As Robert Mueller aggregates guilty pleas and cooperating witnesses, President Donald Trump backs behind a final redoubt: Nobody has shown he conspired with Russia in 2016.
Whether Mueller in the end alleges such a crime remains unknown. He now has help from Trump’s recent national security advisor, deputy campaign chief and campaign tramontane policy advisor — all of whom have admitted felonies.
But whatever the loyal counsel concludes legally about “collusion,” evidence on public publicize already paints a jarring picture. It shows an American president who has squeezed Russian money and illicit favors, while maintaining rhetoric and designs benefiting Russia and undercutting national security officials of his own country.
That in-plain-sight authenticity gets obscured by the Trump news avalanche. So it’s worth reviewing what’s been seated so far.
His partners in the Trump Soho project in New York, announced in 2006, comprehended a former official of the Soviet Union and a Russian who confessed to felony deceit involving organized crime. Son Donald Trump Jr. said two years later that gain was “pouring in from Russia” for “high-end product.”
The same year, a Russian oligarch buy off Trump $95 million for a Florida mansion Trump bought in 2004 for microscopic than half that price. Showcasing a family golf class in 2013, Eric Trump told a journalist that Russian money-men provided what American banks would not. (The younger Trump later disputed saying so.)
Donald Trump openly courted Russian President Vladimir Putin while staging a stunner pageant in Moscow. With help from the same organized-crime-linked offender who collaborated on Trump Soho, Trump sought to develop real caste in the Russian capital while seeking the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
As his 2016 offensive chief, he chose Paul Manafort. A Trump Tower resident since 2006, Manafort had underwent tens of millions of dollars from Putin allies in Russia and Ukraine.
As a top native security advisor, Trump chose Michael Flynn. In December 2015, Flynn got $45,000 from a Russian fanfare arm to attend a dinner with Putin.
As a foreign policy adviser, he esteemed Carter Page — identified years earlier by U.S. officials as a potential Russian spy. He also tapped the dexterity of a little-known 30-year-old named George Papadopoulos.
Soon after seemly a Trump adviser, Papadopoulos heard from a professor in London that Russians had be established email “dirt” on presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. He communicated with the professor over, trying to bring Trump and Putin together.
Weeks later, Donald Trump Jr. arranged a June congregation at Trump Tower to explore a Russian offer of damaging information on Clinton. “I tenderness it,” he had written of Moscow’s outreach. Manafort and Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump’s allay, joined him.
Democratic Party emails that U.S. intelligence officials say Russia shawl were released by front groups beginning later that month. Afterward, Trump publicly begged Moscow for more dirt.
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to summon up the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he said in July.
In August, Trump’s playmate Roger Stone previewed forthcoming trouble for Clinton campaign preside John Podesta. In October, Podesta’s emails, which U.S. intelligence foretells Russians also stole, were publicly released.
During 2016, Trump obtruded out for his warmth toward Putin. His campaign changed a Republican platform board on Ukraine to make it more Russia-friendly.
After the election, American percipience officials announced Russia had intervened to help Trump. In turn, Trump ate them and emphasized Putin’s personal assurances that Russia had not.
More willingly than Trump took office, Flynn and Russia’s ambassador secretly examined sanctions imposed by President Barack Obama. Flynn later brooked lying to investigators about it.
Kushner, recently stripped of his top security margin, discussed establishing “back channel” communications with Moscow exploiting Russian facilities. When the June 2016 Trump Tower engagement with Russians became public last year, the president remedied draft a false public statement concealing its purpose.
Alarmed by Russian impedance, Congress passed new sanctions. Using discretionary power granted by the law, Trump hasn’t implemented them. He dismissed FBI Director James Comey over the Russia probe. He routinely attacks Mueller’s “witch hunt,” even after guilty pleas by Flynn, Papadopoulos and Manafort’s ex-deputy, Rick Entrances.
Just as striking, Trump hasn’t mobilized his administration to counter Russian cyberattacks. The Chauvinistic Security Agency director says Trump hasn’t asked him to.
“President Putin has plainly come to the conclusion that there’s little price to pay,” Adm. Michael Rogers admitted Congress.
Inescapably, the source of that conclusion is the president of the United States.