THE BIG SLEEP: A Timeline of Team Mueller’s Takedown of a Global Crime Syndicate, the Story So Far… by heidi siegmund cuda, aka @maewestside
I’ll never forget the first night I slept in after the coup of November 8, 2016: It was October 30, the day Paul Manafort and Rick Gates surrendered to the FBI, charged with a dozen felonies each. Three weeks earlier, George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his efforts to connect the Trump campaign with Moscow, but that wasn’t enough for me to feel safe. Cognitive thinkers need bold action, and the charges against Trump’s former campaign manager Manafort, including Conspiracy Against the United States, were the first glimpse of light on the horizon of hope. What follows is a brief setup and timeline to help summarize key events.
THE STAGE: A Presidential candidate, with deep financial ties to Russian oligarchs and a history of fraud, deception, lawsuits and ungrace, is bolstered by a Kremlin-linked propaganda machine, which began spreading distrust and disgust as early as 2014. The goal: to interfere with an American presidential campaign by spreading disinformation and pitting Americans against each other. By 2015, Kremlin-linked hackers, orchestrated by Russian military officers, had hoovered the DNC’s private servers, while beginning an all-out assault of propaganda in support of Trump. In early 2016, while Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen is emailing the Kremlin in an attempt to build a tower for his boss, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager falls prey to a phishing scheme. While campaign aides are courting Russian nationals, Trump taps Paul Manafort to run the RNC and ultimately, to be his campaign manager. While campaign aides and Trump Jr. are being offered “dirt” on Hillary Clinton from Russian nationals, Trump advertises a “major speech” he’ll be making on Clinton, while also encouraging Russia to hack her emails. This comes during the same period as Wikileaks and DCLeaks begin dumping thousands of hacked Democratic documents. More meetings with campaign aides and Russian nationals take place, while bots, and fake news populate social media, and mainstream media plays into the Kremlin’s hands by its 24/7 coverage of the DNC hack. By the summer of 2016, the FBI opens a counterintelligence investigation into the links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. On November 8, bolstered by the Kremlin’s successful hacking and propaganda efforts and State TV, Trump is elected President*. 2017 kicks off with the publishing of the Steele dossier; the Women’s March commanding the world stage; the resignation of National Security Advisor General Michael Flynn; the firing of FBI Director James Comey and more top cabinet members “forgetting” about meetings with Russian nationals. We finally arrive at May 17, 2017, the fateful day when former FBI Director Robert Mueller is appointed Special Counsel, leading the investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia and other matters that “may arise.”
THE TIMELINE: Those still tuning into State TV may not be aware of just how much action has taken place since those heady first days of indictments, so please accept this humble timeline, the highlights of the story so far, of Team Mueller’s Takedown of an alleged Global Crime Syndicate:
OCT. 5, 2017: Entering into a plea agreement with Mueller, former campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos pleads guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian government
OCT. 30, 2017: Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and campaign aide Rick Gates surrender to the FBI and plead not guilty to all charges, which include conspiracy against the U.S., making false statements, money laundering, failing to disclose lobbying efforts on behalf of foreign entities
NOV. 30, 2017: Entering a plea deal with Mueller, General Flynn, who encouraged “Lock Her Up” chants along the campaign trail, pleads guilty to lying to the FBI about his post-election conversations with a Russian ambassador
FEB. 16, 2018: Team Mueller charge 13 Russians and three Russian organizations with conspiring to defraud and interfere with the 2016 United States presidential election; in a related case just four days earlier, Richard Pinedo, a California man who ran on online service that bought and sold bank account numbers to circumvent security of digital payments, pleads guilty
FEB. 18-24, 2018: A Dutch attorney Alex Van Der Zwaan is indicted for lying to the FBI about his interactions with Gates and Konstantin Kilimnik, a Ukranian associate of Manafort. (Later, he pleads guilty and serves a 30-day sentence.) Four days after the Van Der Zwaan indictment, a superceding indictment is filed against Manafort and Gates containing 32 charges related to financial fraud; the following day, Feb. 23, Gates pleads guilty and agrees to work with Mueller. On Feb. 24, Manafort is hit with new charges
APRIL 9, 2018: Offices of former Trump lawyer, Michael Cohen, are raided by the FBI
JUNE 8, 2018: Manafort is faced with an additional charge of obstruction and his business partner, Kilimnik is indicted on charges of obstruction and conspiracy to obstruct justice
JULY 13, 2018: Team Mueller indicts 12 Russian intelligence officers for hacking the DNC, the DCCC and the Clinton campaign and disseminating private emails and documents
JUNE 15, 2018: Manafort is jailed after prosecutors claim witness tampering
JULY 15-16, 2018: In a parallel case by Justice Department national security prosecutors, an alleged Russian spy, Mariia Butina, is arrested and charged with operating as a secret agent for the Kremlin and working to infiltrate the NRA in an attempt to influence the Republican party and the U.S. government
JULY 16, 2018: In a joint press conference with Putin, Trump says he believes Putin’s denial of election interference
JULY 20, 2018: Update Kristin Davis, a former madam who spent time in prison and is linked to a prostitution ring that ensared Elliot Spitzer, and is a known close friend of Roger Stone, is subpoened by the Special Counsel. Two days earlier, Stone, a veteran political operative, longtime associate of Trump and self-proclaimed “dirty trickster,” says he is likely the unnamed individual who exchanged messages with Guccifer 2.0, a Twitter account run by Russian intelligence officers, as noted in Mueller’s hacking indictment a week earlier. Davis is the latest of multiple associates of Stone’s to be questioned or served with a subpoena in relation to the Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election
JULY 23-24: Update A federal judge in Virginia grants five witnesses immunity to testify in Manafort criminal trial. They are: James Brennan, Donna Doogan, Conor O’Brien, Cindy Laporta and Dennis Raico; the bank that loaned Manafort $16 million, Chicago’s Federal Savings Bank, issued a statement that it is staying mum; both Reico and Brennan appear to have worked for the bank; the trial is postponed
JULY 25: Update House Republicans rattle their sabers, introducing an impeachment resolution against Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General who appointed Robert Mueller. They buckle a day later
JULY 26: Update Longtime Trump executive Allen Weisselberg is subpoenaed in Cohen probe; and the New York Times reports Mueller is investigating Trump’s tweets in relation to obstruction probe
AUG. 21-29: Update Manafort is found guilty on 8 counts in the first of two trials; Cohen flips and pleas in relation to hush money payments etal; Trump Org CFO Weisselberg and National Enquirer’s David Pecker are granted immunity in relation to the aforementioned payments; Roger Stone tells anyone who will listen it’s going to be his and Don Jr.’s time in the barrel next, largely in an overt attempt to raise money to help pay mounting legal costs; White House counsel Don McGahn, the man who stood in the way of Trump firing Mueller, is leaving his post, 11 days after it becomes public he spoke with the Special Counsel for 30 hours.
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Author Heidi Siegmund Cuda is an investigative producer, filmmaker and activist. She often updates this timeline.