Last Updated June 3, 2019

On April 18, 2019, a redacted copy of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s “Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election” (Mueller Report) was released to the public. The Mueller report builds on the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that there were two campaigns to elect Donald Trump— one run by Trump and one run by the Russian government. The Mueller report clearly identified collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, despite repeated denials from Trump and many of his senior advisers and close associates that there were any connections between the two campaigns.

A total of 272 contacts between Trump’s team and Russia-linked operatives have been identified, including at least 38 meetings. And we know that at least 33 high-ranking campaign officials and Trump advisers were aware of contacts with Russia-linked operatives during the campaign and transition, including Trump himself. None of these contacts were ever reported to the proper authorities. Instead, the Trump team tried to cover up every single one of them.

Beyond the many lies the Trump team told to the American people, Mueller himself repeatedly remarked on how far the Trump team was willing to go to hide their Russian contacts, stating, “the investigation established that several individuals affiliated with the Trump Campaign lied to the Office, and to Congress, about their interactions with Russian-affiliated individuals and related matters. Those lies materially impaired the investigation of Russian election interference.”

Below is a comprehensive chronological list of the contacts that have been discovered to date and some of the many lies Trump’s campaign, transition team, and White House told to hide them.

Extensive reporting, subsequent admissions, and special counsel Mueller’s indictments and report have revealed at least 272 contacts between the Trump team and Russia-linked operatives, despite repeated denials. Among these contacts were 38 meetings (which include Skype calls), which are highlighted below.

At least 33 high-level campaign officials and Trump advisers had or were aware of contacts between the Trump team and Russia, including Trump and the three successive people who ran his campaign.

Yet none of them ever revealed to federal law enforcement that the Russians were seeking to interfere with the election by aiding the campaign.

Trump, by signing a Letter of Intent for the Trump Tower Moscow deal that was addressed to a Russian developer, had contact with Russians during the campaign. Other members of the Trump team who had contacts with Russians during the campaign or transition include:

Michael Cohen

Donald Trump Jr.

Paul Manafort

Jared Kushner

Michael Flynn

George Papadopoulos

Roger Stone

Jeff Sessions

Hope Hicks

Rhona Graff

J.D. Gordon

Carter Page

Erik Prince

Anthony Scaramucci

Rick Gates

Michael Caputo

Ivanka Trump

Avrahm Berkowitz

A number of other campaign officials were reportedly aware of contacts with Russia-linked operatives, including:

Corey Lewandowski

Hope Hicks

Sam Clovis

Stephen Miller

K.T. McFarland

Tom Bossert

Kellyanne Conway

Reince Priebus

Stephen Bannon

Sean Spicer

John Mashburn

David Bossie

Brad Parscale

Walid Phares

36 of these contacts, including 3 meetings, were with individuals alleged to have links to Russian intelligence.

88 of these contacts, including 13 meetings, were held after Trump received his first intelligence briefing as a presidential candidate on August 17, 2016, when he was specifically warned about Russian attempts to infiltrate his campaign.

Despite the overwhelming number of contacts and widespread knowledge within the Trump team about them, the Trump campaign issued numerous blanket denials of contacts with Russia. Here are 15 examples:

