A busy week. These are my latest additions to the Bill Moyers & Company overall Timeline relating to Trump and Russia. You can read the entire Timeline here. The Pence Timeline, Comey Firing Timeline, and Kushner Timeline have also been updated to include relevant entries.

• 1998: After a string of bankruptcies in Trump’s casino and hotel businesses in the 1990s, Deutsche Bank becomes one of the few major financial institutions willing to lend him money. [Added July 24, 2017] 

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• During 2012 and 2013: According to later reporting by The New York Times, financial records filed in December 2015 in the secret tax haven of Cyprus show that Trump’s future campaign manager, Paul Manafort, incurs debts totaling as much as $17 million to pro-Russia interests, including a Russian oligarch who later sues Manafort for $19 million over a failed investment in a Ukrainian television business. [Added July 24, 2017]

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• Nov. 8-11, 2013: At the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, Russian oligarch Aras Agalarov—a real estate developer sometimes referred to as the “Trump of Russia”—and his son, Emin, arrange an extravagant party entrance for their guest, Donald Trump: an armored Mercedes stretch limo driving off a freight elevator right into a ballroom with 3,000 bedazzled Russian guests. The Agalarovs had facilitated Trump’s $20 million deal to host the Miss Universe contest in Moscow.

While in Moscow for the pageant, Trump discusses plans for a new Trump project in Russia with the Agalarovs and Alex Sapir (whose family’s company was one of the co-developers of Trump SoHo with Trump and Bayrock/Felix Sater). Publicly, Trump says only, “I have plans for the establishment of business in Russia. Now, I am in talks with several Russian companies to establish this skyscraper.”

“The Russian market is attracted to me,” Trump tells Real Estate Weekly. “I have a great relationship with many Russians, and almost all of the oligarchs were in the room.”

Also while in Russia, Trump says: “I do have a relationship [with Putin] and I can tell you that he’s very interested in what we’re doing here today… I do have a relationship with him… He’s done a very brilliant job in terms of what he represents and who he’s represented.” [Revised July 24, 2017]

• April 27, 2016: At the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC, Trump delivers his first major foreign policy address. Prior to Trump’s speech, then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak attend a small VIP reception at which the two men are photographed together. According to a July 21, 2017 report in The Washington Post, Kislyak tells his superiors in Moscow that he and Sessions discuss campaign-related matters, including policy issues important to Moscow. [Added July 24, 2017]

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• Also on April 27, 2016: At the Mayflower Hotel event, Jared Kushener attends a reception where he meets Russian Ambassador Kislyak. More than a year later, Kushner first discloses the meeting in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on July 24, 2017. He says, “We shook hands, exchanged brief pleasantries and I thanked them for attending the event and said I hoped they would like candidate Trump’s speech and his ideas for a fresh approach to America’s foreign policy.” [Added July 24, 2017]

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• Also on July 18, 2016: At a Heritage Foundation event during the Republican Convention, Jeff Sessions speaks individually with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. According to a July 21, 2017 report in The Washington Post, Kislyak tells his superiors in Moscow that the two men discuss campaign-related matters, including policy issues important to Moscow. [Revised July 24, 2017]

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• Jan. 30, 2017: Deutsche Bank agrees to pay a $425 million fine to settle New York state charges that from 2011 to 2015, it helped Russian investors launder as much as $10 billion through its branches in Moscow, London and New York. Allegedly, a group of executives arranged stock trades that had no economic purpose, other than disguising what the client was doing. [Added July 24, 2017]

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• March 2, 2017: Trump says he has “total confidence” in Jeff Sessions and he shouldn’t recuse himself from the Russia investigation. An hour later, Sessions recuses himself “from any existing or future investigations of any matters related in any way to the campaigns for President of the United States.” In a statement issued the previous evening, Sessions had said he “never met with any Russian officials to discuss issues of the campaign.” [Revised July 24, 2017]

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• Also on July 7, 2017: Over dinner with other world leaders at the G-20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, Trump has a second private discussion with Putin. Only Trump, Putin, and Putin’s official translator attend, which means that only Russia will have a transcript. The meeting remains undisclosed for more than 10 days—until July 18, 2017, when Ian Bremmer, president of a political risk consulting firm, reveals that he learned about the meeting from other world leaders who were present and found the hour-long conversation disconcerting. Later that day, the White House acknowledges the Trump/Putin discussion. [Added July 24, 2017]

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• Also on July 11, 2017: The Russian Business Council hosts what it calls a “farewell reception” for Ambassador Kislyak, who is leaving his post in Washington and returning to Moscow. [Revised July 24, 2017]

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• July 17, 2017: Trump tweets about his top campaign advisers’ June 9, 2016 meeting with the Russians:

• Also on July 17, 2017: In his daily press briefing, Sean Spicer repeats the debunked claim that at their June 9, 2017 meeting, Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and the Russians discussed only the adoption of Russian children and the Magnitsky Act. (The 2012 US law imposed sanctions on specifically identified Russians for human rights abuses and prompted Putin to ban such adoptions by Americans.) “There was nothing, as far as we know, that would lead anyone to believe that there was anything except for a discussion about adoption and the Magnitsky Act,” Spicer says. [Added July 24, 2017]

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• July 18, 2017: CNN and The Washington Post reveal the identity of the eighth person at a secret June 9, 2016 meeting among Trump’s top campaign advisers and several Russians. In addition to the previously reported attendees—Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, Emin Agalarov’s publicist Rob Goldstone, Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya, former Soviet counterintelligence officer Rinat Akhmetshin, and translator Anatoli Samochornov—Aras Agalarov sent one of his associates, Ike Kaveladze, to the meeting. According to Agalarov’s lawyer, Kaveladze is a vice president focusing on real estate and finance for Agalarov’s company, the Crocus Group.

