Thread by @maxbergmann

I opened the Mueller report and quickly went down a chess rabbit hole. Yes. chess. In Nov 2016 the world chess championships were in NYC. In attendance, Dmitri Peskov, close Putin aide and Kirill Dmitriev (Seychelles meeting). Now read this from 538/ABC: fivethirtyeight.com/features/russi…

The now fmr Pres of the World Chess Federation, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, is a sanctioned Kremlin-linked Oligarch that "has repeatedly been alleged to act as an informal envoy for the Russian government." 2/

IIyumzhinov invited Trump to host the tournament in Trump Tower in March 2016. Mueller also asked Trump if he was invited to attend the tournament. This is Trump's written response to Mueller. 3/

The day after the 2016 election, according to the Mueller report (p150) Dmitriev asked "Putin for permission to travel to the United States... Later that day, Dmitriev flew to New York, where Peskov was separately traveling to attend the chess tournament." But... 4/

Dmitriev wasn't going to NYC for the "chess tournament." He was going to NYC to connect with the Trump team, specifically Jared and Don Jr. It's why he jumped on a plane hours after the election. 5/

So did he meet w/ Trump reps at the chess tournament? One chess official named "Marinello" told the Mueller team, her 302 is footnoted, that she "recalled hearing from an attendee that President-elect Trump had stopped by the tournament." Wait, what? 6/

Mueller said he c/dn't establish if Trump attended and Trump said he didn't. It seems unlikely that Trump c/d've stopped by w/o Mueller's team being able to find out.

But why w/d Mueller's team include that line? They must think it was at least possible for Trump to stop by. 7/

Just this one page of the Muller report (149-150) raises so much. First, it looks like the Russians are using the World Chess Federation as an under the radar diplomatic/intelligence tool. The federation pres was so important to Putin that he pressed Netanyahu to back his guy. 8/

The new chess federation president is now... Arkady Dvorkovich, Russia's fmr Dep PM. The same guy who met w/ Carter Page in Moscow. 9/

Second, it raises questions for the FBI. What level of surveillance did they have on Peskov, Dmitriev, and the chess federation president? C/d they have had meetings w/ Trump associates and the FBI not known about it? This is critical for congress to know. 10/

Contrary to the Trump-Barr narrative of the FBI obsessed w/ Russia, there are a lot of indications that the FBI was actually asleep at the switch. For instance, they didn't even interview Konstantin Kilimnik when he came to the inauguration even though he was on their radar. 11/

The depth of the FBI's surveillance efforts is critical to assessing Vol. 1. If the FBI was all over Dmitriev when he came to NYC and can assess w/ confidence that he c/dn't have met w/ Trump associates w/o them knowing then great. But if the FBI wasn't monitoring him...12/

Then it w/d seem pretty strange for the guy to fly 1/2 way across the world on no notice w/ Putin's approval w/ no real purpose or agenda. Just watching some chess... right. 13/

There are therefore also national security implications about the quality of FBI's counterintelligence surveillance of Russia. This should be a key oversight question for the intel committees. 14/

Lastly, this also shows the absurdity of Mueller, and perhaps much of his team, not testifying. The report is a foundational document. But almost every page raises as many questions as it does answers... 15/

And it shows the urgent need for Democrats to get to work and start holding hearings on the report. Like now. Get to work. 16/

For more on the Trump-Russia back story check out @AssetPodcast theassetpodcast.org