July 24, 2016: Trump’s Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort appeared on ABC’s “This Week” and George Stephanopoulos asked him, “Are there any ties between Mr. Trump, you or your campaign and Putin and his regime?” To which Manafort responded, “No, there are not. That’s absurd. And you know, there’s no basis to it.” July 24, 2016: Donald Trump Jr. appeared on CNN and told Jake Tapper that the Clinton campaign’s suggestion that Russia was helping Trump was “disgusting” and “phony,” noting, “Well, it just goes to show you their exact moral compass. I mean, they will say anything to be able to win this. I mean, this is time and time again, lie after lie.” July 27, 2016:Trump appeared on a CBS Miami news station and, in response to allegations that Russia was trying to help him win the election, told Jim DeFed, “I can tell you I think if I came up with that they’d say, ‘Oh, it’s a conspiracy theory, it’s ridiculous’ … I mean I have nothing to do with Russia. I don’t have any jobs in Russia. I’m all over the world but we’re not involved in Russia.” October 24, 2016:At a rally in Tampa, Florida, Trump stated he has “nothing to do with Russia, folks. I’ll give you a written statement.” November 11, 2016:Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks gave the Associated Press a blanket denial of Trump campaign contacts with Russia, stating, “It never happened. There was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign.” December 18, 2016:Kellyanne Conway went on “Face the Nation,” and John Dickerson asked her, “Did anyone involved … in the Trump campaign have any contact with Russians trying to meddle with the election?” Conway responded, “Absolutely not. And I discussed that with the president-elect just last night. Those conversations never happened. I hear people saying it like it’s a fact on television. That is just not only inaccurate and false, but it’s dangerous.” January 10, 2017:At a hearing for Jeff Sessions’ nomination for the position of attorney general, Senator Al Franken asked him what he would do if there was evidence “that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this campaign.” Sessions replied, “I’m not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it.” January 15, 2017: Vice President-elect Mike Pence went on “Fox News Sunday,” and Chris Wallace asked him, “So, I’m asking a direct question: was there any contact in any way between Trump or his associates and the Kremlin or cutouts they had?” Pence replied, “Of course not. Why would there be any contacts between the campaign? January 15, 2017: That same day, Pence also went on “Face the Nation,” where Dickerson asked him, “Just to button up one question, did any adviser or anybody in the Trump campaign have any contact with the Russians who were trying to meddle in the election?” Pence replied, “Of course not. And I think to suggest that is to give credence to some of these bizarre rumors that have swirled around the candidacy.” February 16, 2017:Trump held a press conference and told reporters, “Russia is a ruse. I know you have to get up and ask a question. It’s so important. Russia is a ruse. I have nothing to do with Russia. Haven’t made a phone call to Russia in years. Don’t speak to people from Russia. Not that I wouldn’t. I just have nobody to speak to. I spoke to Putin twice. He called me on the election. I told you this. And he called me on the inauguration, a few days ago. We had a very good talk, especially the second one, lasted for a pretty long period of time. I’m sure you probably get it because it was classified. So I’m sure everybody in this room perhaps has it. But we had a very, very good talk. I have nothing to do with Russia. To the best of my knowledge no person that I deal with does.” February 19, 2017: White House Chief of Staff Reince Preibus went on “Fox News Sunday,” and when Wallace asked whether the Trump team had any connections to Russia, Preibus said “No.” Preibus later went on to add, “Let me give you an example. First of all, The New York Timesput out an article with no direct sources that said that the Trump campaign had constant contacts with Russian spies, basically, you know, some treasonous type of accusations. We have now all kinds of people looking into this. I can assure you and I have been approved to say this—that the top levels of the intelligence community have assured me that that story is not only inaccurate, but it’s grossly overstated and it was wrong. And there’s nothing to it.” February 20, 2017: White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders denied contacts between Russia and the Trump campaign, stating, “This is a nonstory because to the best of our knowledge, no contacts took place, so it’s hard to make a comment on something that never happened.” February 24, 2017: At a White House press briefing, Sean Spicer was asked whether “the President has an improper relationship with Russia” and responded, “He has no interests in Russia. He has no—there’s only so many times he can deny something that doesn’t exist.” May 11, 2017:In an interview with NBC, Trump told Lester Holt, “I have had dealings over the years where I sold a house to a very wealthy Russian many years ago. I had the Miss Universe pageant—which I owned for quite a while—I had it in Moscow a long time ago. But other than that I have nothing to do with Russia.” Later in the interview, when discussing the firing of former FBI Director James Comey, Trump stated, “And in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself—I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. It’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election they should’ve won.” May 18, 2017: At a press conference in May 2017, Trump repeatedly denied any collusion occurred between his campaign and Russia, at one point stating, “[T]he entire thing has been a witch hunt. And there is no collusion between, certainly, myself and my campaign, but I can only speak for myself and the Russians—zero.”