Kaveladze has an interesting history. Born in the Soviet Republic of Georgia, he came to the United States in 1991. In 2000, a Congressional inquiry led to a Government Accounting Office report that Kaveladze had set up more than 2,000 corporations in Delaware for Russian brokers and then opened the bank accounts for them, without knowing who owned the corporations. According to contemporaneous reporting in The New York Times, “The GAO report said nothing about the sources of the money. In view of past investigations into laundering, this wave was highly likely to have arisen from Russian executives who were seeking to avoid taxes, although some money could be from organized crime…In an interview, Mr. Kaveladze said he had engaged in no wrongdoing. He described the G.A.O. investigation as a ‘witch hunt.’’” [Added July 24, 2017]

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• Also on July 18, 2017: After revelation of the second, previously undisclosed private discussion between Trump and Putin at the G-20 summit on July 7, Trump tweets:

and

• July 19, 2017: The Trump administration reveals it has ended the covert American program to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels battling the government of President Bashar al-Assad—a move that Russia had long sought. [Added July 24, 2017]

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• Also on July 19, 2017: In an expansive interview with reporters for The New York Times, Trump discusses his most recently disclosed second conversation with Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit. “So the meal was going,” Trump says, “and toward dessert I went down just to say hello to Melania, and while I was there I said hello to Putin. Really, pleasantries more than anything else. It was not a long conversation, but it was, you know, could be 15 minutes. Just talked about — things. Actually, it was very interesting, we talked about adoption.” [Added July 24, 2017]

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• Also on July 19, 2017: In the Times interview, Trump talks about the June 9, 2016 meeting among his top campaign advisers and several Russians: “As I’ve said — most other people, you know, when they call up and say, ‘By the way, we have information on your opponent,’” I think most politicians — I was just with a lot of people, they said [inaudible], ‘Who wouldn’t have taken a meeting like that?’” [Added July 24, 2017]

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• Also on July 19, 2017: In the Times interview, Trump also talks about the email exchange in which Don Jr. set up the June 9 meeting: “Well, I never saw the email. I never saw the email until, you know——“ When asked if he knew about the meeting at the time, Trump says, “No, I didn’t know anything about the meeting… No, nobody told me. I didn’t know noth—— It’s a very unimportant — sounded like a very unimportant meeting.” [Added July 24, 2017]

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• Also on July 19, 2017: In the Times interview, Trump lashes out at Attorney General Jeff Sessions: “Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job, and I would have picked somebody else.” Later, he continues, “What Jeff Sessions did was he recused himself right after, right after he became attorney general. And I said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ I would have — then I said, ‘Who’s your deputy?’ So his deputy he hardly knew, and that’s Rosenstein, Rod Rosenstein, who is from Baltimore. There are very few Republicans in Baltimore, if any.” [Added July 24, 2017]

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• Also on July 19, 2017: In the Times interview, Trump talks about his meetings with then-FBI Director Comey.

Of the January 6, 2017 meeting, when Comey told Trump about the infamous Steele dossier: “[H]e shared it so that I would think he had it out there” as leverage against Trump.

Of the Feb. 14, 2017 meeting, when Trump hoped Comey could see his way to “letting Flynn go,” Trump said, “He said I said ‘hope’ — ‘I hope you can treat Flynn good’ or something like that. I didn’t say anything. But even if he did — like I said at the news conference on the, you know, Rose Garden — even if I did, that’s not — other people go a step further. I could have ended that whole thing just by saying — they say it can’t be obstruction because you can say: ‘It’s ended. It’s over. Period.’”

“Did you shoo people out of the room when you talked to Comey?” the reporters ask.

“No, no,” Trump answers. “No. That was the other thing. I told people to get out of the room. Why would I do that?”

“Did you actually have a one-on-one with Comey then?” asks the Times reporter.

“Not much,” Trump says. “Not even that I remember. He was sitting, and I don’t remember even talking to him about any of this stuff. He said I asked people to go. Look, you look at his testimony. His testimony is loaded up with lies, O.K.?”

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• Also on July 19, 2017: In the Times interview, Trump talks about the Rosenstein memo used to cover-up the reasons he fired Comey: “Then Rosenstein becomes extremely angry because of Comey’s Wednesday press conference, where he said that he would do the same thing he did a year ago with Hillary Clinton, and Rosenstein became extremely angry at that because, as a prosecutor, he knows that Comey did the wrong thing. Totally wrong thing. And he gives me a letter, O.K., he gives me a letter about Comey. And by the way, that was a tough letter, O.K. Now, perhaps I would have fired Comey anyway, and it certainly didn’t hurt to have the letter, O.K. But he gives me a very strong letter, and now he’s involved in the case. Well, that’s a conflict of interest.” [Added July 24, 2017]

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• Also on July 19, 2017: In the Times interview, Trump discusses special counsel Mueller, whom Trump had interviewed for the FBI director job. “The day before! Of course, he was up here, and he wanted the job,” Trump says, “So, now what happens is, he leaves the office. [Deputy Attorney General Rod] Rosenstein leaves the office. The next day, he is appointed special counsel. I said, what the hell is this all about? Talk about conflicts? But he was interviewing for the job. There were many other conflicts that I haven’t said, but I will at some point.”

