Proof of Collusion

by Seth Abramson

  In June, Jared Kushner contracts with British firm Cambridge Analytica to institute a domestic “microtargeting” scheme for Trump’s general election campaign; the data compiled will be left open by Cambridge Analytica for Russian actors to steal and weaponize. That same month, the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies (RISS), a partner of Kammenos’s think tank, drafts two documents outlining Russia’s plans for interfering in the 2016 U.S. general election. Papadopoulos has by now made a second trip to Athens, this time one scheduled to coincide with a visit to Athens by Putin himself—the only trip Putin makes to an EU country in 2016. Papadopoulos once again meets with the RISS-connected Kammenos. Meanwhile, Nastya Rybka, girlfriend of Russian oligarch and close Putin ally Oleg Deripaska, posts on social media that she too is in Athens; she is known to travel regularly with Deripaska on his yacht, though whether Deripaska is with her in Athens is unclear.5 Immediately after Rybka leaves Greece, she posts on Instagram that she is now in the United Arab Emirates—a country whose crown prince will offer his assistance to the Trump campaign approximately sixty days later.6

  As the two Russian websites intended to aid the release of documents and emails stolen from the Democrats launch, Russia’s attacks on America’s electoral infrastructure begin in earnest. In Washington, the top three Republicans in the House of Representatives talk about Donald Trump and Dana Rohrabacher getting “paid” by Putin to take the policy positions they do; the three men do not realize their comments have been recorded.7 In London, Christopher Steele begins writing what will become known as the “Steele dossier.” The first pages of his compilation of raw intelligence—which is drawn in part from Russian HUMINT (human intelligence) Steele developed while working for MI6—describe some of the kompromat the Kremlin holds on Trump and begin outlining the size and scope of the international Trump-Russia conspiracy.

  By late June, the “Brexit” vote is occurring in the United Kingdom—a Kremlin-backed push for the citizens of that nation to vote to leave the EU in a nationwide referendum. It is in part a trial run for the sort of election meddling the Kremlin is planning in the United States. With the assistance of “Leave” backer and Trump ally Nigel Farage, the Kremlin strikes a significant blow against the future of Western democracy when the United Kingdom narrowly votes to leave the EU.

  Despite all the advancements in the Trump-Russia network in May and June 2016, a Trump campaign adviser also makes a critical error in this period that will eventually threaten to topple the ever-expanding Trump-Russia enterprise: Papadopoulos, drunk in a London bar, leaks to an Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, that the Russians have dirt on Clinton in the form of thousands of emails—and that the Russians have been in contact with the Trump campaign about passing those emails on. This confession will make its way to Australia and eventually, in two months, back to the United States, where it will initiate one of the largest, most complex, most politically significant federal criminal investigations in American history.

  When, on June 15, 2016, the Washington Post reports that the Democratic National Committee has been hacked, the Trump campaign will immediately issue a statement in response: “We believe it was the DNC that did the ‘hacking’ as a way to distract from the many issues facing their deeply flawed candidate and failed party leader.”

  The Facts

  ALMOST IMMEDIATELY AFTER HE RECEIVES Sam Clovis’s email mentioning potential “legal issues” with a private citizen meeting with foreign officials, George Papadopoulos gets on a plane and goes on a campaign-approved trip to Athens, Greece—just the sort of “neutral city” his Russian contacts had previously told him the Russians prefer to meet in.8

  Greece is one of the seven EU countries that, in spring 2016, stands in opposition to sanctions against Russia. As Papadopoulos touches down in Athens, Vladimir Putin is just a few weeks away from arriving in the city for his first and only trip to an EU nation of 2016, during which his explicit plan is to discuss U.S. sanctions with Greek officials.9 Papadopoulos gives an interview to Kathimerini, an Athens newspaper, during his first May 2016 trip to Athens, telling his interviewer, Marianna Kakaounaki, that he is in Greece to make “contacts.”10 To Vima will report, however, that Papadopoulos is making his trip in “secret,” “incognito,” and “almost with absolute secrecy.”11 Papadopoulos is traveling with Seth Cropsey, a member of the Foreign Policy Initiative alongside Bud McFarlane and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute—where Papadopoulos had worked from 2011 to 2015, according to Time magazine. He is also a former assistant to President Reagan’s secretary of defense Caspar Weinberger.12 Cropsey’s immediate successor as Weinberger’s chief speechwriter was future Trump deputy National Security Advisor (and Bud McFarlane mentee) K. T. McFarland.13

