doesn’t remember. He later says he might have pushed back against the idea of meeting with Russian officials.
19. The U.S. hires a security firm owned by a previous KGB director to guard its embassy in Moscow. That’s almost like the time we agreed to let them build parts of our Moscow embassy offsite… where they placed bugs all over the walls… and then we had to tear it down and build a new one.
20. It looks like the Russian foreign ministry paid almost $400,000 to embassies around the world for the purpose of financing the 2016 campaign.

Week 44

1. Mueller is now interested in Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) over meetings he had with Julian Assange in August. The Kremlin regards Rohrabacher as an intelligence source, and values him enough to give him a secret code name.
2. In a sign he might be negotiating a deal with Mueller, Michael Flynn cuts ties with Trump’s lawyers.
3. Mueller adds Michael Flynn’s business partner to the list of people he’s investigating.
4. Jared Kushner’s role in the white house diminishes as he becomes further involved in the Russia investigation. Kushner says he’s just focusing on the important things and that there’s nothing to worry about.
5. The FBI knew for at least a year that Russian hackers were trying to break into many U.S. officials’ gmail accounts, but the FBI never bothered to warn the targeted officials about it.

Week 45

1. We find out that Mueller has interviewed Jared Kushner about meetings with Michael Flynn in December.
2. Legislators and their aides say that over the summer, Trump pressured committee members to wrap up their investigations into Russian interference in our elections. The people he pressured include Richard Burr, Mitch McConnell, and Roy Blunt, among others.
3. Mueller brings the fourth indictment in the Russia probe, this time against former national security advisor Michael Flynn. Flynn pleads guilty to lying to the FBI about discussing sanctions with Russian officials last December.
4. Flynn is the second person to enter a guilty plea in the investigation, causing speculation that he is cooperating with Mueller.
5. Lying might seem like a small crime but he lied about negotiating with the Russians against U.S. policy and U.S. interests before Trump took office and after we knew that Russia interfered in our election.
6. Flynn’s admission brings other campaign officials into question. After he spoke with the Russian ambassador about sanctions, Flynn called one or more senior members of the transition team while they were at Mar-a-Lago with Trump. They discussed his meeting with Ambassador Kislyak and sanctions Obama imposed on Russia.
7. While she was on Trump’s transition team, K.T. McFarland emailed a friend saying that Russia threw the election to Trump. McFarland went on to become deputy national security advisor for a bit.
8. Trump responds to Flynn’s guilty plea in a number of ways… in tweets, of course. He attacks the FBI, saying they’re in tatters. He attacks the FBI and DOJ for not investigating Clinton thoroughly enough. He also says he fired Flynn because Flynn lied to the vice-president, which implies that Trump knew about Flynn’s interactions with Russians, knew that he lied to Pence, and then he asked James Comey to let the Flynn thing go AFTER he knew about the lies.
9. Trump’s lawyer says he composed that tweet, and then goes on to say that a president cannot be guilty of obstruction because he’s the chief law enforcement officer. Apparently forgetting that both Nixon and Clinton had articles of impeachment against them for exactly that.
10. Among the documents turned over to investigators is an email from an operative with ties to the NRA who said during the campaign that he could arrange a back-channel meeting with Trump and Putin. He said Russia was “quietly but actively seeking a dialogue with the U.S.” and wanted to make contact at the N.R.A.’s annual convention.
11. Even though he “recused” himself from the Russia investigation, House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes is pulling together contempt charges against the FBI and DOJ for not cooperating with requests for information by congressional committees. Both the FBI and DOJ say they’re complying fully.
12. Paul Manafort reaches an $11 billion bail agreement with Mueller, getting rid of his ankle bracelet and putting up several real estate properties as collateral.
13. We learn that Mueller got rid of one of his investigators last summer over anti-Trump texts. The right uses the firing of Peter Strzok to “prove” that Mueller’s investigation is tainted. The left says it shows he’s keeping bias out of the picture.
14. The Senate Judiciary Committee is building an obstruction of justice case against Trump.

