A Complete List of Meetings Between Trump Associates and Russians (2013-present)
Contrary to vehement denials by Donald Trump and company, there were a number of meetings between Trump associates and agents of Vladimir Putin. This is an accounting of those meetings, as well as a timeline that puts them into appropriate narrative context.
The most important meetings are as follows:
27 April, 2016: Mayflower Hotel, Washington (“Mayflower”)
At his VIP-only foreign policy speech attended by most of his inner circle, Donald Trump promises a “good deal” for Russia. Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak attends, in breach of protocol. Also present: Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner, who arranged the event at the last minute; Jeff Sessions; foreign policy advisers J.D. Gordon and Walid Phares; Stephen Miller; the oil lobbyists Bud McFarlane and Richard Burt, who helped craft the speech; Donald Trump, Jr.; Corey Lewandowski and Hope Hicks; the ambassadors to Singapore, Italy, and the Philippines; Dimitri K. Simes, president of the Center for the National Interest, the event’s host, and Jacob Heilbrunn, also of CNI, who planned the event. (Look here for more info). Implicit in Trump’s speech is a promise to play ball with Putin if elected.
9 June, 2016: Trump Tower, New York (“I’d Love It”)
Donald Trump, Jr. arranges a meeting with the Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskya, who promises “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. Also in attendance are Manafort and Kushner, representing the Trump campaign, and on the Russian side, Russian-American businessman Rinat Akhmetshin, money laundering expert Ike Kaveladze, the translator Anatoly Samochornov, and publicist Rob Goldstone, who helped set up the meeting. That afternoon, for the first time, Trump begins tweeting about Hillary’s “missing” emails.
1–5 July, 2016: New Economic School, Moscow, Russia (“Page Trip #1”)
Carter Page travels to Moscow, with his expenses paid for by Russians. While there, he meets with top Russian government officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Arcadiy Dvorkovich and Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin. Page asks for permission to take the trip from Gordon and is denied; he then goes to Corey Lewandowski and Hope Hicks, who give him the green light. When he gets back, he explains he got “some incredible insights” from his Moscow meetings.
18–21 July, 2016: Republican National Convention, Cleveland (“RNC”)
Exactly one change is made to the long Republican platform, aligning the GOP’s official position on Ukraine/Crimea with Putin’s. J.D. Gordon will admit that this was in accordance with Trump’s wishes. Ambassador Kislyak is in attendance, meeting with Jeff Sessions after a July 18 Heritage Foundation soiree and with Trump advisers Carter Page and J.D. Gordon after a convention-related Global Partners in Diplomacy event at Case Western Reserve University on July 20.
Late August, 2016: [undisclosed], Prague, Czech Republic (?) (“Prague”)
Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen allegedly meets with Russian officials. He denies traveling to Prague, and this meeting, outlined in the Steele dossier, remains unconfirmed.
8 September, 2016: Capitol Hill, Washington (“Sessions”)
Senator Jeff Sessions and two undisclosed aides meet in his Senate office with Ambassador Kislyak. Sessions will lie under oath about this meeting, omitting its mention.
1–2 December, 2016: Trump Tower, New York (“Backchannel”)
Jared Kushner and Mike Flynn meet with Ambassador Kislyak; Kushner proposes an embassy backchannel, to avoid having to disclose communication between the two parties. Kislyak is “snuck” into Trump Tower, suggesting a secret entrance, perhaps through the offices of Carter Page, next door.
8 December, 2016: Rosneft, Moscow, Russia (“Page Trip #2”)
Carter Page meets with Rosneft senior executives in Moscow.
13–14 December, 2016: [undisclosed], New York (?) (“VEB”)
Jared Kushner meets somewhere near Newark Airport with Sergei Gorkov, CEO of Vnesheconombank, or VEB, the state bank of Russia.
