Thread by @bradheath

"The Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts."

Rod Rosenstein authorized the special counsel to continue a criminal investigation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, his boss.

Russia's military intelligence service hacked and leaked troves of documents from Democratic political organizations. "The release of documents was timed to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election and undermine the Clinton Campaign."

When Trump declared in July 2016 "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing," Russia was, in fact, listening. The GRU launched a new hacking effort almost immediately aimed at Hillary Clinton.

WikiLeaks gave Donald Trump, Jr. the password to an anti-Trump website that was about to launch; he said in an email that he then used it to access the site.

President Trump called his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, at home, and asked him to reverse his recusal "so that Sessions could direct the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute Hillary Clinton."

The president engaged in "public attacks on the investigation, non-public efforts to control it, and efforts in both public and private to encourage witnesses not to cooperate with the investigation."

(AG William Barr said earlier in the day that "the White House fully cooperated with the Special Counsel’s investigation, providing unfettered access to campaign and White House documents, directing senior aides to testify freely." Difficult to reconcile those.)

Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen circulated a draft of his false testimony to lawyers - including Trump's - participating in a joint defense agreement before he provided it to Congress. The lies were in the original; reviewing lawyers didn't correct them.

In the days after Cohen submitted a draft of his false testimony to Trump's lawyers, "phone records reflect that Cohen spoke with the President's personal counsel almost daily."

Cohen said Trump's personal lawyer, who reviewed his false testimony before he delivered it, encouraged him to stay "on message."

After Cohen falsely claimed to the press that Trump had no knowledge of an illegal hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels, the president's personal lawyer texted him: "Client says thanks for what you do."

After speaking with Trump's personal counsel, "Cohen understood ... that as long as he stayed on message, he would be taken care of by the President, either through a pardon or through the investigation being shut down."

"While there is evidence ... that the President knew Cohen provided false testimony to Congress about the Trump Tower Moscow project, the evidence available to us does not establish that the President directed or aided Cohen's false testimony."

This is a remarkable document. There's no substitute for reading it for yourself. You can do that here: usatoday.com/documents/5955…