Week 46

1. The chief lawyer at the White House told Trump in January that Michael Flynn had likely lied to the FBI and Mike Pence. This was before Trump asked Comey to “see his way to letting it go.”
2. In his December meeting with Russian officials, Mike Flynn told them the sanctions Obama was imposing at the time would be ripped up.
3. Mueller asks a judge to deny Manafort’s request to be released from house arrest after learning the Manafort wrote an op-ed with a Russian operative in order to sway public opinion about his dealings with the Ukraine. Some people never learn.
4. Mueller subpoenas Deutsche Bank for information about Trump’s accounts. Deutsche Bank has loaned millions to the Trump Organization. The White House denies that there are any subpoenas.
5. Donald Trump Jr. spends eight hours in front of the House Intelligence Committee. He says he talked to Hope Hicks, and not his father, about how to respond to revelations of his meeting with a Russian lawyer.
6. He also claims attorney-client privilege as a reason to not talk about the phone call with Trump Sr. where they discussed how they should handle the issue of Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer (because a lawyer was in the room when he called).
7. Newly uncovered emails show there was follow-up within the Trump campaign to Trump Jr.’s meeting with the Russian lawyer.
8. In his meeting with the Russian lawyer, Trump Jr. asked for information proving illegal donations to the Clinton campaign.
9. Erik Prince testifies before the House Intelligence Committee, and says he met with Devin Nunes earlier this year to discuss the unmasking of names of Americans being investigated (after Nunes recused himself). He also discusses meetings with Emirati officials and a Russian banker in the Seychelles.
10. The judge in the Flynn case recuses himself.
11. Senate Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee hold up K.T. McFarland’s nomination based on questions around what she knew about contact between Michael Flynn and Russian ambassador Kislyak.
12. Hope Hicks meets with Mueller’s team, and we learn that the FBI warned her that Russian operatives had tried to contact her at least twice this year.

Week 47

1. Republicans make much ado about Peter Strzok, the FBI agent who was released from the Russia investigation last summer after texts were uncovered where he was critical of Trump and supportive of Clinton. However, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, in his testimony to Congress, says that all federal employees are entitled to their political views and that political leanings do not disqualify them from doing their jobs. It’s actually a violation of federal practices to take political leanings into account for any applicant.
2. Russian hacker Konstantin Kozlovsky confesses in court to being hired by the FSB (Russian intelligence) to hack the DNC’s computer systems in 2016.
3. Mueller’s team requests emails from all Cambridge Analytica employees who worked on the Trump campaign. Cambridge Analytica is the data, polling, and research firm that helped target Trump’s social media campaign.
4. Putin considers Trump’s tweets to be official statements from the White House, and he gets reports of the tweets along with reports of other leaders’ official statements.
5. Trump has never held a cabinet meeting about Russian meddling in the 2016 election, and it’s not talked about in the White House.
6. Citizens United opened the door to all sorts of donor manipulation around our elections. Mueller is investigating Russian donors and donors with Russian ties in the 2016 elections. Here’s an in-depth piece on the people involved.
7. Rumors abound on the left that Trump plans to fire Mueller on December 22. Trump denies this, saying that the investigation is almost wrapped up and that he’ll be cleared soon.
8. Trump’s lawyers say Mueller obtained Trump’s transition team documents using inappropriate methods. But according to lawyers for the Government Services Administration (GSA), it went like this:

• • The GSA told Trump’s transition team during the transition that materials “would not be held back in any law enforcement” requests.
  • Mueller’s team requested the materials.
  • The GSA turned over the materials.