Asked if Mueller’s investigation into his and his family’s finances unrelated to Russia would be a breach of Mueller’s charge, Trump answers, “I would say yeah. I would say yes. By the way, I would say, I don’t — I don’t — I mean, it’s possible there’s a condo or something, so, you know, I sell a lot of condo units, and somebody from Russia buys a condo, who knows? I don’t make money from Russia. In fact, I put out a letter saying that I don’t make — from one of the most highly respected law firms, accounting firms. I don’t have buildings in Russia. They said I own buildings in Russia. I don’t. They said I made money from Russia. I don’t. It’s not my thing. I don’t, I don’t do that. Over the years, I’ve looked at maybe doing a deal in Russia, but I never did one. Other than I held the Miss Universe pageant there eight, nine years…” Asked what would happen if Mueller went “outside certain parameters” of his charge, Trump says, “I can’t answer that question because I don’t think it’s going to happen.” [Added July 24, 2017]

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• July 20, 2017: The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg report that Mueller is looking at possible money laundering by Paul Manafort. Bloomberg adds that the special counsel is also investigating a “broad range of range of transactions involving Trump’s businesses as well as those of his associates.” They include “Russian purchases of apartments in Trump buildings, Trump’s involvement in a controversial SoHo development in New York with Russian associates, the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow and Trump’s sale of a Florida mansion to a Russian oligarch in 2008.” One of Trump’s lawyers responds that such transactions are, in his view, “well beyond the mandate of the Special counsel.” [Added July 24, 2017]

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• Also on July 20, 2017: The Senate Judiciary Committee reveals that it has pre-approved subpoenas for Donald Trump Jr. and Paul Manafort. According to chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA), if Don Jr. and Manafort do not accept the committee’s invitation to appear the following week, the subpoenas will issue “almost immediately.” Meanwhile, Jared Kushner is also scheduled to appear for a staff interview with the Senate Intelligence Committee the following week. [Added July 24, 2017]

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• Also on July 20, 2017: The New York Times and The Washington Post report that Trump’s lawyers are investigating possible ways to limit or block Mueller’s investigation, including possible conflicts of interest involving members of Mueller’s legal team, as well as the president’s power to pardon associates, family members, and himself. One of Trump’s attorneys responds that the story is “nonsense.” [Added July 24, 2017]

 ***

• July 21, 2017: Reuters reports that from 2005 to 2013, Natalia Veselnitskaya—the Russian lawyer in attendance at the June 9, 2016 meeting that included Kushner, Manafort, and Donald Trump Jr.—represented successfully the Russian FSB’s interests in a legal dispute over ownership of an upscale property in northwest Moscow. The FSB is the successor to the Soviet-era KGB that Vladimir Putin headed before he became Russian president. [Added July 24, 2017]

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• Also on July 21, 2017: The Washington Post breaks the story that US intelligence intercepts of Russian Ambassador Kislyak’s reports to Moscow of his conversations with then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) in April and July 2016 are at odds with Sessions’ repeated denials about the content of those discussions. The intercepts purportedly reveal that Sessions and Kislyak “had ‘substantive’ discussions on matters including Trump’s positions on Russia-related issues and prospects for U.S.-Russia relations in a Trump administration.” A Justice Department spokesperson responds that Sessions “never met with or had any conversations with any Russians or any foreign officials concerning any type of interference with any campaign or election.” She does not deny that Mr. Sessions discussed campaign or policy issues more generally with Mr. Kislyak. [Added July 24, 2017]

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• July 22, 2017: Trump tweets:

and

and

• July 23, 2017: Making the Sunday morning talk show rounds, one of Trump’s lawyers, Jay Sekulow, and Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci deny that Trump is considering a pardon for anyone. Scaramucci also says that he spoke with Trump about whether Russia had hacked the election and Trump had told him, “Maybe they did it. Maybe they didn’t do it.” [Added July 24, 2017]

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• Also on July 23, 2017: Trump tweets:

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• July 24, 2017: Trump tweets:

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• July 24, 2017: Testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee in closed session, Kushner describes his three previously disclosed contacts with Russian officials prior to the inauguration, as well as a fourth previously undisclosed meeting with Russian Ambassador Kislyak on April 27, 2016 at the Mayflower Hotel. Kushner says that he doesn’t recall either of the two calls with Kislyak between April and November 2016 that Reuters had previously reported, and he is “highly skeptical those calls took place.” He says he attended the June 9, 2016 meeting with Don Jr., Manafort, and several Russians only “10 minutes or so,” and when he got there, “they were talking about the issue of a ban on US adoptions of Russian children.” Kushner acknowledges his post-election meeting with Mike Flynn and Ambassador Kislyak at Trump Tower at which Kushner says he asked if Kislyak had “an existing communications channel at his embassy we could use where they could be comfortable transmitting the information they wanted to relay to General Flynn.” But Kushner denies that he was suggesting a “secret back-channel.” Finally, Kushner acknowledges a Dec. 13, 2016 meeting with Russian banker Sergey Gorkov who, Kushner believed at the time, had “a direct line to the Russian President who could give insight into how Putin was viewing the new administration and best ways to work together.” Kushner says that his ongoing revisions to his security clearance form SF-86 were the result of a “prematurely submitted” original application.

Kushner’s prepared remarks conclude: “I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government. I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector. I have tried to be fully transparent with regard to the filing my SF-86 form, above and beyond what is required. Hopefully, this puts these matters to rest.” [Added July 24, 2017]

The Trump/Russia Timeline is #1.

