2014: Russia sends troops into Ukraine and occupies the Crimean Peninsula. That helps set in motion a chain of events that brings us to here. “I call it the Russian witch hunt.” The public release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, the investigation into whether people associated with Donald Trump’s campaign — “Lock him up!” — conspired with Russia in 2016 — “It’s a whole big fat hoax.” and whether Trump or his aides tried to obstruct this investigation. “The people doing that investigation, they’re dirty cops.” So how did we get here, from this to this? “There was no collusion, there’s no Russia.” O.K., starting with Crimea, Russia enters and eventually annexes the region from Ukraine. The U.S. supports Ukraine’s government, so the U.S. responds with sanctions. “To impose a cost on Russia.” Russia decides to strike back to undermine U.S. democracy. “Show me what hypocrisy looks like!” How? Use America’s polarized politics to turn people against each other. “Don’t shoot!” Perfect timing, because it’s 2015, and here comes the presidential election. The months tick by. Trump does well. “I consider myself the presumptive nominee.” Then several members of his campaign get approached by people with ties to Russia. Those people claim to have information that can hurt the Hillary Clinton campaign. See, the Russians don’t like Clinton. They don’t want her to become president. They say that she meddled in Russian affairs when she was secretary of state. But Trump — “Wouldn’t it be nice if we actually got along with Russia?” Then we learned that Russian hackers had infiltrated the Democratic National Committee’s computer system. And just over a month later, Wikileaks publishes 20,000 hacked Democratic emails. All of this makes the F.B.I. more suspicious of Russian meddling and suspicious of ties between Trump campaign aides and Moscow. Trump’s campaign chairman at the time, Paul Manafort, denies this. “We have no relationship.” The F.B.I. investigates. Then — election victory, and the stakes get higher. President Obama gets ready to leave office. But before he does — “The Russians were responsible for hacking the D.N.C.” — he announces new sanctions on Russia. Enter Michael Flynn, Trump’s soon-to-be national security adviser. He urges Russia’s U.S. ambassador from Moscow not to retaliate over those Obama sanctions. Russia agrees. That’s a problem because Trump hasn’t been inaugurated yet. Flynn isn’t part of the U.S. government. He may have broken federal law by doing this. Then — “So help me God.” Soon Flynn has to resign because he misled the vice president and others — “I was disappointed.” — about those conversations with the Russian ambassador. These chats become part of the F.B.I. investigation into Russian ties with the Trump campaign. The day after Flynn resigns, Trump meets with F.B.I. Director James Comey. According to Comey, Trump asked him to stop investigating Flynn. “I took it as this is what he wants me to do.” Three months after that meeting, Trump fires Comey. According to the White House — “He fired him because he was not fit to do the job. It’s that simple.” Eight days later, the Justice Department taps former F.B.I. Director Robert Mueller to lead the investigation now that Comey is gone. His inquiry now includes Comey’s firing. Did Trump try to obstruct the investigation by asking Comey to stop investigating Flynn? Let’s move ahead to five months after Mueller took the job. He begins charging several Trump associates with a variety of crimes, like lying to the F.B.I. and bank fraud. See, that’s important because they may have information that helps Mueller’s investigation. He can offer them lesser punishments in exchange for that information. Now it’s been almost 11 months since Mueller took over the investigation. And who gets caught up in this? Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer. He’s mostly charged with crimes that aren’t part of the Mueller investigation. “Mr. Cohen will continue to cooperate.” But Mueller wants to talk to him to see if he knows anything about Trump business dealings in Russia while Trump was running for president. “How do you feel about you may have changed an election?” By the time Cohen testifies before Congress, it’s clear he’s done being loyal to Trump. “He is a racist. He is a con man. And he is a cheat.” And so we come to the present, about five years since Russia annexed Crimea. The investigation — “You wouldn’t oversee a witch hunt, would you?” — speculation — “There was no anything, so that’s the nice part.” — and anticipation — “Robert Mueller may be ready to submit his findings.” — are all in the past. Only the future will tell us how the Mueller report will go down in American history.