Late January, 2016: [undisclosed hotel], New York (“Envelope”)
Michael Cohen and former Trump business partner/alleged Russian mob affiliate Felix Sater meet with Andrii V. Artemenko, a Ukrainian politician, to negotiate sanctions. Cohen delivers their proposal to then-NatSec Adviser Mike Flynn.
9 May, 2017: White House, Washington (“Oval Office”)
One day after firing FBI Director James Comey, Trump holds a closed-door meeting with Kislyak and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in the Oval Office. Details are not released.
Below is a list of these meetings on a timeline, along with other key events. For further reading, please see my archive of Trump/Russia pieces @TheWeeklings.
Pre-Campaign
March/April 2013
Edward Snowden begins work as a contractor for Booz Allen, based in Hawaii. He takes the job to steal files from the NSA headquarters there.
Spring, 2013
Michael Flynn, then director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, travels to Moscow, where he becomes the second DIA director to be invited into the headquarters of Russia’s military intelligence directorate, known as the GRU, although he will later boast that he was the first. “‘Flynn thought he developed some rapport with the GRU chief,’ a former senior U.S. military official said.”
March/April 2013
Using the pseudonym Carlos Danger, disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner sends lewd photos of himself to a 22-year-old Formspring user, later revealed as Sydney Leathers.
March/April, 2013
Russian hacker Yevgeniy Aleksandrovich Nikulin hacks into “accessed computers belonging to LinkedIn, Dropbox and Formspring,” obtaining information from the computers and causing “damage to computers belonging to a LinkedIn employee and to Formspring by transmitting a program, information, code, or command.” Too, Nikulin “used the credentials of LinkedIn and Formspring employees in connection with the computer intrusions” and “engaged in a conspiracy with unnamed co-conspirators to traffic stolen Formspring user credentials,” per the US DOJ.
4 April, 2013
Colonel Alexander Kazalupov, the Cuba bureau chief of the FSB (Russian intelligence), flies to Quito to meet with agents of SENAIN, the Ecuadorian intelligence agency, most likely about Snowden.
5 April, 2013
Snowden writes his only legal email to the NSA, asking about Executive Orders.
8 April, 2013
Russian intelligence attempts to recruit Carter Page.
April, 2013
Snowden steals tranche of classified documents from NSA.
May, 2013
Snowden travels to Hong Kong, where he hands stolen data to Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras.
8 May, 2013
Formspring shuts down.
4 June, 2013
The stolen NSA documents are published.
9 June, 2013
Snowden reveals his identity as NSA whistleblower.
15 June, 2013
The Putin-aligned real estate oligarch Aras Agalarev and his pop singer son Emin, who are organizing Miss Universe in Moscow, meet with Donald Trump in Las Vegas.
18 June, 2013
Donald Trump announces, via Twitter, that Miss Universe will be held in Moscow. “Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant,” he tweets. “[I]f so, will he become my new best friend?” Trump claims to have a relationship with Putin, in an interview with NBC. “I do have a relationship and I can tell you that he’s very interested in what we’re doing here today.”
June, 2013
Trump claims to have a relationship with Putin, in an interview with NBC. “I do have a relationship and I can tell you that he’s very interested in what we’re doing here today.”
21 June, 2013
The United States formally charges Edward Snowden with espionage.
22 June, 2013
The United States revokes Snowden’s passport. Julian Assange arranges Ecuadorian travel papers so that Snowden can fly to Moscow.
23 June, 2013
Snowden flies to Moscow, spends 40 days trapped at the airport.
23 July, 2013
Anthony Weiner‘s Carlos Danger “sexting” scandal becomes public.
8 July, 2013
When questioned about his associate Felix Sater’s connections to Russian organized crime (OC), Trump ends the interview.
1 August, 2013
Snowden is granted asylum in Russia.
28 August, 2013
Anthony Weiner’s wife, longtime Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, announces that the two have separated.
8–11 November, 2013
Donald Trump is in Moscow for the Miss Universe beauty pageant. He stays at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, in which suite the alleged “golden shower” tape was secretly filmed by the FSB.