From Politico:

These are my latest additions to the Bill Moyers & Company overall Timeline relating to Trump and Russia. You can read the entire Timeline here. The Pence Timeline, Comey Firing Timeline, and Kushner Timeline have also been updated to include relevant entries. 

• 1984: David Bogatin, a 38-year-old former Soviet Army pilot and Russian émigré who arrived in America seven years earlier with just $3 in his pocket, pays $6 million for five condominium units in a luxurious new Manhattan high-rise, Trump Tower. At the time, Russian mobsters were beginning to invest in high-end US real estate as a way to launder money from their criminal enterprises. Three years later, Bogatin—eventually revealed to be a leading figure in the Russian mob in New York—pleads guilty to a tax evasion scheme. According to prosecutors, the scheme involved a network of Russian and Eastern European immigrants acting with Michael Franzese, an admitted captain of the Colombo organized-crime family. (In 1986, Franzese pleads guilty and receives a 10-year sentence for the scheme.) In 2003, Bogatin’s brother, Jacob, is indicted for allegedly running a $150 million stock scam and money laundering scheme with Semion Mogilevich, whom the FBI considers the “boss of bosses” of Russian organized crime. [Added July 17, 2017]

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• 1991: In the opening episode of The Apprentice on Jan. 8, 2004, Trump says, “About 13 years ago, I was seriously in trouble. I was billions of dollars in debt.” [Added July 17, 2017]

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• 2002: Russian-born Felix Sater and his company, Bayrock Group—a Trump Tower tenant—begin working with Trump on a series of real estate development deals, one of which becomes Trump SoHo. Another development partner in Trump SoHo is the Sapir Organization, founded by Tamir Sapir.

Sater has an interesting history. Allegedly, Sater’s father, Mikhael Sheferovsky (aka Michael Sater) was a lieutenant for Russia’s most powerful mobster, Semion Mogilevich. After a 1991 barroom fight in which Felix Sater stabbed a man in the face with the broken stem of a large margarita glass, he received a prison sentence. In 1993, Sater then became part of a stock scheme that allegedly relied on four New York Mafia crime families for protection. He pled guilty and, in return for a reduced sentence, entered into a 1998 cooperation agreement with federal prosecutors pursuing members of organized crime. Reportedly, he also helped the CIA track down and purchase stinger missiles on the black market in Central Asia, thereby keeping them out of terrorists’ hands. In April 2002, Felix Sater is still cooperating with the Justice Department when the US attorney for the eastern district of New York requests a postponement of Sater’s sentencing to September. [Revised July 17, 2017] 

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• Also on March 10, 2017: In the British Virgin Islands, the luxury yacht owned by the Russian oligarch who had purchased Trump’s Palm Beach mansion for $95 million in 2008 is anchored within a few hundred feet of Robert Mercer’s luxury yacht. Mercer has a multimillion investment in Breitbart News and is one of Trump’s biggest financial supporters. The two yachts remain near each other through the weekend. [Added July 17, 2017]

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• Also on June 16, 2017: Trump adds veteran Washington lawyer John Dowd to his legal team. [Added July 17, 2017]

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• During the week of June 19, 2017: According to a July 13, 2017 report by  Michael Isikoff of Yahoo! News, Trump lawyers Marc Kasowitz and Alan Garten learn that Donald Trump Jr. had sent and received emails confirming a June 9, 2016 meeting among Don Jr., Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, and a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. [Added July 17, 2017]

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• Also on June 21, 2017: Jared Kushner submits another revision to his security clearance application, adding Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya—who met with Kushner, Don Jr., and Paul Manafort on June 9, 2016. Two days later, FBI agents question Kushner for the second time about his application. According to later reporting by The New York Times, Kushner has now supplemented his list of foreign contacts three times, adding more than 100 names. [Added July 17, 2017]

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• July 9, 2017: On Fox News, chief of staff Reince Priebus dismisses Don Jr.’s June 9, 2016 meeting with Manafort, Kushner, and a Russian lawyer as “a big nothing burger.” [Added July 17, 2017]

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• Also on July 11, 2017: Yahoo! News’ Michael Isikoff reports that earlier plans with the Agalarovs to build a Trump Tower in Moscow continued into 2014 and collapsed because the US imposed sanctions on Russia. [Added July 17, 2017]

• July 12, 2017: Trump tells Reuters that he had learned only recently about the June 9, 2016 meeting among Don Jr., Kushner, Manafort, and a Russian lawyer. “No,” he said, “that I didn’t know until a couple of days ago when I heard about this.” Trump repeats that assertion while speaking with reporters that night on Air Force One en route to Paris. “I only heard about it two or three days ago,” he says. But then he adds, “In fact maybe it was mentioned at some point,” but when asked if he had been told that the meeting was about Hillary Clinton and “dirt” against her he says no. [Added July 17, 2017]

• Also on July 12, 2017: In a Fox News interview, Vice President Mike Pence’s spokesperson refuses to answer directly whether Pence ever met with any Russians during the presidential campaign. [Added July 17, 2017]

• Also on July 12, 2017: AP reports that on May 12, 2017—two days before a scheduled start of a major Russian money laundering criminal trial in New York federal court—the Justice Department approved a settlement of the case for less than $6 million. Allegedly, the action involved a more than $230 million fraud scheme. Natalia Veselnitskaya—the Russian lawyer who had met with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort on June 9, 2016—had represented the defendant (the owner of a Russian real estate investment firm). Announcing the filing of the complaint in 2013, then-US Attorney Preet Bharara had said, “As alleged, a Russian criminal enterprise sought to launder some of its billions in ill-gotten rubles through the purchase of pricey Manhattan real estate.” Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee request that the Justice Department provide information about the circumstances surrounding the settlement by July 26, 2017. [Added July 17, 2017]