  Despite the secret nature of his early May trip to Greece, Papadopoulos nevertheless gives interviews with local media, and will do so again both when he returns to Athens in late May and when he travels to Greece for a third time in 2016 during the presidential transition. According to these Greek media interviews, in late May Papadopoulos meets with—or, rather, is willing to acknowledge meeting with—Greek president Prokopis Pavlopoulos, Defense Minister Panos Kammenos, Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias, and former prime minister Kostas Karamanlis.14 In December, he again meets with Kammenos and, among others, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, called by Greek media “the chief of the conservative opposition” in Greece.15

  The Washington Post later confirms that, in late May 2016, Papadopoulos and Putin were in Athens at the same time. According to the Post, “[J]ust as Putin arrived, [Papadopoulos] was in Athens, quietly holding meetings across town and confiding in hushed tones that he was there on a sensitive mission on behalf of his boss, Donald Trump.”16 Putin was in Athens to discuss with Greek officials the very issue Russian agents like Maria Butina had been so keen to discuss with Trump and his national security advisers: the lifting of sanctions against Russia for its annexation of Crimea.17 Putin and Papadopoulos, who are both interested in the lifting of sanctions against Russia, meet with Kammenos.18

  According to a November 2017 Newsweek article, in 2016 Papadopoulos told Greek media that Trump himself “knew that he [Papadopoulos] intended to meet with foreign nationals [in Athens]” in May 2016.19 Papadopoulos said, moreover, that he had had both a one-on-one phone call and a one-on-one meeting with Trump in the midst of his March 2016 back-channel contacts with the Russians.20 In February 2018, NPR will confirm with Papadopoulos’s wife, Simona Mangiante, that her husband’s official position is “everything [he] did was authorized by the top levels of the campaign.”21

  When Papadopoulos returns to Greece in December, he will “[brag] that he had helped Trump win the presidency” and, according to the Washington Post, “many here [in Athens] believed it.”22 During his December visit to Athens, Papadopoulos also tells those he meets with that he has “a ‘blank check’ to choose whatever role he want[s] in the administration.”23 The chief opposition politician, Mitsotakis, and his staff are “skeptical” of his claims, while Kammenos—still in a memorandum of understanding with the Russian think tank that drafted Russia’s intricate plans for 2016 U.S. election interference—is “excited.”24 And Kammenos is right to be excited: at Trump’s inauguration he will meet again with Papadopoulos, but this time the two men will be joined by the president-elect’s chief of staff, Reince Priebus.25 Kammenos will say afterward that Trump has “some very important Greek-Americans by his side who maintain their ties with our country. . . . We are certain that when the time comes for them to help their homeland . . . they will do so to the best of their ability.”26 On Election Day, Kammenos had congratulated Trump on Twitter, stressing the “important role” of Trump national security adviser George Papadopoulos.27

  Just a few days after Papadopoulos returns from his second May 2016 trip to Greece, Emin Agalarov’s manager, the British publicist Rob Goldstone, reaches out to Donald Trump Jr. An excerpt of his email from June 3, 2016, 10:36 a.m.:

  Emin [Agalarov] just c
alled and asked me to contact you with something very interesting. The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father. This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump—helped along by Aras and Emin. What do you think is the best way to handle this information and would you be able to speak to Emin about it directly? I can also send this info to your father via Rhona [Graff], but it is ultra sensitive so wanted to send to you first.28