Appendix:

Numerous other contacts have surfaced throughout the Russia investigation that this report does not count in the overall tally.

The Mueller report states that in January 2017, “around the time of the Presidential Inauguration,” Manafort met with Kilimnik and Ukrainian oligarch Serhiy Lyovochkin. The exact date of this meeting is unclear, although a footnote in the Mueller report states “1/19/17 & 1/22/17 Kilimnik CBP Records.” Since this date period covers Trump’s inauguration, it is unclear whether this contact took place during the transition or post-inauguration, and this report does not count this meeting as a contact.

The Mueller report makes it clear that Putin directed numerous Russian businessmen to establish contact with the Trump transition team. Russian oligarch Petr Aven, the head of Alfa Bank, provided the Special Counsel’s office with an interview on this topic. Aven stated that there are approximately 50 oligarchs who regularly meet with Putin and noted that he “understood that any suggestions or critiques that Putin made during these meetings were implicit directives, and that there would be consequences for Aven if he did not follow through.” In a one-on-one meeting with Putin after the 2016 election, Putin suggested to Aven that he needed to protect himself and Alfa Bank from U.S. sanctions. In response, Aven told Putin he would try to establish communication with the incoming administration. Aven got in touch with former U.S. diplomat Richard Burt and asked him to establish communication with the Trump team. Burt approached Simes, who was at the time “lobbying the Trump Transition Team, on Burt’s behalf, to appoint Burt U.S. ambassador to Russia.” Burt asked Simes to arrange a meeting with Kushner, but Simes informed the Special Counsel that he declined this offer. Burt then emailed Aven, informing him that he had been unsuccessful, and Aven relayed that message to Putin in an early 2017 meeting. Aven was also subpoenaed by the FBI, and he informed Putin’s chief of staff “that he had been asked by the FBI about whether he had worked to create a back channel between the Russian government and the Trump Administration.” Aven’s attempts at contacting the Trump team are not listed above because they did not move past individuals who are considered to be Russian intermediaries; his attempt appears to have gotten as far as Simes, who is considered to be an intermediary for the Russian government, but was not passed on to the Trump team. The Mueller report’s discussion of Aven’s outreach does indicate that other Russian oligarchs may have had similar meetings with Putin and may have been given similar directives, and it is unknown if any other oligarchs were successful in their outreach.

According to the Mueller report, Peter Smith was a Republican operative who attempted to find deleted Clinton emails during the campaign. After being directed by Trump to find the emails, Flynn contacted Smith “in an effort to obtain the emails,” and Smith subsequently claimed that a company he had set up had organized meetings with parties with “ties and affiliations to Russia,” although the report notes that “the investigation did not identify evidence that any such meetings occurred.” The report also states, “associates and security experts who worked with Smith on the initiative did not believe that Smith was in contact with Russian hackers and were aware of no such connection,” and the investigation “did not establish that Smith was in contact with Russian hackers.” It is unclear when Smith’s alleged contact with Russian hackers occurred, and the identities of the individuals he believed to be Russian hackers are unknown. This report does not count these contacts, as Smith’s associates, subject matter experts, and the Special Counsel all had unanswered questions about whether the contact occurred.

Dmitri Simes is the President and CEO of the Center for the National Interest (CNI). Simes was born in the Soviet Union and later immigrated to the U.S. The Mueller report notes that “Simes personally has many contacts with current and former Russian government officials,” and CNI boasted that it had “unparalleled access to Russian officials.” Kushner repeatedly sought Simes’ advice on Russia-related issues, once even asking his assistant to confirm with Simes whether then-Russian ambassador Kislyak was “the right guy.” While there were a number of contacts between Simes and the campaign, as noted below, the Mueller report states “the investigation did not identify evidence that the Campaign passed or received any messages to or from the Russian government through CNI or Simes.” Given that the report does not establish that CNI or Simes passed information to or from the Russian government, the following contacts noted in the Mueller report have not been included for purposes of this report:

The Mueller report states that beginning in June 2016, the Internet Research Agency (IRA) contacted “U.S. persons affiliated with the Trump campaign,” claiming to be U.S. political activists. The IRA requested “signs and other materials to use at rallies,” and “certain campaign volunteers agreed to provide the requested support.” As the Mueller report makes it clear that the campaign was unaware these contacts were coming from Russia, these contacts are not included in the list above.