18 March, 2014
Russia annexes the Crimea.
March/April 2014
The US imposes economic sanctions on Russia as a consequence of its invasion of Ukraine.
30 April, 2014
Defense Intelligence Agency director Mike Flynn announces plans to “retire” from the military.
Spring, 2014
During a number of interviews, Donald Trump praises Vladimir Putin, whom he claims to have met while in Moscow.
7 August, 2014
Mike Flynn is forced out of his position as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
10 October 2014
Sanctions scuttle a deal between Russia and Exxon that would have netted Putin an estimated $500 billion. While CEO of Exxon, Rex Tillerson signs a deal with Russia to drill in the Arctic; for this, he receives the Order of Friendship by Vladimir Putin. The Arctic project is scuttled on October 10, 2014, after the sanctions imposed on Russia by the U.S. government. At the time, Exxon has discovered a new field with an estimated 750 million barrels of oil.
The Campaign
June, 2015
“Cozy Bear” or “APT 29,” hackers working at the behest of the main security service of the Russian government (FSB), successfully hack the servers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), stealing the party’s opposition research on Donald Trump.
16 June, 2015
Donald Trump launches his run for president at Trump Tower in New York.
September/October, 2015
The FBI notifies the DNC that they have been hacked, but offers no specifics.
9 November, 2015
Jared Kushner formally takes over social media operations for the Trump campaign.
December 2015
Disgraced former general Mike Flynn gives a talk at a gala for RT, the Russian state-owned network, and is paid by the Kremlin. He sits next to Putin at the dinner, at the same table with eventual Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
February, 2016
Mike Flynn joins Trump campaign as adviser.
21–22 March, 2016
In an interview with the Washington Post, Donald Trump lists among his foreign policy team “Carter Page, PhD.” Curiously, Trump does not list Michael Flynn among his advisers. The New York Times runs a story on Trump’s no-name foreign adviser team, explaining that Carter Page is “a managing partner at Global Energy Capital, who will be advising Mr. Trump on energy policy and Russia.” Another managing partner there is Sergei Millian, founder of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce, who claimed to be the exclusive broker for Trump real estate ventures in Russia. Millian is reported to be “Source E” in the Steele dossier.
Also on Trump’s foreign policy team: George Papadopoulos. Papadopoulos operates a liaison between the Trump campaign and Putin. He sends an email to the NatSec team indicating that Moscow wanted to meet, and possibly had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.
28 March, 2016
Paul Manafort joins the Trump campaign as an unpaid adviser. He’d wangled the job through Tom Barrack, one of Trump’s closest friends.
27 April, 2016: Mayflower Hotel, Washington (“Mayflower”)
At his VIP-only foreign policy speech attended by most of his inner circle, Donald Trump promises a “good deal” for Russia. Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak attends, in breach of protocol. Also present: Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner, who arranged the event; Jeff Sessions; foreign policy advisers J.D. Gordon and Walid Phares; Stephen Miller; the oil lobbyists Bud McFarlane and Richard Burt, who wrote the speech; Donald Trump, Jr.; Corey Lewandowski and Hope Hicks; the ambassadors to Singapore, Italy, and the Philippines; Dimitri K. Simes, president of the Center for the National Interest, the event’s host, and Jacob Heilbrunn, also of CNI, who planned the event. (Look here for more info). Implicit in his speech is a promise to play ball with Putin if elected.
27–29 May, 2016
Vladimir Putin is in Athens, Greece — his only visit to Europe between 2015 and the election. George Papadopoulos, the intermediary between the Trump campaign and the Russians, is also in Athens. They meet with many of the same people.
May/June 2016
Michael Flynn’s name is bandied about as a possible “Dark Horse” choice for Trump’s VP.
