,
13 tweets,
2 min read
Read on Twitter
Thread - Here's my attempt to sort out of what this report is saying happened prior to election day 2016: The Russian govt attacked a US election, a major US political party, and a presidential campaign. They did this to damage the US, hurt Hillary Clinton, and help Donald Trump.
One aspect of the attack was the hacking and dissemination of Democrats' private documents, a process that did not practically require any Trump campaign assistance. Nevertheless, Trump, parts of his campaign, and his other associates eagerly sought to learn about and shape it.
Another aspect was a propaganda campaign mostly carried out on social media. For this too, the Russians did not practically require any Trump campaign help to carry out the scheme. Nevertheless, unwitting members of the campaign consumed and amplified this Russian propaganda.
Coordination and attempts to coordinate between Trump's world and the Russian govt were extensive and messy, so much so that neither side's principals could probably say with much confidence what the nature of their cooperation was. Here's some of what Mueller found:
- Trump/Flynn/Smith/Ledeen tried to coordinate w/ the Russian govt hackers directly to get HRC's deleted emails--and as far as, e.g., Flynn knew, this project was in process at the end of the campaign--but Smith had apparently lied about actually being in touch with the hackers.
- Manafort/Gates were passing proprietary campaign information to Kilimnik, who the FBI thinks is actively connected to Russian intelligence, for purposes unknown to Mueller. What Kilimnik did with that information he was given is also unknown to Mueller.
- Papadopoulos coordinated with the Russian govt on a meeting between Trump (or his delegates) and Putin (or his); he was also told by his contact about thousands of stolen Clinton emails but Mueller somehow never figured out definitively whether he told the campaign about this.
- Don Jr. coordinated a meeting, via Azeri-Russian friends, among Manafort/Kushner/himself and 4 Russians about "Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump" at which they discuss some hazy financial claims and potentially revisiting the Magnitsky Act if Trump takes power.
- Sessions/J.D. Gordon coordinated warm meetings with the Russian ambassador, and Gordon pushed through a pro-Russian modification to the GOP platform at its convention over other campaign staff's objections (on a pretext of consistency w the stump speech).
- Outside the campaign, Trump/Cohen/Sater coordinated with the Russian govt on a Moscow tower deal, but Cohen cut off planning for future talks shortly after Don Jr.'s meeting.
- Also outside the campaign, Stone was receiving overtures from the disguised Russian govt hackers and trying to make contact with Wikileaks to obtain prior knowledge about, and shape, the releases of stolen emails.
Amid all of this contact and more, Mueller did not find what he considered sufficient evidence of conspiracy or coordination between the campaign and the Russian government on the election interference crimes.
Still, the report (as I read it) amply demonstrates that during the campaign, the President, his campaign team, and his associates were deeply entangled with Russia while it was attacking the US, and attempting to get involved with the attack.
