Since his campaign 2016, there's been a lot of
attention on Donald Trump's connection
with Russia. Personally, he's made his
admiration for Russian President
Vladimir Putin quite clear and some of
his administration members have either a
long history of ties to the Russian
state, Pro-russian views or both. Back in
August 2016 his campaign manager Paul
Manafort resigned when it was revealed
that he had been a paid consultant to
Ukraine's pro-russian former president.
Since then, there have been allegations
that the Trump campaign knew about
Russia's hack of the election, improper
contact with the Russian government, and
even blackmail, resulting in several
government investigations. In order to
understand the scandal surrounding Trump
and Russia, it's important to first
distinguish the three main storylines.
The first centers on Russia's
interference in the US presidential
election. The second revolves around
former National security adviser Michael
Flynn. And the third concerns the private
intelligence report that claims Russian
are blackmailing Trump known as the Steele dossier.
Let's start with the first.
In June 2016, WikiLeaks began publishing
private emails attacking the Democratic
National Committee. At the time, Russia
was the main suspect, but this remained
unconfirmed. Emails from the hack
continue to be leaked throughout the
summer, always targeting the Clinton
campaign. "Russia if you're listening I
hope you are able to find the 30,000
emails that are missing.
I think you will probably be rewarded
mightily by our press. In August 2016
close Trump confidant Roger Stone said that he
was in touch with WikiLeaks. "I actually
have a communicated with Assange.
I believe the next tranche of documents
pertain to the Clinton Foundation.
On October 2, Stone sent a tweet appearing to show
inside knowledge of an upcoming
WikiLeaks publication targeting Clinton.
In October 7th, WikiLeaks released the
first batch of hacked emails from
Clinton campaign manager, John Podesta.
Now on the same day, a joint statement by
Obama's national security advisor and
the Department of Homeland Security
officially declared that the DNC hacks
were intended to interfere with the US
election and that they believe that only
Russia's senior-most officials could
have authorized these activities.
December 10th, Russian Deputy Foreign
Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that there
were contacts with Trump's entourage
throughout the election. And that quite a few
have been staying in touch with the
Russian representatives. On January 6th,
the CIA, FBI, and NSA together released a
report confirming that Putin had ordered
the attacks and intended to hurt the
Clinton campaign specifically.
On February 14 and 15, phone records
reportedly show that members of Trump's
campaign and other Trump associates made
frequent contact with Russian officials
during their campaign. While US intelligence
is still investigating Russian
interference the big unknown is did the
Trump campaign know about Russian hacks
targeting clinton? Now the second scandal
involves Trump's former National
security adviser, Michael Flynn. It's
related to the first because it begins
on December 29, when the Obama
administration announced a series of new
sanctions on Russia as punishment for
its interference in the election. On the
same day, Michael Flynn called Russian
ambassador Sergey Kislyak multiple
times. Flynn was not in office yet but has
a long-standing relationship with Russia.
On December 30, Putin announced that
they would not retaliate against the
sanctions. A move that Trump publicly
praised on Twitter. Now this led some to
suspect that the Trump administration
was telling Russia that they would
rethink the sanctions once they were in
office. On January 12, news of the Flynn
calls broke. Press secretary Sean Spicer
and vice-president Mike Pence, each told
reporters that the calls were not about
sanctions. On January 24
Flynn told FBI investigators that he did
not discuss sanctions in the phone call.
Sometime in late January, acting Attorney
General Sally Yates told the White House
legal counsel that she believes Flynn
was lying to the Trump administration
about what he talked about on the phone
call with Kislyak.
Which would make Flynn potentially
vulnerable to Russian blackmail.
On February 9, the Washington Post
confirmed that Flynn had spoken about
sanctions with Kislyak because the FBI
had Kislyak's phone under surveillance.
The report said Flynn urged Kislyak to
not react to Obama's sanctions because the
incoming Trump administration would be
reconsidering them. On February 13 Flynn
resigned, saying he had given Pence and
others incomplete information about his
conversation with Kislyak.
On February 16 the House
Intelligence Committee announced that
its including Flynn its investigation of
Russia interference in the US election.
So at this point the big unknown is
whether Trump new Flynn had reached out
to Russia to discuss the sanctions.
Finally, scandal number three is by far
the most bizarre and the least confirmed.
It begins sometime during the summer of 2016
when intelligence documents began
circulating around the US intelligence
community and media organizations. The
documents were from a former British
intelligence agent who was hired by
Republicans and Democrats to investigate
Trump. The documents claim Russia has
information they could use to blackmail
Trump. They also allege that Trump and
Russia exchanged information during the
campaign to hurt Clinton. On January 10,
BuzzFeed published the entire unverified
report after CNN reported that Trump and
Obama had been briefed on it.
On February 10, CNN reported that
investigators had in fact verified a
minor part of the report. "But now
multiple current and former US law
enforcement and intelligence officials
tell CNN that intelligence intercepts of
foreign nationals confirm that some of
the conversations described in the dossier
took place between the same individuals
on the same days. At this point
investigations into the report continue
and the question of whether Russia could
blackmail Trump remains unanswered.
These 3 scandals continue and there are many
unanswered questions but what is clear
is that the uncertainty surrounding
Trump and Russia is not going to go away anytime soon.