June, 2016
CrowdStrike releases evidence of Fancy/Cozy Bear’s involvement in the DNC hacks. A shadowy figure called Guccifer 2.0 begins releasing the emails, and claims responsibility for the hacks. It is widely believed Guccifer 2.0 is an online persona and not a real person.
June, 2016
The Trump social media campaign, headed by Jared Kushner, begins to work with Cambridge Analytica, a British firm in which hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer and Breitbart’s Steve Bannon have a financial stake.
9 June, 2016: Trump Tower, New York (“I’d Love It”)
Donald Trump, Jr. arranges a meeting with the Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskya, who promises “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. Also in attendance are Manafort and Kushner, representing the Trump campaign, and on the Russian side, Russian-American businessman Rinat Akhmetshin, money laundering expert Ike Kaveladze, the translator Anatoly Samochornov, and publicist Rob Goldstone, who helped set up the meeting. That afternoon, for the first time, Trump begins tweeting about Hillary’s “missing” emails.
14 June, 2016
The Washington Post reports that the DNC computers were hacked by the Russian government. (h/t Just Security for the Stone/Guccifer timeline).
15 June, 2016
Guccifer 2.0 claims sole responsibility for the DNC hack.
21 June, 2016
Corey Lewandowski is fired as campaign manager and replaced by Paul Manafort.
1–5 July, 2016: New Economic School, Moscow, Russia (“Page Trip #1”)
Carter Page travels to Moscow, with his expenses paid for by Russians. While there, he meets with top Russian government officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Arcadiy Dvorkovich and Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin. Page asks for permission to take the trip from Gordon and is denied; he then goes to Corey Lewandowski and Hope Hicks, who give him the green light. When he gets back, he explains that he got “some incredible insights” from his Moscow meetings.
16 July, 2016
Paul Manafort convinces Trump to select Indiana governor Mike Pence as his running mate.
18–21 July, 2016: Republican National Convention, Cleveland (“RNC”)
Exactly one change is made to the long Republican platform, aligning the GOP’s official position on Ukraine/Crimea with Putin’s. J.D. Gordon will admit that this was in accordance with Trump’s wishes. Ambassador Kislyak is in attendance, meeting with Jeff Sessions after a July 18 Heritage Foundation soiree and with Trump advisers Carter Page and J.D. Gordon after a convention-related Global Partners in Diplomacy event at Case Western Reserve University on July 20.
19 July, 2016
FBI counterintelligence warns Trump and his associates that Russia may attempt to infiltrate the campaign, orders them to contact FBI if this happens.
28 July, 2016
Donald Trump calls on Russia to help locate 30,000 Hillary Clinton emails that he believes had been deleted.
5 August, 2016
Roger Stone claims Guccifer 2.0 and not Russia hacked the DNC in a piece published by Breitbart, which is owned by Robert Mercer.
8 August, 2016
On video, Roger Stone claims to have communicated with Julian Assange.
12 August, 2016
Guccifer 2.0 releases records it says were stolen via a breach of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). @GUCCIFER_2 tweets at Stone: “thanks that u believe in the real #Guccifer2″
13 August, 2016
Roger Stone tweets at @wikileaks @GUCCIFER_2 complaining that the latter’s account has been suspended. Then he tweets that Guccifer is a “HERO”
15 August, 2016
In a DM exchange on Twitter, Guccifer 2.0 asks Roger Stone: “do you find anything interesting in the docs i posted?”
17 August, 2016
Donald Trump is briefed by US intelligence agencies that Russia is implicated in the DNC hack. Guccifer 2.0 writes Stone: “please tell me if i can help u anyhow. it would be a great pleasure to me.”
18 August, 2016
Paul Manafort resigns from chairman of the Trump campaign after the Ukrainian government’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau claimed to have found handwritten records that show $12.7 million in cash payments designated for Manafort, who was adviser to Viktor Yanukovych. The pro-Putin Yanukovych was removed from power in February of 2014, is currently in exile in Russia, and is wanted by Ukraine for high treason.