• July 13, 2017: The Chicago Tribune reports that on May 14, 2017, Peter W. Smith was found dead in a Rochester, Minnesota hotel room. The GOP operative from Lake Forest, Illinois had died about ten days after an interview with The Wall Street Journal, in which he claimed during the campaign to have connections to Trump adviser Mike Flynn. Smith had told the Journal that, over the Labor Day weekend 2016, he tried to recruit a team of experts to find any emails that were stolen from the private email server that Hillary Clinton used while she was secretary of state. Smith’s Minnesota state death record says that he committed suicide by asphyxiation. The police had recovered a note that included these lines; “NO FOUL PLAY WHATSOEVER” – “RECENT BAD TURN IN HEALTH SINCE JANUARY, 2017” and timing related “TO LIFE INSURANCE OF $5 MILLION EXPIRING.” The Wall Street Journal reporter who had interviewed Smith in May tweets:

[Added July 17, 2017]

• Also on July 13, 2017: Yahoo! News’ Michael Isikoff reports that President Trump’s legal team had been informed more than three weeks earlier about the email chain arranging a June 2016 meeting between his son Donald Jr. and a Kremlin-connected lawyer. [Added July 17, 2017]

• July 14, 2017: NBC News reports, “The Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. and others on the Trump team after a promise of compromising material on Hillary Clinton was accompanied by a Russian-American lobbyist—a former Soviet counterintelligence officer who is suspected by some U.S. officials of having ongoing ties to Russian intelligence.” The lobbyist, Rinat Akhmetshin, confirms to the Associated Press that he attended the meeting. He tells AP that he served in the Soviet military in a unit that was part of counterintelligence, but was never formally trained as a spy. Akhmetshin also says that the Russian lawyer at the meeting, Natalia Veselnitskaya, presented the Trump associates with details of what she believed were illicit funds that had been funneled to the Democratic National Committee. And she suggested that making the information public could help the Trump campaign. “This could be a good issue to expose how the DNC is accepting bad money,” Akhmetshin recalls her saying. He says the attorney brought with her a plastic folder with printed-out documents, but was unaware of the content of the documents or whether they were provided by the Russian government, and it was unclear whether she left the materials with the Trump associates. [Added July 17, 2017]

• Also on July 14, 2017: CNN reports that the June 9, 2016 meeting included more than just the six previously reported participants: Kushner, Manafort, Don Jr., Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, former Soviet counterintelligence officer Rinat Akhmetshin, and a translator. According to CNN, at least two others—including a representative of the Agalarov family—also attended. [Added July 17, 2017]

• Also on July 14, 2017: Jared Kushner’s attorney, Jamie Gorelick, announces that she is no longer representing Kushner on Russia-related inquiries. [Added July 17, 2017]

[This post first appeared on Bill Moyers & Company on July 12, 2017]

Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway (JD, George Washington, ’92) has a new assignment. She has to explain away a smoking gun that Donald Trump Jr. has aimed at the 2016 election. For months, she and everyone else in the White House vehemently denied that the Trump campaign had any contacts with Russians about the election. With a tweet on July 11, 2017, Don Jr. destroyed that talking point forever.

Call the Question

On December 18, 2016, CBS News’ John Dickerson had asked Conway directly: “Did anyone involved in the Trump campaign have any contact with Russians trying to meddle with the election?”

“Absolutely not,” she replied. “And I discussed that with the president-elect just last night. Those conversations never happened. I hear people saying it like it’s a fact on television. That is just not only inaccurate and false, but it’s dangerous. And—and it does undermine our democracy.”

Conway was resolute, indignant, and wrong. Those conversations did happen. People are saying it’s a fact because it is. From June 3-8, 2016, Don Jr. received and wrote emails that prove it. But when Conway talks about undermining democracy, she knows whereof she speaks.

Dodging Bullets

Don Jr.’s Russia troubles began on Saturday, July 8, 2017, when The New York Times told him it was going run a story about a June 9, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower involving him, Jared Kushner, then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and a Russian lawyer with Kremlin ties. He responded with the first of his conflicting statements about that meeting. The participants discussed a program about the “adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago,” Don Jr. asserted. (Putin had suspended the program in retaliation for a 2012 American law punishing Russians thought to be responsible for the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian tax attorney who had uncovered a $230 million fraud scheme involving Putin allies.) “It was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow up,” he wrote of the June 9 session.

That was iteration number one. On Sunday, July 9, the Times informed Don Jr. that five White House advisers contradicted his statement. In truth, the Russian lawyer with whom three of Trump’s top officials met on June 9 had promised damaging information on Hillary Clinton. The Times story prompted Don Jr. to issue a new statement: “After pleasantries were exchanged, the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Mrs. Clinton. Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information.”

Then came Tuesday, July 11. The Times told Don Jr. that it now had the content of his June 3-8 email exchanges with Rob Goldstone, a music publicist who first contacted Don Jr. to request the meeting on behalf of his client—the son of a wealthy real estate developer and Putin ally sometimes referred to as the “Trump of Russia.” The emails said that Don Jr., Kushner, and Manafort met with a “Russian government attorney” based on the promise of “some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful” to Trump. The Trump group thought it would receive “very high level and sensitive information [that] is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”

To get ahead of the imminent Times story, Don Jr. released his email exchange with Goldstone, along with his third statement on the June 9 meeting. With a newfound desire to be “totally transparent,” he said that he thought the Russian lawyer was going to give him “Political Opposition Research” on Clinton, as if accepting any election assistance from a foreign government is somehow legal, much less acceptable.

