March 2015. It turns out Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State in Barack Obama's office, utilized a private email. The FBI is launching an investigation to find whether Clinton has violated the law and whether national safety has been compromised. Autumn 2015. The Republican primary run is underway. A group of political activists from the conservative magazine "Washington Free Beacon", afraid about Trump's increasing popularity, orders Fusion GPS to X-ray an unexpected candidate.
April 2016. erstwhile it becomes clear that Trump will become the Republican Party's denomination, “Washington Free Beacon” resigns from further gathering information on it. The investigation begins to finance the National Democratic organization Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton campaign. The subcontractor is Christopher Steele, a retired British MI6 intelligence officer with experience in Russian affairs. Steele is beginning to analyse the links between Trump and the Russians.
April 26, 2016. Trump presidential run advisor George Papadopoulos meets in London with Joseph Misfud, a Maltese academic prof. with contacts in Russia. Misfud reports that the Russians have materials that could harm Hillary Clinton.
June 9, 2016. At the fresh York Trump Tower, Trump's election staff members, including his boy Donald Trump Jr, son-in-law Jared Kushner and run chief Paul Manafort, meet Russian lawyer Natalia Weddingnicka. After the fact, the parties initially argued that the conversation afraid the adoption of Russian children. Trump Jr later admitted that there was talk about Trump's "dirty" political opponents, mostly Hillary Clinton. Weselnicka admitted that she was informant Russian lawyer General Yuri Chaika.
Start of July 2016. Christopher Steele, afraid about the information he collects, contacts the FBI. His study receives the nickname “Steele Dossier”. Steele fears that the possible future president of the United States may be influenced by the Russians.
July 2016. FBI manager James Comey announces that in the course of his investigation into the usage of private message for business purposes, no grounds have been found to charge Hillary Clinton.
July 22, 2016. WikiLeaks publishes over 20,000 emails stolen from servers of the National Democratic organization Commission by Russian hackers. It's a scandal.
July 31, 2016. WikiLeaks publications, materials collected by Steele and Trump's contacts with the Russians make the FBI launch an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections. The agency gives the investigation the codename "Crossfire Hurricane".
May 8, 2017. president Donald Trump relieves James Comey of his position as manager of the FBI.
May 2017. The Justice Department takes over the FBI's investigation of "Crossfire Hurricane" and launches its own, concerning the anticipation that Russia interfered in the presidential election, and possible links between Trump's run and Russian agents. He's led by peculiar Prosecutor Robert Mueller.
What the investigation found
In April 2019, a study was published ending Mueller's investigation. As a result, Trump's erstwhile lawyer Michael Cohen, erstwhile Trump national safety advisor Michael Flynn, Trump run advisor Rick Gates and George Papadopoulos, long-standing Trump associate Roger Stone and Paul Manafort, erstwhile Trump run chairman.
The most suspicious figure in this group is Manafort. As a successful lobbyist since Reagan's time, in the early 2000s Manafort moved to east Europe, where he yet became run advisor to Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. In the meantime, he signed a million-dollar contract requiring him to advance Russian interests in Europe and the US.
When Euromaidan removed Yanukovych from power, Manafort participated in the construction of the Opposition Block, a pro-Russian organization gathering opponents of the fresh president, Viktor Yushchenko. Upon his return to the States, he became Head of Trump's 2016 campaign. In Mueller's trial, he was convicted of fraud, money laundering and concealing his business as an agent of a abroad country, Manafort was yet pardoned by Trump.
Mueller besides accused 13 Russian citizens and 3 Russian entities of their function in the disinformation run in social media, as well as 12 GRU officers for hacking into the computer strategy and leaking emails from DNC and Clinton's campaign.
Mueller's investigation established that in 2016, the Russians were interfering in a broad and systematic way with the US presidential election.
Internet investigation Agency, besides known as Trolle of Olga, owned by Yevgeni Prigogen, convened pro-Trump electoral rallies in the US on social media and spread propaganda, impersonating American citizens. Trolls supported the candidacy of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, on all occasion giving emergence to criticism of Hillary Clinton. Agency.
The organization spent $100,000 on over 3,500 Facebook ads that included election announcements directed against Clinton and supporting Trump. A survey at Stanford University in January 2017 showed that "before the election, fabricated stories supporting Donald Trump were made available 30 million times – nearly 4 times more than the number of content to advance Clinton".
The hacks into the email accounts belonging to the volunteers and staff of Clinton and DNC election staff were made by GRU agents, and hundreds of thousands of stolen papers were published through WikiLeaks.
The investigation identified many links between the Russian government and Trump's campaign. The Russians recognized Trump as a favorable candidate and his staff saw the benefits of Russian action.
However, it was not proved beyond uncertainty that the actions of the Russians and the staff were jointly planned and coordinated. The fact that 1 of the parties acted in the interests of the another did not mean that there was collusion between them. Shortly after the publication of the report, Trump triumphantly announced that the study had completely acquitted him, although Mueller considered that specified a claim was not entitled.
The investigation left many questions unanswered, and Trump's contacts with the Russians were highly frequent and suspicious. However, the deficiency of irrefutable evidence of collusion was adequate for his hard-core electorate to consider the investigation as a "witch hunt" and a run of slander against his beloved leader.