21 August, 2016
Roger Stone tweets: “Trust me, it will soon the Podesta’s time in the barrel. #CrookedHillary” He is, of course, quite right.
22 August, 2016
Guccifer 2.0 sends to Florida GOP operative Aaron Nevins 2.5 gigabytes of data from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). Nevins posts some of that data on his anonymous Florida politics blog.
Late August, 2016: [undisclosed], Prague, Czech Republic (?) (“Prague”)
Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen allegedly meets with Russian officials. He denies traveling to Prague, and this meeting, outlined in the Steele dossier, remains unconfirmed…perhaps deza planted by the Russians to discredit the dossier.
8 September, 2016: Capitol Hill, Washington (“Sessions”)
Senator Jeff Sessions and two undisclosed aides meet in his Senate office with Ambassador Kislyak. Sessions will lie under oath about this meeting, omitting its mention.
20 September, 2016
Donald Trump, Jr. begins communicating with Wikileaks, an organ of Russian intelligence.
3 October, 2016
The NYPD, acting on a tip from the FBI’s New York field office, seizes Weiner’s laptop.
5 October, 2016
The Russian hacker Nikulin is arrested in Prague. The FBI had issued a “red notice” for his apprehension and calls for his extradition to the U.S. to face charges.
7 October, 2016
Just as Roger Stone predicted, WikiLeaks publishes Podesta’s hacked emails, just two hours after the “Access Hollywood” story (i.e. “pussy grabber”) story breaks.
10 October, 2016
Donald Trump proclaims, “I love Wikileaks!”
12 October, 2016
Wikileaks DMs Donald Trump, Jr. and suggests he tweets out links to the fourth tranche of stolen Podesta emails. Fifteen minutes later, Donald Trump tweets out: “Very little pick-up by the dishonest media of incredible information provided by WikiLeaks. So dishonest! Rigged system!”
14 October, 2016
Donald Trump, Jr. tweets out the links sent to him by Wikileaks.
On Fox & Friends, Mike Pence claims that the Trump campaign is not in “cahoots” with Wikileaks: “Nothing could be further than the truth.”
Sean Hannity tweets this.
18 October, 2016
In his intelligence report, Steele reveals more information about the summer rendezvous between Trump foreign affairs advisor Carter Page and Igor Sechin, a Putin ally on the US sanctions list. “[T]he Rosneft company president was so keen to lift personal and corporate [W]estern sanctions imposed on the company that he offered PAGE/TRUMP’s associates the brokerage of up to a 19 percent (privatized) stake in Rosneft in return. PAGE had expressed interest and confirmed that were TRUMP elected US president, then sanctions on Russia would be lifted.” (Steele dossier, p. 30)
26 October, 2016
Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York and a prominent Trump surrogate, boasts on TV about an October surprise coming that will mortally wound Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
28 October, 2016
FBI director James Comey sends a letter to Congress, revealing the Weiner latop and the possible re-opening of the Hillary/email investigation. The Comey letter is leaked by Jason Chaffetz.
31 October, 2016
The New York Times runs a story with the headline “Investigating Donald Trump, FBI Sees No Clear Link to Russia.” The story is misleading.
4 November, 2016
Rudy Giuliani says that his friends at the FBI told him about the Comey letter October surprise.
8 November, 2016
Donald Trump loses the popular vote by 2.8 million but wins the election via the Electoral College, defying virtually every forecast.
1–2 December, 2016: Trump Tower, New York (“Backchannel”)
Jared Kushner and Mike Flynn meet with Kislyak; Kushner proposes an embassy backchannel, to avoid having to disclose communication between the two parties.
7 December, 2016
Putin and Igor Sechin, head of Russian oil giant Rosneft, announce a plan to privatize 19.5% of the company. The price is 10.2 billion euros.
8 December, 2016: Rosneft, Moscow, Russia (“Page Trip #2”)
Carter Page meets with Rosneft senior executives in Moscow.
