Mueller Report

"[S]oon after WikiLeaks's first release of stolen documents, a foreign government contacted the FBI about... Trump Campaign foreign policy advisor . Papadopoulos had suggested to a representative of that foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to... Hillary Clinton. That information prompted the FBI on July 31, 2016, to open an investigation into whether individuals associated with the Trump Campaign were coordinating with the Russian government..."

"That fall, two federal agencies jointly announced that the Russian government "directed recent compromises of e-mails... intended to interfere with the US election process." After the election... the United States imposed sanctions... By early 2017, several congressional committees were examining Russia's interference..."

"[I]nvestigatory efforts... led to the May 2017 appointment of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III. The order... authorized him to investigate "the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election," including any links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign."

"Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election principally through two operations. First... a social media campaign... favored... Trump and disparaged... Clinton. Second, ...computer-intrusion operations against... the Clinton Campaign and... then released stolen documents."

"The investigation... identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign. Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency... and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."

"A statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts."

"In evaluating whether evidence about collective action of multiple individuals constituted a crime, we applied the framework of conspiracy law, not the concept of "." ...But collusion is not a specific offense or theory of liability... in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in federal criminal law. For those reasons, the Office's focus in analyzing questions of joint criminal liability was on conspiracy... we addressed the factual question whether members of the Trump Campaign "coordinat[ed]"—a term that appears in the appointment order—with Russian election interference activities. Like collusion, "coordination" does not have a settled definition in federal criminal law. We understood coordination to require an agreement—tacit or express—between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government on election interference. That requires more than the two parties taking actions that were informed by or responsive to the other's actions or interests. We applied the term coordination in that sense when stating... that the investigation did not establish that the Trump Campaign coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."

"Volume I describes the factual results of the Special Counsel's investigation of Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election and its interactions with the Trump Campaign. Section I describes the scope of the investigation. Sections II and III describe the principal ways Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. Section IV describes links between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign. Section V sets forth the Special Counsel's charging decisions."

"Volume II addresses the President's actions towards the FBI's investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election and related matters, and his actions towards the Special Counsel's investigation. Volume II separately states its framework and the considerations that guided that investigation."

"The (IRA) carried out the earliest Russian interference operations identified...—a social media campaign designed to provoke and amplify political and social discord in the United States. The IRA... received funding from Russian oligarch and companies he controlled. Prigozhin is widely reported to have ties to... Putin."

"In mid-2014, the IRA sent employees to the United States on an intelligence-gathering mission..."

"The IRA later used social media accounts and interest groups to sow discord... through... "." The campaign evolved from a generalized program designed... to undermine the U.S. electoral system... The IRA' s operation also included the purchase of political advertisements on social media in the names of U.S. persons and entities, as well as the staging of political rallies... To organize those rallies, IRA employees posed as U.S. grassroots entities and persons and made contact with Trump supporters and Trump Campaign officials... Section II... details... the Russian social media campaign."

"[T]he Russian government employed a second form of interference: cyber intrusions (hacking) and releases of hacked materials damaging to the Clinton Campaign. ...the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Army (GRU) carried out these operations. ...The GRU stole hundreds of thousands of documents from the compromised email accounts and networks. ...disseminating stolen materials through the fictitious online personas " " and "." The GRU later released additional materials through the organization WikiLeaks."

"The ...("Trump Campaign" or "Campaign") showed interest in WikiLeaks's releases of documents and welcomed their potential to damage candidate Clinton."

"WikiLeaks began releasing Podesta's stolen emails on October 7, 2016, less than one hour after a U.S. media outlet released video considered damaging to candidate Trump. Section III... details... Russian hacking operations, as well as other efforts by Trump Campaign supporters to obtain Clinton-related emails."

"The social media campaign and the GRU hacking operations coincided with a series of contacts between Trump Campaign officials... Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated..."

"The Russian contacts consisted of business connections, offers of assistance to the Campaign, invitations for candidate Trump and Putin to meet... invitations for Campaign officials and representatives of the Russian government to meet, and policy positions seeking improved U.S.-Russian relations."

"Section IV of this Report details the contacts between Russia and the Trump Campaign..."

"2015. Some of the earliest contacts were made in connection with a Trump Organization... project... . Candidate Trump signed a Letter of intent for Trump Tower Moscow by November 2015, and in January 2016... Michael Cohen emailed and spoke about the project with the office of Russian government press secretary . The Trump Organization pursued the project through at least June 2016, including by considering travel to Russia by Cohen and candidate Trump."