“Don’t Facts Matter?”

Cue Kellyanne Conway. Even before her infamous post-inauguration one-liner about “alternative facts,” Conway was a leading promoter of Trump’s disinformation program. Representing a super PAC supporting Ted Cruz (R-TX), Conway on February 9, 2016 criticized Trump for insulting people, saying: “[D]o I want somebody who hurls personal insults or who goes and talks about philosophical differences?” But only six weeks after joining Trump’s campaign, she proclaimed, “He doesn’t hurl insults.”

On Aug. 24, 2016, just three days after Conway and former Fox News chief Roger Ailes attended Trump’s debate prep session, she told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that Ailes was “not a formal or informal adviser to the Trump campaign… He has no formal or informal role.”

On Sept. 16, 2016, when Trump retreated from his five-year lie about President Obama’s birthplace and floated a new falsehood—that Hillary Clinton had started the “birther” controversy—Conway backed him up on Sunday morning talk shows. “This started with Hillary Clinton’s campaign,” she said. “No question.” Of course, PolitiFact—along with FactCheck.org and The Washington Post Fact-Checker—reported that it had “debunked this zombie claim multiple times.”

On Nov. 6, 2016, CNN’s Anderson Cooper finally asked Conway: “Don’t facts matter?”

The answer was no.

On January 5, 2017, leaders of the U.S. intelligence community testified unanimously before the Senate Armed Services Committee that Russia had used hacking and leaks to influence the presidential election. John McCain called the cyberattack an “act of war.” But the next morning, Conway appeared on CNN, asserting that “conclusive evidence” of Russian election interference still didn’t exist. “The Russians didn’t want him elected,” she declared.

On February 2, 2017, Conway said Trump’s travel ban would prevent more events like the “Bowling Green Massacre”—which never happened.

On May 9, 2017—shortly after Trump had fired FBI Director James Comey—she led the charge in pushing the absurd White House cover-up that Comey’s pre-election statements about the Clinton email investigation led to his firing. Then Trump himself contradicted Conway’s story.

After that, she remained quiet for a few weeks. That is, until she returned to twist words for the newest and, perhaps, greatest scandal in American political history.

Conway’s Conundrum

Now that Don Jr. has revealed the falsity of Conway’s December 18, 2016 assurances that no one involved in the Trump campaign had any contact with Russians trying to meddle with the election, how will she respond? The new revelations about the June 9 meeting should be a breaking point. It doesn’t require Conway’s legal degree to realize that accepting help from an enemy state to win an American election undermines democracy.

But so far, the Russian assault on our republic hasn’t seemed to faze her. On Monday morning, July 10, she hit the airwaves to defend her boss’s son. After ABC’s George Stephanopoulos replayed Conway’s December 16 denial of any contacts between Trump campaign members and Russian election meddlers, he asked, “Who misled you, and why did Don Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort allow those public denials to stand for so many months?”

Conway ducked the first question and responded to the second with a non-answer: Some disclosure forms had been amended to include certain meetings. And everyone should believe her when she says, “No information was received that was meaningful or helpful and no action was taken.” Similarly, in a longer session with CNN’s Chris Cuomo, she displayed mastery of her subtle approach to attacking democracy’s central core, which is an informed electorate.

Long ago, Conway left the world in which facts, truth, and clarity matter. The future of the republic now depends on the answer to this question: How much of the country has she taken with her?

These are my latest additions to the Bill Moyers & Company overall Timeline relating to Trump and Russia. You can read the entire Timeline here. The Pence Timeline, Comey Firing Timeline, and Kushner Timeline have also been updated to include relevant entries.

• Fall 2015: As Felix Sater works on a plan for a Trump Tower in Moscow, Trump’s bid for the presidency brings the project to a halt, according to a Feb. 19, 2017 article in The New York Times citing Sater. [Added July 11, 2017]

***

• June 3, 2016: Rob Goldstone, a music publicist, sends Donald Trump Jr. an email stating that one of his clients, Russian pop star Emin Agalarov, had “something very interesting” he wanted to pass along to Donald Jr.: “The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father. This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump—helped along by Aras and Emin.” (Aras Agalarov—a Putin ally and wealthy real estate developer sometimes referred to as the “Trump of Russia”—had helped sponsor the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. In a later interview with Forbes in March 2017, Emin Agalarov says that he and his father had previously signed a letter of intent with their Trump counterparts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. “He ran for president, so we dropped the idea,” Agalarov said of Trump and the project. “But if he hadn’t run we would probably be in the construction phase today.”) [Added July 11, 2017]

• Also on June 3, 3016: Responding to Goldstone’s email, Donald Jr. says, “[I]f it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.” Donald Jr. suggests they talk early during the week of June 6, when he’s back from the road. [Added July 11, 2017]

• June 7, 2016: Rob Goldstone sends Donald Jr. a follow-up email: “Emin asked that I schedule a meeting with you and the Russian government attorney who is flying over from Moscow this Thursday. I believe you are aware of the meeting – and so wondered if 3pm or later on Thursday works for you? I assume it would be at your office.” Confirming the date and time, Donald Jr. says that then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner will also attend. The following day, they move the meeting to 4pm because the “Russian attorney is in court until 3….” [Added July 11, 2017]

• Also on June 7, 2016: After winning the New Jersey primary as the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee for president, Trump includes this line in his victory speech: “I am going to give a major speech on probably Monday of next week [June 13] and we’re going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons.” [Added July 11, 2017]