9. Jared Kushner’s legal team is working on hiring a crisis PR agency.
10. Internet traffic for four major corporations—Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft—is briefly rerouted through a Russian ISP.
11. Adam Schiff, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, says, “The Russians offered help. The campaign accepted help. The Russians gave help. And the president made full use of that help.” He calls the evidence pretty damning, though he wouldn’t say whether it’s beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Week 48

1. We learn that last summer, after Russians had already reached out to the Trump campaign, U.S. intelligence agencies warned both Trump and Clinton that foreign agents would try to infiltrate their campaigns and to be aware of any suspicious overtures. Both campaigns were told to alert the FBI immediately if any such overtures occurred.
2. In January 2017, White House counsel knew Michael Flynn had likely broken two federal laws. And then:

• • 1/24/17: Flynn lies to the FBI
  • 1/27/17: Sally Yates warns White House counsel that Flynn could be compromised
  • 1/27/17: Trump asks Comey for his loyalty
  • 2/13/17: Trump fires Flynn
  • 2/14/17: Trump asks Comey to see a way to let the Flynn thing go
  • 5/09/17: Trump fires Comey

3. The Senate Intelligence Committee brings Jill Stein into their Russia investigation with a request for documents about a trip to Russia in honor of Russian state media RT.
4. Kaspersky Labs sues the US government for banning its software on government computers.
5. The House Intelligence Committee interviews Andy McCabe, acting head of the FBI.
6. Andy McCabe says he’ll retire as soon as he’s eligible for full pension in March. He’s been fielding much criticism from Trump’s administration and congressional Republicans.
7. A small group of Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee, led by Devin Nunes, have been working in secret for weeks to build a case of corruption and conspiracy against senior officials in the DOJ and FBI. They think the Steele dossier was mishandled.

• • This small group thinks that the DOJ and FBI are working against Trump and for Hillary, even though actions by the FBI contributed to Clinton’s loss in 2016.
  • The group is expected to use their findings to discredit the investigation into Russian meddling in our election, and to discredit Mueller.
  • The group has kept Democrats on the committee in the dark about what they’re doing.

8. The House Intelligence Committee requests interviews with both Steve Bannon and Corey Lewandowsky.
9. Republicans in the House Intelligence Committee want to wrap up their investigation by the end of the year, though Democrats have several unanswered requests for more interviews. Also there are still interviews scheduled for January.
10. Carter Page blamed his failure to complete his Ph.D. on “anti-Russian bias.” He failed it twice and finally obtained it on the third try. His advisors said his thesis was verbose and vague.

Week 49

1. A small group of Republicans headed by Devin Nunes is investigating the FBI over its use of the Steele dossier to launch the investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties with Russia. But then…

• • It turns out that it wasn’t the Steele dossier that launched the investigation.
  • Instead, it was George Papadopoulos’s drunken revelation to a top Australian diplomat that he knew the Russians had political dirt on Hillary Clinton.
  • Australian officials then reported that info to their American counterparts.

2. George spilled the beans in May 2016, the Australians reported it two months later (why the wait?), and the FBI opened the investigation in July 2016.
3. Both Democrats and Republicans criticize Nunes over the tactics he’s using to attack federal law enforcement. Most think if there’s any corruption in the FBI, the DOJ should investigate it and that all Nunes will do is cause damage to law enforcement.
4. On top of that, it turns out that Nunes never fully recused himself from the Russia investigation after his strange White House antics last year. While he handed over the day to day activities of the committee chair, he retained sole power to sign subpoenas, restricting committee Democrats‘ ability to do their jobs.
5. There’s increased Russian submarine activity around undersea trans-Atlantic data cables. This is the most Russian sub activity we’ve seen since the Cold War. These cables provide internet to North American and Europe, so it’s possible Russia’s looking for ways to tap into the data.
6. NATO responds to the activity by announcing plans to re-open a Cold War command post to secure the north Atlantic.
7. Part of Robert Mueller’s investigation includes looking at whether the Trump campaign and RNC used voter information that was obtained through Russian hackers. We know that Russian hackers stole data from several states’ election databases in 2016. Jared Kushner was in charge of the campaign’s digital operations.
8. A Russian who earlier admitted to hacking the DNC servers for the Russian government says he left a data signature that proves he’s telling the truth.
9. Trump’s legal team, along with other Trump supporters in D.C. and in the media, start to paint Michael Flynn as a liar in order to discredit him before his testimony comes up in the Russia investigation.
10. Putin expresses disappointment in the deteriorating relationship between Russia and the U.S.
11. A Russian court upholds a ruling that bans Putin’s opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, from running against him in the next elections.
12. Facebook announces it won’t use red flags to indicate fake news articles anymore. Apparently the flags just enticed more people to click on the stories. They found that showing related articles is more effective to combat fake stories.

