LATEST UPDATES TO THE TRUMP/RUSSIA TIMELINE

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It has been an eventful ten days for the Trump/Russia Timeline that I’ve been curating for Bill Moyers’ website. After Attorney General Jeff Session’s qualified and carefully worded recusal – covering only investigations relating to the 2016 presidential campaigns – Trump campaign surrogate and adviser Roger Stone returned to the spotlight. Stone’s recent revelations shed new light on 2016 events that have taken on added significance and are now included in the Timeline. Below are the new entries, but for the full contextual impact, see how they fit in the entire Motyers & Company Timeline.

  • 2015: An FBI special agent contacted the Democratic National Committee to report that at least one DNC computer system had been hacked by an espionage team linked to the Russian government. The agent was transferred to a tech-support contractor at the help desk. Neither of them followed up on the call. [Added Mar. 13, 2017]
  • May 2016: CrowdStrike determined that highly sophisticated Russian-intelligence affiliated adversaries – denominated COZY BEAR and FANCY BEAR – had been responsible for the DNC hack. FANCY BEAR, in particular, had indicators of affiliation with Russia’s Main Intelligence Department (also know as the GRU). [Added Mar. 13, 2017]
  • July 6, 2016: Another batch of hacked DNC documents appeared on the Guccifer 2.0 website. [Added Mar. 13, 2017]
  • July 14, 2016: Another batch of hacked DNC documents appeared on the Guccifer 2.0 website. [Added Mar. 13, 2017]
  • Aug. 12, 2016: A batch of hacked Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) documents appeared on the Guccifer 2.0 website. [Added Mar. 13, 2017]
  • Aug. 15, 2016: Continuing their private exchange, Guccifer 2.0 responded to Stone: “wow thank u for writing back and thank you for an article about me!!! do u find anything interesting in the docs I posted?” [Added Mar. 13, 2017]
  • Aug. 17, 2016: Guccifer 2.0 sent another private message to Stone: “I’m pleased to say that u r great man and I think I gonna read ur books” “please tell me if I can help u anyhow it would be a great pleasure to me.” [Added Mar. 13, 2017]
  • Sept. 9, 2016: Guccifer 2.0 sent Roger Stone a link to a blog post about voter turnout, along with this message: “hi what do u think of the info on the turnout model for the democrats entire presidential campaign? Basically how it works is there are people who will vote party line no matter what and there are folks who will actually make a decision. The basic premise of winning an election is turnout your base (marked turnout) and target the marginal folks with persuadable advertising (marked persuadable). They spend millions calculating who is persuadable or what we call a ‘soft democrat’ and who is a ‘hard democrat.’” [Added Mar. 13, 2017]
  • Jan. 6, 2017: The CIA, FBI and NSA released their unclassified report, concluding unanimously, “Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election.” The three intelligence agencies agreed that “the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible.” The report also stated that WikiLeaks had been Russia’s conduit for the effort. “Russian military intelligence (GRU) used the Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com to release US victim data obtained in cyberoperations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets and relayed material to WikiLeaks.” [Added Mar. 13, 2017]
  • Feb. 25, 2017: Nigel Farage, ex-leader of the U.K. Independence Party, key Brexit campaigner, and one of Donald Trump’s most visible foreign country supporters during and after the presidential campaign, dined with Trump, daughter Ivanka, son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Florida Governor Rick Scott at the Trump International Hotel in Washington. [Added Mar. 13, 2017]
  • March 2, 2017: Trump said he has “total confidence” in Jeff Sessions and he shouldn’t recuse himself from the Russia investigation. An hour later, Sessions recused himself “from any existing for future investigations of any matters related in any way to the campaigns for President of the United States.” [Revised Mar. 13, 2017]
  • March 7, 2017: WikiLeaks released a trove of alleged CIA documents relating to the agency’s hacking tools for smartphones, computers, and Internet-connected devices. [Added Mar. 13, 2017]
  • March 9, 2017: In an online press conference, Assange threatened to release more documents relating to CIA’s hacking capabilities and methods. [Added Mar. 13, 2017]
  • Also on March 9, 2017: When reporters asked Sean Spicer about Nigel Farage’s meeting with Julian Assange and whether Farange was delivering a message from Trump, Sean Spicer said, “I have no idea.” [Added Mar. 13, 2017]
  • March 10, 2017: Trump campaign surrogate Roger Stone admitted that in August 2016 he had engaged in private direct messaging with Guccifer 2.0, whom U.S. intelligence agencies had later identified as the persona for the Russian hacking operation. Describing the messages as “completely innocuous,” Stone said, “It was so perfunctory, brief and banal I had forgotten it.” [Added Mar. 13, 2017]

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