• June 9, 2016: Natalia Veselnitskaya, the “Russian government attorney” referenced in Goldstone’s earlier emails to Donald Jr., meets at Trump Tower with Donald Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner. The lawyer was formerly married to a former deputy transportation minister of the Moscow region. Her clients include state-owned businesses and a senior government official’s son, whose company is under investigation in the United States at the time. [Added July 11, 2017]

• Also on June 9, 2016: Trump tweets:

[Added July 11, 2017]

***

• July 6, 2017: En route to the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany where he will meet privately with Vladimir Putin, Trump stops in Poland to deliver a speech. At a news conference NBC News’ Hallie Jackson asks: “Mr. President, can you once and for all, yes or no, definitively say that Russia interfered in the 2016 election?” Trump answers, “Well, I think it was Russia, and I think it could have been other people in other countries.” He then excoriates President Obama for doing “nothing” in the face of the Obama administration’s conclusion that Russian meddling was underway. “The reason is, he thought Hillary was going to win,” Trump continues. Pressed again on whether he agrees with the “definitive” conclusion of his own intelligence agencies that Russia meddled in the election, Trump says, “I think it was Russia, but I think it was probably other people and/or countries…. Nobody really knows for sure. I remember when I was sitting back listening about Iraq. Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. How everybody was 100 percent sure that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Guess what—that led to one big mess. They were wrong.” [Added July 11, 2017]

• Also on July 6, 2017: The Financial Times reports that Felix Sater has agreed to cooperate in an international investigation of a Kazakh family’s real estate dealings. The head of the family—Viktor Khrapunov, a former Kazakh minister now exiled in Switzerland—is reportedly under investigation for allegations that he embezzled government funds and hid the cash in other countries throughout the world, including the US. Deeds and banking records obtained by the Financial Times show that in April 2013, members of the Khrapunov family purchased three apartments in Trump SoHo for a grand total price of $3.1 million from a holding company in which Trump held a stake. [Added July 11, 2017]

• July 7, 2017: For the first time since the 2016 election, Trump meets Vladimir Putin. The only other attendees to their private, two-and-a-half hour session are Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and two interpreters. [Added July 11, 2017]

• Also on July 7, 2017: In an off-camera interview with the press after the Trump/Putin meeting, Tillerson says that Trump opened the session by “raising the concerns of the American people regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election…. The President pressed President Putin on more than one occasion regarding Russian involvement. President Putin denied such involvement, as I think he has in the past.” Responding to a later question about whether Trump “was unequivocal in his view that Russia did interfere with the election,” Tillerson says, “The Russians have asked for proof and evidence. I’ll leave that to the intelligence community to address the answer to that question. And again, I think the President, at this point, he pressed him and then felt like at this point let’s talk about how do we go forward.” [Added July 11, 2017]

• Also on July 7, 2017: Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov offers a different version of the Trump/Putin meeting, saying, “President Trump said he’s heard Putin’s very clear statements that this is not true and that the Russian government didn’t interfere in the elections and that he accepts these statements. That’s all.” [Added July 11, 2017]

• July 8, 2012: At a press conference concluding the G-20 summit, Putin responds to questions about whether Russian meddling in the 2016 election was a subject of their private meeting. “[Trump] was really interested in some details. I, as far as I could, answered all this in detail,” Putin says through a translator at the press conference, which a Russian state-owned news channel broadcasted. “He asked me, I answered. He asked clarifying questions, I explained. He appeared to me satisfied with these answers.” [Added July 11, 2017]

• Also on July 8, 2017: The New York Times first reports the story of the June 9, 2016 meeting that Donald Jr. had arranged with Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, and a Kremlin-connected lawyer. In response, Donald Jr. issues this statement: “It was a short introductory meeting. I asked Jared and Paul to stop by. We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow up… I was asked to attend the meeting by an acquaintance, but was not told the name of the person I would be meeting with beforehand.” [Added July 11, 2017]

• July 9, 2017: As The New York Times prepares to report that the Russian lawyer with whom Donald Jr., Kushner, and Manafort met on June 9, 2016 was supposedly going to be offering them damaging information on Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump Jr. issues a new statement changing his story from less than 24 hours earlier: “I was asked to have a meeting by an acquaintance I knew from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant with an individual who I was told might have information helpful to the campaign. I was not told her name prior to the meeting. I asked Jared and Paul to attend, but told them nothing of the substance. We had a meeting in June 2016. After pleasantries were exchanged, the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Ms. Clinton. Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information. She then changed subjects and began discussing the adoption of Russian children and mentioned the Magnitsky Act. It became clear to me that this was the true agenda all along and that the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting. I interrupted and advised her that my father was not an elected official, but rather a private citizen, and that her comments and concerns were better addressed if and when he held public office. The meeting lasted approximately 20 to 30 minutes. As it ended, my acquaintance apologized for taking up our time. That was the end of it and there was no further contact or follow-up of any kind. My father knew nothing of the meeting or these events.” [Added July 11, 2017]

• July 10, 2017: Donald Trump Jr. tweets:

[Added July 11, 2017]

• Also on July 10, 2017: Donald Trump Jr. confirms that he has hired a criminal defense attorney to represent him in connection with the Trump/Russia probe. [Added July 11, 2017]

• Also on July 10, 2017: The New York Times reports on the email from Rob Goldstone to Donald Jr. preceding the June 9, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower among Donald Jr., Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, and a Russian lawyer with Kremlin ties. [Added July 11, 2017]

• July 11, 2017: Donald Jr. posts his June 3-8, 2016 email exchanges with Rob Goldstone that culminate in the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting with the person Goldstone described as a “Russian government attorney.” In his accompanying statement, Donald Jr. says that he knew Emin from the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow. “Emin and his father have a very highly respected company in Moscow,” he continues. “The information they suggested they had about Hillary Clinton I thought was Political Opposition Research…To put this in context, this was before the current Russian fever was in vogue.” [Added July 11, 2017]

These are my latest additions to the Bill Moyers & Company overall Timeline relating to Trump and Russia. You can read the entire Timeline here. The Pence Timeline, Comey Firing Timeline, and Kushner Timeline have also been updated to include relevant entries. 