Week 50

1. Paul Manafort sues Robert Mueller, Rod Rosenstein, and the DOJ. The suit asks the federal court to narrow the scope of Mueller’s authority. Manafort’s legal team thinks Mueller is out of bounds investigating money laundering. Legal experts say the suit probably won’t hold water, based on Rod Rosenstein’s earlier testimony to Congress where he said he gave Mueller leeway to follow the investigation where it led. Remember, Kenneth Starr’s Whitewater investigation led to Monica Lewinsky.
2. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Directory Christopher Wray meet with Paul Ryan about Representative Devin Nunes’ request for documents in the Russia investigation. Rosenstein and Wray were there to ask to keep the documents private at this time because sharing could hamper their investigation.
3. Ryan, who had previously supported the Russia investigation, caves to Nunes and orders the FBI to turn over the documents to Nunes, which they do. Nunes, by the way, is supposed to be recused from this investigation. The documents in question are law enforcement sensitive and documents of this type are rarely shared outside the FBI.
4. Fusion GPS founders write an op-ed asking the Senate to release their testimony and explaining some of the testimony they gave. Fusion thinks the Senate is trying to hide their testimony.
5. Instead of complying with Fusion GPS’s request to publicize their testimony, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley instead says they can come back and testify publicly. Why not just save us the time and money and publish the testimony that was already given?
6. Representatives Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan, leaders of the Freedom Caucus, call on Jeff Sessions to step down over recusing himself from the Russia investigation.
7. Senators Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham send a letter to the FBI requesting an investigation into Christopher Steele, author of the Steele dossier. They claim that Steele misled the FBI when talking about his contacts with the media. After a year of investigation, this is all they’ve got? Mueller is light years ahead of them.
8. The AP confirms that Trump directed his White House counsel to tell Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. Sessions obviously refused the directive and recused himself shortly thereafter, prompting Trump to tell him to resign. Which he did. And which Trump refused to accept.
9. Hand-written notes by Reince Priebus confirm some of James Comey’s testimony about Trump’s requests of him before he was fired.
10. A few days before Trump fired Comey, an aide to Jeff Sessions asked one congressional staffer if he had any damaging information on Comey, an apparent effort to undermine the FBI.
11. The FBI releases new documents that show Andy McCabe didn’t have any conflicts of interest overseeing the Clinton email investigation.