"Spring 2016. Campaign foreign policy advisor made early contact with , a London-based professor who had connections to Russia and traveled to Moscow in April 2016. Immediately upon his return to London from that trip, Mifsud told Papadopoulos that the Russian government had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton..."

"One week later, in the first week of May 2016, Papadopoulos suggested to a representative of a foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to candidate Clinton. Throughout... and for several months thereafter, Papadopoulos worked with Mifsud and two Russian nationals to arrange a meeting between the Campaign and the Russian government. No meeting took place."

"Summer 2016. Russian outreach to the Trump Campaign continued... as... Trump was becoming the presumptive Republican nominee.... On June 9, 2016, for example, a Russian lawyer met with senior Trump Campaign officials Donald Trump Jr., , and campaign chairman Paul Manafort to deliver... "official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary." The materials were offered to Trump Jr. as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." ...the Campaign anticipated receiving information from Russia that could assist candidate Trump's electoral prospects, but the Russian lawyer's presentation did not provide such information. Days after the June 9 meeting... a cybersecurity firm and the DNC announced that Russian government hackers had infiltrated the DNC and obtained access to opposition research on candidate Trump, among other documents."

"In July 2016, Campaign foreign policy advisor traveled... to Moscow and gave the keynote address at the . Page had lived and worked in Russia between 2003 and 2007. After returning... Page became acquainted with at least two Russian intelligence officers... Page's July 2016 trip to Moscow and his advocacy for pro-Russian foreign policy drew media attention. The Campaign then distanced itself from Page and, by late September 2016, removed him from the Campaign."

"On July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks posted thousands of internal DNC documents revealing information about the Clinton Campaign. ...[W]ithin a week of the release, a foreign government informed the FBI about its May 2016 interaction with Papadopoulos and his statement that the Russian government could assist the Trump Campaign. On July 31, 2016... the FBI opened an investigation into potential coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign."

"August 2, 2016, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort met in New York City with his long-time business associate , who the FBI assesses to have ties to Russian intelligence. Kilimnik requested the meeting to deliver... a peace plan for Ukraine that Manafort acknowledged... was a "backdoor" way for Russia to control part of eastern Ukraine; both men believed the plan would require candidate Trump's assent to succeed (were he to be elected President). They also discussed the status of the Trump Campaign and Manafort's strategy for winning Democratic votes in Midwestern states. Months before that meeting, Manafort had caused internal polling data to be shared with Kilimnik, and the sharing continued for some period... after..."

"Fall 2016. On October 7, 2016, the media released video of candidate Trump speaking in graphic terms about women years earlier... considered damaging to his candidacy. Less than an hour later, WikiLeaks made its second release: thousands of John Podesta' s emails that had been stolen... in late March 2016. The FBI and... U.S. government institutions were... continuing their investigation of suspected Russian government efforts to interfere... That same day, October 7, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint public statement "that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails..." Those "thefts" and the "disclosures"... the statement continued, "are intended to interfere with the US election process.""

"Post-2016 Election. Immediately after the... election, Russian government officials and prominent Russian businessmen began trying to make inroads into the new administration. ...The Russian Embassy made contact hours after the election to congratulate the President-Elect and to arrange a call with President Putin. Several Russian businessmen picked up the effort from there."

", the chief executive officer of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, was among the Russians who tried to make contact... In early December, a business associate steered Dmitriev to , a supporter of the Trump Campaign and an associate of senior Trump advisor Steve Bannon. Dmitriev and Prince later met face-to-face in January 2017 in the and discussed U.S.-Russia relations. ...another business associate introduced Dmitriev to a friend of ... Dmitriev and Kushner's friend collaborated on a short written reconciliation plan for the United States and Russia, which Dmitriev implied had been cleared through Putin. The friend gave that proposal to Kushner before the inauguration, and Kushner later gave copies to Bannon and incoming Secretary of State Rex Tillerson."

"On December 29, 2016, then-President Obama imposed sanctions on Russia for having interfered in the election. Incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn called Russian Ambassador and asked Russia not to escalate the situation in response to the sanctions. The following day, Putin announced that Russia would not take retaliatory measures in response to the sanctions at that time. Hours later, President-Elect Trump tweeted, "Great move on delay (by V. Putin)." The next day, on December 31, 2016, Kislyak called Flynn and told him the request had been received at the highest levels and Russia had chosen not to retaliate as a result of Flynn's request."