  The timeline Goldstone provides confirms that by early June 2016 connections between the Kremlin and Trump Tower are so well established that it takes only a matter of hours—at most—for a message to get from the “Crown prosecutor of Russia,” Yuri Chaika, to the Trump campaign. The Financial Times will say of Chaika, in July 2017, that he “has remained steadfastly loyal to President Vladimir Putin for more than a decade.”29 Goldstone is transparent and forceful about the significant in-kind value to the Trump campaign of the material the Kremlin is offering: it is “very interesting,” “very useful,” “very high level,” “sensitive,” and “ultra sensitive.” Goldstone underscores that the material is “official” and “incriminat[ing],” suggesting it is nonpublic information. He confirms that the Kremlin specifically wants the Trump campaign to have this information and is willing to use both Aras and Emin as agents to ensure the transfer of the material. Most important, Goldstone is clear that the information is intended for Trump himself and that it is being given to Trump’s son as part of a coordinated campaign of support for his father orchestrated by the Kremlin.

  Under 52 U.S.C. § 30121 (contributions and donations by foreign nationals), the mere offering of this material by a foreign national—including, in this case, according to the federal conspiracy statute, Yuri Chaika, Aras Agalarov, Emin Agalarov, and Rob Goldstone—is an indictable offense due to the “official information and documents” being offered to the Trump campaign constituting a “thing of value.”30 Likewise, under 52 U.S.C. § 30121 it is a federal crime to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national.31

  Seventeen minutes after Goldstone emails Trump’s son, at 10:53 a.m., Don Jr. replies: “Thanks Rob I appreciate that. I am on the road at the moment but perhaps I just speak to Emin first. Seems we have some time and if it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”

  Trump Jr. here acknowledges that he understands the general nature of what is being offered and its value, and he communicates clearly that he wants it, even giving some directions as to when he wants it. According to experts, Trump Jr. “may well have committed a federal crime” with this email.32

  Trump Jr. will testify about his conduct on September 7, 2017 (see chapter 13).

  On June 6, the exchange between Goldstone and Trump Jr. continues as they seek to set up a phone call for that day between Trump Jr. and Emin.33 By the next day, June 7, Goldstone is referencing an upcoming Trump Tower meeting for the handover of “Hillary info” in a way that suggests Emin and Don Jr. had discussed such a meeting the day before.34 “I believe you are aware of the meeting,” Goldstone writes to Trump Jr. on June 7.35

  June 7 is a busy day for candidate Trump, as he wins the final five GOP primaries in California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota—and announces that night that he will be giving a “major” speech six days later, on June 13, about “all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons.”36 He tells his supporters, “I think you’re going to find [the speech about the Clintons] very, very interesting.”37 Earlier that day, Trump Jr. had scheduled his meeting to receive dirt on Clinton from the Kremlin for June 9 at 3:00 p.m., telling Goldstone that his brother-in-law, Jared Kushner, and the “campaign boss,” Paul Manafort, would likely be coming to the meeting also.38 After Trump Jr. unsuccessfully attempts to bring the meeting forward to June 8, a final date and time is set: June 9 at 4:00 p.m.39 Trump’s June 13 speech is later rescheduled to June 22 because of the mass shooting at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub. However, the original date of the speech had been just four days after the Kremlin was to send agents to Trump Tower with “incriminating Clinton documents.”40 And on the rescheduled date, Americans will nevertheless learn that Trump wants to talk about Clinton’s deleted emails. On June 22, he calls on Clinton’s emails “to be found” and adds that they “[s]hould be able to be found . . . I’ve always heard you can never really delete an email. So it should be able to be found if they really want to find them.”41

  On the afternoon of June 9, Donald Trump is at Trump Tower, working on “prepar[ing] [a] charge sheet against Clinton,” according to Politico.42 One floor below him, his son, son-in-law, and campaign manager are working on the very same issue by meeting with a group of Russian nationals and Russian-Americans. But Trump wasn’t slated to work on the “Clinton dirt” issue alone on June 9; in fact, Politico writes that he was scheduled to work with his top aides on that very issue that very day.43 Per the digital media outlet,