• 2002: Russian-born Felix H. Sater and his company, Bayrock Group — a Trump Tower tenant — begin working with Trump on a series of real estate development deals, one of which becomes Trump SoHo. Another development partner in Trump SoHo is the Sapir Organization, founded by Tamir Sapir. After a 1991 barroom fight in which Felix Sater stabbed a man in the face with the broken stem of a wine glass, he received a prison sentence. In 1993, Sater became part of a stock scheme that allegedly relied on four Mafia crime families for protection. He pled guilty and, in return for a reduced sentence, entered into a 1998 cooperation agreement with federal prosecutors pursuing members of organized crime. Reportedly, he also helped the CIA track down and purchase stinger missiles on the black market in Central Asia, thereby keeping them out of terrorists’ hands. Sater is still cooperating with the Justice Department in April 2002, when the US attorney for the eastern district of New York requests a postponement of Sater’s sentencing to September. [Revised July 3, 2017]

***

• Dec. 19-20, 2007: Two days after a December 17, 2007 article in The New York Times about Felix Sater’s criminal past, a lawyer deposing Trump in his libel suit against journalist Timothy O’Brien — author of TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald — asks, “[W]hat kind of interaction did you have with Mr. Sater prior to the article appearing?” Trump answers, “Not that much, not very much….I would say that my interaction with Felix Sater was, you know, not—was very little.” (p. 411) Discussing Bayrock’s unsuccessful development efforts for Trump in Russia, Trump says, “This was going to be a hotel in Moscow. And I really can say the same things for all of the sites…a hotel in Moscow, a hotel in Kiev, a hotel in Poland, et cetera,…. Bayrock knew the people, knew the investors, and in some cases I believe they were friends of Mr. Arif. And this was going to be Trump International Hotel and Tower in Moscow, Kiev, Istanbul, et cetera, Poland, Warsaw.” (p. 586) Trump is referring to the Bayrock Principal, Tevfik Arif. And a few minutes later, Trump says Arif “did bring people up from Russia…And I believe he brought the people from Moscow up to meet me.” (pp. 589-590) [Added July 3, 2017]

***

• Nov. 16, 2011: Answering deposition questions in a case involving a Fort Lauderdale project, Trump says he has only “limited involvement” with Bayrock Group, which was a Trump tenant “for a period of time.” (pp. 10-11) Trump testifies that he spoke with Felix Sater “for a period of time” when he was an executive with Bayrock. (p. 18) [Added July 3, 2017]

***

• July 2016: According to POLITCO, Felix Sater visits Trump Tower on business that he described as “confidential.” Sater declines to answer whether he’s had recent contact with the Trump Organization or Trump’s children. “I don’t see the relevance of that,” Sater says. When POLITICO asks the Trump campaign about Sater, Trump spokesperson Hope Hicks says, “We are not aware of a contribution or visit to Trump Tower.” Trump Organization General Counsel Alan Garten says that he has no knowledge of Sater’s visit to Trump Tower, that Sater was not advising the Trump Organization, and that the Trump Organization was not seeking business in Russia. [Added July 3, 2017]

***

• Labor Day weekend 2016: According to a June 29, 2017 article in The Wall Street Journal and a July 1, 2017 follow-up piece, wealthy GOP operative Peter W. Smith sets out to get his hands on any emails that were stolen from the private email server that Hillary Clinton used while she was secretary of state. Smith assembles a team of technology experts, lawyers, and a Russian-speaking investigator in Europe to help him find the emails. They identify five groups of hackers, two of which are Russian. In recruiting experts, Smith claims to be in contact with Trump adviser Mike Flynn and Flynn’s son. With one potential collaborator, he shares a packet of opposition research articles with a cover sheet listing Trump campaign officials Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway and Sam Clovis. Responding to the 2017 articles in The Wall Street Journal about Smith’s effort, a Trump campaign official says that Smith didn’t work for the campaign, and if Flynn coordinated with Smith, it would have been in his capacity as a private individual. Bannon says that he’s never heard of Smith. Conway says she knew Smith from Republican politics, but never met with him during the campaign. About 10 days after his May 2017 interview with The Wall Street Journal, Smith dies at the age of 81. (Added July 3, 2017)

***

• June 26, 2017: Jared Kushner’s lawyers confirm that he has added a prominent criminal defense trial lawyer, Abbe Lowell, to his legal team. [Added July 3, 2017]
• June 27, 2017: Paul Manafort registers retroactively as a foreign agent. Between 2012 and 2014 he received more than $17 million from the pro-Russia political party (“Party of Regions”) that dominated Ukraine before its leader, then-President Viktor F. Yanukovych, fled to Moscow amid a popular uprising in 2014. As part of the filing, Manafort discloses that he met in 2013 with Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, an outspoken California Republican known for advocating closer ties between the U.S. and the Kremlin. [Added July 3, 2017]