"On January 6, 2017, members of the intelligence community briefed President-Elect Trump on a joint assessment-drafted and coordinated among the Central Intelligence Agency, FBI, and National Security Agency-that concluded with high confidence that Russia had intervened in the election through a variety of means to assist Trump's candidacy and harm Clinton's. A declassified version of the assessment was publicly released that same day."

"Between mid-January 2017 and early February 2017, three congressional committees... announced that they would conduct inquiries, or had... been conducting inquiries, into Russian interference... Then-FBI Director James Comey later confirmed... the existence of the FBI's investigation into Russian interference that had begun before the election. On March 20, 2017, in open-session testimony before HPSCI, Comey stated: I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our mission, is investigating the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia' s efforts .... As with any counterintelligence investigation, this will also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed.The investigation continued under... Comey for the next seven weeks until May 9, 2017, when... Trump fired Corney as FBI Director—an action which is analyzed in Volume II of the report."

"On May 17, 2017, Acting Attorney General appointed the Special Counsel and authorized him to conduct the investigation that Comey had confirmed... as well as matters arising directly from the investigation, and... efforts to interfere with or obstruct the investigation."

"Trump reacted negatively to the Special Counsel's appointment. He told advisors that it was the end of his presidency, sought to have Attorney General Jefferson (Jeff) Sessions unrecuse from the Russia investigation and to have the Special Counsel removed, and engaged in efforts to curtail the Special Counsel's investigation and prevent the disclosure of evidence to it, including... contacts with potential witnesses. Those and related actions are described and analyzed in Volume II..."

"In reaching the charging decisions described in Volume 1... the Office determined whether the conduct it found amounted to a violation of federal criminal law chargeable under the Principles of Federal Prosecution. ...The standard set forth in the Justice Manual is whether the conduct constitutes a crime; if so, whether admissible evidence would probably be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction; and whether prosecution would serve a substantial federal interest that could not be adequately served by prosecution elsewhere or through non-criminal alternatives."

"Section V of the report provides detailed explanations of the Office's charging decisions, which contain three main components."

"First, the Office determined that Russia's two principal interference operations in the 2016 U.S. presidential election—the social media campaign and the hacking-and-dumping operations—­violated U.S. criminal law. Many of the individuals and entities involved in the social media campaign have been charged with participating in a conspiracy to defraud the United States... Russian intelligence officers who carried out the hacking into Democratic Party computers and the personal email accounts... have been... charged."

"Second, while the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges. ...the evidence was not sufficient to charge any Campaign official as an unregistered agent of the Russian government or other Russian principal. ...[E]vidence about the June 9, 2016 meeting and WikiLeaks's releases of hacked materials was not sufficient to charge a criminal campaign-finance violation. ...[E]vidence was not sufficient to charge that any member of the Trump Campaign conspired with representatives of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election."

"Third, the investigation established that several individuals affiliated with the Trump Campaign lied to the Office, and to Congress, about their interactions with Russian-affiliated individuals and related matters. Those lies materially impaired the investigation... The Office charged some of those lies as violations of the federal false­ statements statute. ...Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying about his interactions with... Kislyak during the transition period. ... pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about, inter alia, the nature and timing of his interactions with , the professor who told Papadopoulos that the Russians had dirt on candidate Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. Former Trump Organization attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to making false statements to Congress about the Trump Moscow project. ...And ...the U.S. District Court found that Manafort lied to the Office and the grand jury concerning his interactions and communications with about Trump Campaign polling data and a peace plan for Ukraine."

"[I]nteractions between Russian Ambassador Kislyak and Trump Campaign officials both at the candidate's April 2016 foreign policy speech in Washington, D.C., and during the week of the Republican National Convention were brief, public, and non-substantive. ...[T]he investigation did not establish that one Campaign official's efforts to dilute a portion of the Republican Party platform on providing assistance to Ukraine were undertaken at the behest of candidate Trump or Russia. The investigation also did not establish that a meeting between Kislyak and Sessions in September 2016... included any more than a passing mention of the presidential campaign."