  Donald Trump’s team is hunkering down [on June 9] to draft the charge sheet the presumptive GOP nominee will unveil against Hillary Clinton on Monday, intent on laying out a credible general election argument that leads voters to question her trustworthiness. Senior campaign advisers [are] beginning to focus on the speech. . . . As Trump’s inner circle begins to deliberate on what to say, the more salacious, headline-worthy attacks against Clinton, however dated, are never far from the candidate’s mind. And he’s already drawn on some of the most sordid allegations against the Clintons. . . . “Trump’s advisers believe Hillary has three major vulnerabilities,” a Trump insider said Wednesday, referring [in part] to [the] alleged “epic corruption of the Clinton foundation” . . . [and] “payoffs and bribes. . . .”44

  Even so, when attorney and Kremlin “informant” Natalia Veselnitskaya, Agalarov agent Ike Kaveladze, and former Soviet counterintelligence operative Rinat Akhmetshin come to Trump Tower on June 9 to discuss precisely what the Trump team was meeting that day just one floor above to discuss—corruption centered around Clinton’s donors—Trump Jr. will testify that he was thoroughly befuddled.45 Indeed, though Trump Jr. says Veselnitskaya began the meeting by discussing “individuals connected to Russia supporting or funding Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton,” he will later testify before Congress, in September 2017, that his reaction to Veselnitskaya’s discussion of Clinton corruption was that “it was quite difficult for me to understand what she was saying or why” and “[it] didn’t seem all that relevant to me.”46

  Per his congressional testimony, Trump Jr. says he understood Veselnitskaya to be saying that certain individuals—possibly Russian—were donating to Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee using a fraudulent tax scheme to avoid reporting their transfers in Russia or the United States.47 Having offered up information on criminal activity among Clinton’s donor class—implying Clinton had accepted illegal foreign contributions—Veselnitskaya next discussed what Russian interests would want in exchange for more details about such allegations: the lifting of sanctions. Trump Jr.’s response to the mention of U.S. sanctions on Russia was, according to his 2017 testimony, that the lifting of U.S. sanctions on Russia was “not a campaign issue.”48 He will add, in responding to questions by the Senate Judiciary Committee, that everything the Russian attorney said in Trump Tower was “vague, ambiguous, and made no sense,” which is why he cannot recall almost any of it.49 According to Trump Jr.’s testimony, he never told his father anything about his meeting with the Russians—even the fact of its occurrence.50 Yet after the meeting Trump’s team continues “huddling” on the subject of misconduct by Hillary Clinton, and twenty minutes after the meeting ends, Donald Trump Sr. tweets about Clinton’s emails for the first time in 2016, writing to Clinton via Twitter, in part, “[W
]here are your 33,000 emails that you deleted?”51

  In July 2018, the Washington Post will report that Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen is prepared to tell investigators that not only did Trump know of the June 9 meeting in advance but explicitly authorized it during a conversation with his son for which Cohen was present.52 The Los Angeles Times will report that Ivanka Trump spoke to Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin after their meeting with Trump Jr., Kushner, and Manafort ended.53 Ivanka will not voluntarily reveal her contact with the Russians on June 9 at any point, despite the significant media, law enforcement, and congressional attention on the meeting. Steve Bannon will tell journalist Michael Wolff, of the June 9 meeting, “Even if you thought that this [meeting] was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad . . . and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately,” adding, “The chance that Don Jr. did not walk these jumos [sic] up to his father’s office on the twenty-sixth floor is zero.”54 In the summer of 2017, Trump’s spokesman Mark Corallo will quit, “privately confiding,” according to Wolff’s 2018 book, Fire and Fury, “that he believed the meeting on Air Force One [to compose a statement about the June 9 meeting] represented a likely obstruction of justice.”55 Another reason Corallo quits, according to Politico, is that he “was concerned about whether he was being told the truth about various matters.”56