Biographical Notes:

Felix Sater is a Russian-American real-estate developer and a longtime Trump business partner. Throughout the Trump campaign, Sater worked on the Trump Tower Moscow deal, acting as a broker between the Trump Organization and Michael Cohen and various Russian individuals who were involved in the project. This report includes contacts where Sater operated as an intermediary and conveyed information between the Trump team and Russia-linked operatives.

George Nader is a Lebanese-American businessman with extensive contacts in the Middle East. Nader helped broker meetings between Erik Prince and RDIF head Kirill Dmitriev, and these contacts are included in the report above.

Rob Goldstone is a British publicist who worked on behalf of Russian pop singer Emin Agalarov and his father, Russian oligarch Aras Agalarov. The Mueller report states that Goldstone represented Emin Agalarov from 2012 to 2016 and “facilitated the ongoing contact between the Trumps and the Agalarovs.” Goldstone was instrumental in setting up the infamous June 9th, 2016 Trump Tower meeting, which he did explicitly on behalf of Emin Agalarov. The Mueller report notes that Goldstone “facilitated the ongoing contact between the Trumps and the Agalarvos,” and this report considers him to be an intermediary working on behalf of Russia-linked operatives.

Dmitry Klokov is a Russian energy executive and, according to the Mueller report, a “former aide to Russia’s minister of energy.” In November 2015, Klokov’s wife at the time, Lana Erchova, emailed Ivanka Trump and stated “if you ask anyone who knows Russian to google my husband Dmitry Klokov, you’ll see who he is close to and that he has done Putin’s political campaigns.” Cohen initially mistakenly believed that Klokov was a Russian athlete. In subsequent emails with Cohen, Klokov proposed arranging a meeting between Trump and an individual who Klokov initially described as “our person of interest.” According to the Mueller report, Klokov’s wife later identified this “person of interest” as Putin.

Giorgi Rtskhiladze is a Russian business executive who had previously worked with the Trump Organization on a failed project in Georgia. The Mueller report states that Cohen was in touch with him about the Trump Tower Moscow deal “in part because Rtskhiladze had pursued business ventures in Moscow, including a licensing deal with the Agalarov-owned Crocus Group.” Rtskhiladze forwarded an email about the project to an associate and suggested that they “organize the meeting in New York at the highest level of the Russian Government.” In a later email to Cohen, Rtskhiladze suggested that they send a letter to the Mayor of Moscow. According to the Mueller report, Rtskhiladze repeatedly represented himself as a link between the Russian government and the Trump team, and this report considers him to be an intermediary working on behalf of Russia-linked operatives.

Robert Foresman is an investment banker who, according to the Mueller report, was tasked by a Russian presidential aide with inviting Trump to an economic forum in St. Petersburg. After receiving this request, he began reaching out to Graff to try to secure a meeting with Trump. Foresman boasted about his “long-standing personal and professional expertise in Russia and Ukraine, his work setting up an early ‘private channel between Vladimir Putin and former U.S. President George W. Bush, and an approach’ he had received from ‘senior Kremlin officials’ about the candidate.” Shortly before Gorkov met with Kushner in December 2016, Foresman also met with Gorkov and one of his deputies in Moscow. Although Foresman denied any plans to establish a backchannel to Trump and claimed that the Russian official had also extended invitations through him to other candidates, the Mueller report states that he did pass along an explicit invitation from a Russian government official to the Trump team, and this report considers him to be an intermediary working on behalf of Russia-linked operatives.