"The investigation did not always yield admissible information or testimony, or a complete picture of the activities undertaken... Some individuals invoked their Fifth Amendment right... and were not, in the Office' s judgment, appropriate candidates for grants of immunity. The Office limited its pursuit of other witnesses and information—such as information known to attorneys or individuals claiming to be members of the media—in light of internal Department of Justice policies... Some of the information obtained via court process... was presumptively covered by legal privilege and was screened from investigators by a filter (or "taint") team. Even when individuals testified or agreed to be interviewed, they sometimes provided information that was false or incomplete, leading to some of the false—statements charges described above. And the Office faced practical limits on its ability to access relevant evidence as well—numerous witnesses and subjects lived abroad, and documents were held outside the United States."

"[S]ome of the individuals we interviewed or whose conduct we investigated—including some associated with the Trump Campaign—deleted relevant communications... using applications that feature encryption or that do not provide for long-term retention of data or communications records. In such cases, the Office was not able to corroborate witness statements through comparison to contemporaneous communications or fully question witnesses about statements that appeared inconsistent with other known facts."

"Accordingly, while this report embodies factual and legal determinations that the Office believes to be accurate and complete to the greatest extent possible, given these identified gaps, the Office cannot rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed additional light on (or cast in a new light) the events described in the report."

"On May 17, 2017, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein... appointed the Special Counsel "to investigate Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election and related matters." ...[and was] "...authorized to conduct the investigation including: (i) any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and (ii) any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation; and (iii) any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a). ...Section 600.4 affords the Special Counsel "the authority to investigate and prosecute federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to interfere with, the Special Counsel's investigation, such as perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses." ...The authority to investigate "any matters that arose... directly from the investigation,"... covers similar crimes that may have occurred during the course of the FBI's confirmed investigation before the Special Counsel's appointment. "If the Special Counsel believes it is necessary and appropriate," the Order further provided, "the Special Counsel is authorized to prosecute federal crimes arising from the investigation of these matters.""

"The Acting Attorney General further clarified the scope... A memorandum dated August 2, 2017, explained that the Appointment Order... "...permit[s] its public release without confirming specific investigations involving specific individuals." ...the Special Counsel had been authorized... to investigate allegations that three Trump campaign officials—, Paul Manafort, and —"committed a crime or crimes by colluding with Russian government officials with respect to the Russian government's efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election." The memorandum also confirmed the Special Counsel's authority to investigate...other matters, including... allegations involving Manafort (crimes arising from payments he received from the Ukrainian government and crimes arising from his receipt of loans from a bank whose CEO was then seeking a position in the Trump Administration); allegations that Papadopoulos committed a crime or crimes by acting as an unregistered agent of the Israeli government; and four sets of allegations involving Michael Flynn..."

"On October 20, 2017, the Acting Attorney General confirmed... the Special Counsel's investigative authority as to... First, ...to investigate "the pertinent activities of Michael Cohen, Richard Gates, [redacted name], Roger Stone, and [redacted name]" ...Second, with respect to Michael Cohen... to investigate " leads relate[d] to Cohen' s establishment and use of Essential Consultants LLC to, inter alia, receive funds from Russian-backed entities." Third, ...authority to investigate individuals and entities who were possibly engaged in "jointly undertaken activity" with existing subjects of the investigation, including Paul Manafort. Finally, ...into "allegations that [then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions] made false statements to the... Senate[,]" ..."

"There was substantial evidence immediately available to the Special Counsel at the inception of the investigation in May 2017 because the FBI had, by that time, already investigated Russian election interference for nearly 10 months."

"Certain proceedings associated with the Office's work remain ongoing. [T]he Office has transferred responsibility for... remaining issues to other components of the Department of Justice and FBI. Appendix D lists those transfers."

"Two district courts confirmed the breadth of the Special Counsel's authority to investigate Russia election interference and links and/or coordination with the Trump Campaign. ...[T]he Office periodically identified evidence of potential criminal activity that was outside the scope of the Special Counsel's authority... [T]he Office referred that evidence to appropriate law enforcement authorities, principally other components of the Department of Justice and to the FBI. Appendix D summarizes those referrals."

"[T]he Office issued more than 2,800 subpoenas under the auspices of a grand jury sitting in the District of Columbia; executed nearly 500 search-and-seizure warrants; obtained more than 230 orders for communications records... obtained almost 50 orders authorizing use of s; made 13 requests to foreign governments pursuant to Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties; and interviewed approximately 500 witnesses, including almost 80 before a grand jury."

"The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion. ...In June [2016], the [DNC]... announced that Russian hackers had compromised its computer network. Releases of hacked materials—hacks that public reporting soon attributed to the Russian government—began that same month. Additional releases followed in July through the organization WikiLeaks, with further releases in October and November."