This was the minute erstwhile Trump voters began questioning all mainstream narratives involving Russia – besides reports from Ukraine. The more mainstream media, considered by Trump's base to be "fake news", portrayed Russia as a villain attacking its smaller neighbour, the more distrustful his electorate approached this information, sniffing at them both trying to drag America into conflict on the basis of lies, as in Iraq, as well as unparalleled attacks on a country fundamentally friendly to Trump and the ideologically close right.
Putin impresses Trump
“Russians are a disproportionately large part of our assets” – stated Donald Trump Junior in 2008. "We don't trust on American banks. We have all the funds we request from Russia" – a fewer years later Praised son of future president Eric Trump. Since the '90s. Trump had a crush on construction of real estate in Moscow and took steps to do so. In 2013, he managed to bring the Miss Universe elections to Moscow, and the Russians invested nearly $100 million in his U.S. property.
In 2021, Trump Media He's in financial trouble.And after the assault on the Capitol, American banks refused to lend money to Trump's businesses. He did it. Russian bankWhich fundamentally saved the company and allowed it to go public.
Trump's Russian interests undoubtedly have a share of his relation with Russia, but equally crucial is who simply impresses him.
Putin’s sympathy and admiration are not known today. He has a general weakness for autocrats: “He tells how to be, and so he does. He is simply a actual leader” – Trump late dissolved over Governments of Orban. Unlike politicians in the United States, dictators do not gotta fake attachment to values specified as tolerance, freedom and democracy; tough hand defend conventional order before a degenerated levitation attack. That is why a large part of the Republican organization electorate now treats Putin as an ideological ally. According to them, the planet is divided into an utmost left, curious only in putting homosexual propaganda into children's heads, and people "normal" or right hand—both themselves and Putin together with Orban belong to the second category.
Things are different with Trump's relation to Volodymyr Zelenski. Trump remembers well that the Ukrainian president was on the another side telephone callWhich led to his impeachment in Congress. Let us remind you: in April 2019 in a telephone conversation with Zelenski Trump pressed for the transportation of dirt to Biden In exchange for American military aid. Zelenski refused. Following the disclosure of the interview, Trump was charged with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress' work.
“I tell you, Zelenski is 1 of the best traders in history” – Trump mocked At a fresh rally. "Every time he shows up, he leaves with $60 billion in his pocket".
Trump's dislike of Ukraine, his sympathy for Putin and his authority, and his distrust of anti-Kremlow mainstream narratives initiated by Russiagate caused pro-Russian sentiments in Trump's electorate, fueled by any Republican politicians. The explanation of their behaviour is repeated to boredom, but the actual statement: Trump does not have voters, but followers, as he himself knows very well as his organization colleagues. any of them are coming out of their minds to suck up to a leader whose support or disfavor may be about their political career.
An excellent example is 1 Marjorie Taylor Greenea Republican associate of the home of Representatives and a character taken alive from the movie Idiocracy. At 1 time, Greene fought for voters' voices with a video where she shoots boars from a helicopter, and spread nonsense about Satanist-pedophile rites of democrats. She is simply a zealous believer in Trump's cult and his main story of stolen elections.
While sniffing the anti-Ukrainian phrase at Trump, Greene decided not to leave any uncertainty about her attitude towards the war in Ukraine: “This is simply a war against Christianity” – she ruled in Steve Bannon's podcast. "Ukrainian government attacks Christians; Ukrainian government executes priests. Russia doesn't do that. Russia protects Christianity". Following the adoption of the relief bill for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, Greene won that Mike Johnson was finished as talker of the home of Representatives. For now, Johnson remains safe thanks to the Democratic voices.
Greene remained behind her anti-Ukrainian activity Praised on Russian television. She'll be seconded by another prominent Republicans. "Some would like to cut our social safety spending, drive our grandparents into poverty. Why? So 1 of Zelenski's ministers could buy a bigger yacht?” he asked. Senator JD Vance, citing a lying article on a propaganda Russian website.
This was not the first time the Republicans relied on Russian misinformation. Desperately seeking an excuse to trigger Biden's impeachment, they referred to information from a man named Alexander Smirnov, an FBI informant who claimed that Biden and his boy huntsman had accepted a million-dollar bribe from Burisma's owner, a Ukrainian gas holding company in exchange for political protection. In February 2024 Smirnow was arrested on charges of fabricating this information in order to harm Biden's presidential campaign. Smirnow is presently in prison awaiting trial.
Propaganda is besides sipping from the statements of conservative journalists. "We paid $100 for food for a week. These prices and how people live here, will set you radically against your leaders.” stated Americans Tucker Carlson in the mediate of Moscow supermarket. His absurd material, in which he carries Lissic interview with Putin, and then delights with the Moscow Metro and prices in the Russian supermarket (apart from a tiny item in the form of a difference in earnings and purchasing power of the dollar in the US and Russia) is simply a perfect illustration of the lied propaganda of the Russian mire forced into the heads of American voters. This propaganda works: 52 percent of Republican voters from the MAGA sign, unconditionally given to Trump, considersPutin is simply a better leader than Biden.
Shortly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, about three-quarters of Republicans supported Ukraine's military and economical assistance. W test from January this year it was already about half of them. They want to aid those who have not yet completely succumbed to the madness of Donald Trump's cult.
In a fresh Trump interview in his style, he declared that he would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. "I know Zelenski and Putin and I would make them get along," he said, without getting into details. Given the fact that he is considering Reemployment Paul Manafort, 1 can expect, as president, to force Ukraine to resign from parts of its territories.