Week 51

1. Mueller has said he wants to interview Trump, and at first Trump’s legal team says sure. But Trump goes from saying it’s likely he’ll sit down with Mueller to saying it’s unlikely. The legal team wants to submit written responses instead of having a face-to-face sit-down.
2. H.R. McMaster, Trump’s National Security Adviser, says there’s evidence of Russia meddling in Mexico’s upcoming election in July.
3. Bannon clarifies his words quoted in the book “Fire & Fury” by explaining it wasn’t treasonous of Don Jr. to organize the meeting with Russians last year because he’s too inexperienced. However it was treasonous of Manafort to attend because he should’ve known better.
4. Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, releases Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson’s court testimony after Chairman Chuck Grassley drags his feet on it for months. Feinstein has long been known as a senator who can bridge both sides of the aisle; she’s a deal maker. But this is an indication that she’s fed up with D.C. partisanship and doesn’t care about burning bridges. I won’t go into detail, but here are a few bits:
   • Fusion GPS didn’t know what they’d find about Trump’s dealings with Russia. They were doing opposition research in other countries as well.
   • They say the FBI had a source in the Trump campaign, and that source had concerns about Russia ties.
   • Much of the information in the dossier has been corroborated by U.S. intelligence; none of it has been disproven.
   • Steel reached out to the FBI of his own accord because he was alarmed by what he found. Steel cut off ties with the FBI when he started to think they weren’t following up on the investigation.
5. It was a lot of info. You can read the whole thing here.
6. Chuck Grassley says that Feinstein’s action will make it harder to secure testimony from other witnesses, even though Simpson himself requested the testimony be publicized and even though Grassley has been refusing to approve requests for witnesses.
7. Trump criticizes Feinstein’s release of the document and calls it underhanded and possibly criminal. He gave her a new nickname—“Sneaky Dianne Feinstein.” LOL.
8. The Senate’s investigation into Russia’s meddling in our election lacks staff and resources compared to other investigations. There are only 7 Senate staffers assigned, compared to 46 staffers assigned in the Benghazi investigation in 2014.
9. Russia Ambassador Jon Huntsman says the relationship between U.S. and Russia will be over if they interfere in the 2018 midterms. He also warns that he doesn’t think they’re going to quit.
10. Trump attorney Michael Cohen files defamation suits against Buzzfeed and Fusion GPS. He says the dossier incorrectly names him in association with Russian contacts.
11. We find out that Mueller added a prosecutor with extensive cyber crime experience to his team last fall. It looks like they’re adding computer crimes to the focus of their investigation.
12. Senator Ben Cardin releases a Senate Foreign Relations Committee report that describes two decades of Russian attacks against democracy, concluding that we are not prepared to defend ourselves against Russian meddling in our elections—including the 2018 midterms and the 2020 presidential election. Why? Because the controlling party in Congress is too busy trying to prove it never happened in 2016.
13. Trend Micro reveals that the Russian hacking group Fancy Bear is using the same hacking methods against the U.S. Senate that it used in the French elections last year against now President Macron. They set up a chain of websites mimicking U.S. Senate sites in order to harvest emails.
14. The FBI has a foreign influence task force that will notify us about any Russian efforts to interfere in our elections and to manipulate social media.
15. Facebook announces changes that will focus your news feed on family and friends instead of paid content as a way to fight fake news. Test runs of this haven’t been that successful, though.

Week 52

1. Robert Mueller subpoenas Steven Bannon in the Russia investigation. For now, Bannon won’t appear before the grand jury.
2. Bannon meets with the House Intelligence Committee behind closed doors, and says he won’t answer questions about the transition period nor his time in the White House. The committee immediately issues a subpoena. After the subpoena, Bannon’s lawyer calls the White House, and it seems Bannon was told to not say anything.
3. Bannon does admit that he talked to both Reince Priebus and Sean Spicer as well as a legal spokesperson about the Trump Tower meeting with Russian lawyers last year.
4. White House Counsel, Don McGahn, advises Bannon on what he can say despite the fact that McGahn himself is a witness to the events under investigation.
5. Hundreds of Twitter accounts controlled by the Kremlin call for the release of a memo commissioned by Devin Nunes that accuses the DOJ and FBI of having anti-Trump bias (even though these agencies tend to be more conservative than liberal).
6. House Republicans have been sharing the memo among themselves, but refuse to share it with Democrats, the FBI, or the DOJ.
7. A federal judge rejects Mueller’s bid to start Paul Manafort’s trial in May. It’ll probably start in September instead.
8. Mueller is looking at financial transactions by Russian players, including by former Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergei Kislyak in the days around the election.
9. Last week, Dianne Feinstein released Glenn Simpson’s (Fusion GPS) testimony for the Senate Intelligence Committee. This week, the House Intelligence Committee releases Simpson’s testimony for them.
10. The financial aspect of the Russia investigation includes looking at the NRA, which spent $30 million on getting Trump elected.