Sergei Millian is an American citizen who was born in Belarus and, according to the Mueller report, claimed to have “insider knowledge and direct access to the top hierarchy in Russian politics.” The Special Counsel’s office investigated Millian’s contacts with Papadopoulos but was “not fully able to explore the contact because [Millian] remained out of the country since the inception of [the] investigation and declined to meet with members of the Office.” After meeting in person with Millian, Papadopoulos emailed a campaign official saying that he had been contacted “by some leaders of Russian-American voters here in the US about their interest in voting for Mr. Trump.” Due to Millian’s claim to have access “to the top hierarchy in Russian politics,” this report considers him to be an intermediary working on behalf of Russia-linked operatives.

Rick Gerson is a hedge fund manager and a friend of Jared Kushner. According to the Mueller report, during the campaign, he worked with Dmitriev on a proposal regarding U.S. Russia relations “which Dmitriev implied he cleared through Putin.” Gerson passed the proposal to Kushner and immediately told Dmitriev he had passed it along. Gerson noted that he did not have a formal role in the campaign or transition “other than occasional casual discussions about the Campaign with Kushner,” although he did arrange several high-profile meetings for transition officials. He also told Dmitriev that he would arrange introductions between Dmitriev and the incoming administration. Due to his work communicating with the Trump team on Dmitriev’s behalf, this report considers him to be an intermediary working on behalf of Russia-linked operatives.

Andrew Intrater is the American CEO of Columbus Nova, LLC and the cousin of Ukrainian-born billionaire and close Putin ally Viktor Vekselberg. Vekselberg controls the Renova Group, and both Vekselberg and the Renova Group were sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in April 2018 because of Vekselberg’s ties to Putin and the Russian government. The Cohen search warrant described Columbus Nova as “an investment management firm controlled by Renova Group,” although the company has denied being under Vekselberg’s control and claims to be “solely owned and controlled by Americans.” Columbus Nova donated $250,000 to Trump’s inagural committee and paid Cohen $500,000 as part of a consulting contract. Due to his close personal and professional ties to Vekselberg, this report considers Intrater to be a Russia-linked intermediary, and contacts between Cohen and Intrater are included above. Between November 8, 2016 and July 14, 2017, Cohen and Intrater communicated 1,180 times, including “over 230 telephone calls and 950 text messages.” At least some of these contacts between Intrater and Cohen were specifically about Vekselberg. This report counts two of these contacts that clearly occurred during the campaign and transition periods, but this is a conservative estimate. The number of contacts between Cohen and Intrater that occurred prior to Trump’s inauguration is likely much higher than what is counted in this report.

Methodological notes:

In determining the number of contacts, in some cases it is unclear exactly how many contacts occurred. For example, the Papadopoulos indictment says at one point that he had “several email and Skype exchanges.” In these situations, the authors used the conservative estimate of two contacts.

In this document, the authors consider Wikileaks and its founder, Julian Assange, to be Russia-linked operatives. The authors base this determination, in part, on the words of Trump’s own former CIA Director Mike Pompeo who called WikiLeaks a “non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia” and referred to Assange as an individual who poses “very real threats to our country.” Furthermore, the January 2017 intelligence community report stated, “We assess with high confidence that the GRU used the Guccifer 2.0 persona, DCLeaks.com, and WikiLeaks to release US victim data obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets.” The report also stated that the GRU “relayed material it acquired from the DNC and senior Democratic officials to WikiLeaks,” and noted that “the Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet RT (formerly Russia Today) has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks.”

The Mueller report states, “During the campaign period, Papadopoulos connected over LinkedIn with several MFA-affiliated individuals in addition to Timofeev. On April 25, 2016, he connected with Dmitry Andreyko, publicly identified as a First Secretary at the Russian Embassy in Ireland. In July 2016, he connected with Yuriy Melnik, the spokesperson for the Russian Embassy in Washington and with Alexey Krasilnikov, publicly identified as a counselor with the MFA. And on September 16, 2016, he connected with Sergei Nalobin, also identified as an MFA official.” This report does not consider the act of connecting with an individual over LinkedIn to be a contact unless there is an indication that the two parties exchanged an actual message. Papadopoulos did message Millian over LinkedIn several times, and those are counted in the list above. If further reporting indicates that Papadopoulos sent any of the aforementioned individuals personalized messages when connecting with them (or after connecting), those will be counted as separate contacts.