12 December, 2016
Carter Page gives a controversial lecture in Moscow. Ivan Nechepurenko, a correspondent for the New York Times, tweets: “U.S. government might have deliberately orchestrated cyberattacks to make it look as though they were coming from Russia, Carter Page says.”
Also on this day: Ex-Exxon CEO and Putin Order of Friendship recipient Rex Tillerson is nominated to be Secretary of State.
13–14 December, 2016: [undisclosed], New York (?) (“VEB”)
Jared Kushner meets somewhere near Newark Airport with Sergey Gorkov, CEO of Vnesheconombank, the state bank of Russia.
16 December, 2016
Wikileaks DMs Donald Trump, Jr., with an unusual request: “In relation to Mr. Assange: Obama/Clinton placed pressure on Sweden, UK and Australia (his home country) to illicitly go after Mr. Assange. It would be real easy and helpful for your dad to suggest that Australia appoint Assange ambassador to [Washington,] DC.”
29 December 2016
President Obama imposes still more sanctions against Russia, as retribution for its attempts to undermine the US election. Michael Flynn, a Trump surrogate who will be named national security adviser, continues his on-going conversations conversations with the Russian ambassador. Flynn denies sanctions were ever discussed, as does Vice President-Elect Mike Pence.
30 December 2016
Putin responds by trolling Obama on social media, and inviting the families of American diplomats to his holiday party. He says he will delay any further response. Trump tweets his approval: “Great move on delay (by V. Putin) — I always knew he was very smart!”
10 January, 2017
After a CNN report alludes to the Steele report, Buzzfeed publishes the Steele dossier in its entirety.
11 January, 2017
In the Seychelles, Blackwater founder and Trump surrogate Erik Prince meets with an unnamed Russian envoy in a rendezvous arranged by the United Arab Emirates.
11 January, 2017
Trump says that the Steele dossier is “all fake news . . . It’s phony stuff. It didn’t happen.” The media focuses almost entirely on the “golden shower” detail. Spokesman Sean Spicer says of Carter Page, who is mentioned by name in the dossier: “Carter Page is an individual who[m] the president-elect does not know and was put on notice months ago by the campaign.”
13 January, 2017
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Trump suggests that Russian sanctions could be lifted if Russia proves an ally.
20 January, 2017
Donald Trump is inaugurated president of the United States.
The New York Times‘ public editor explains the inaccuracies and bad reporting in the October 31 article “Investigating Donald Trump, FBI Sees No Clear Link to Russia.” The Times knew more than it was willing to print.
25 January, 2017
Reuters reports that a month after the Rosneft deal, it is still not clear who exactly purchased the 19.5% stake in the Russian state oil company.
27 January, 2017
In advance of the planned called between President Trump and President Putin, which the latter announced on Russian TV, Kellyanne Conway confirms that the lifting of the Russian sanctions is a possibility. “All of that is under consideration,” she says.
28 January, 2017
Now-President Trump and President Putin speak on the phone for the first time. Neither mention that sanctions are explicitly discussed, although the subject is hinted at.
Late January, 2017: [undisclosed hotel], New York (“Envelope”)
Michael Cohen and former Trump business partner/alleged Russian mob affiliate Felix Sater meet with Andrii V. Artemenko, a Ukrainian politician, to negotiate sanctions. Cohen delivers their proposal to NatSec Adviser Mike Flynn.
1 February, 2017
Russian troops begin to shell eastern Ukraine, escalating the Crimea conflict. Trump makes no comment on this.
2 February, 2017
Trump begins to lift sanctions on Russia, starting with the FSB/intelligence service — the very arm of the Russian government thought to have perpetrated the election hacks.
9 February 2017
The Washington Post reports that nine (nine!) current and former US officials claim that Michael Flynn did, in fact, discuss sanctions with the Russian ambassador in a series of conversations in November and December.
11 February, 2017
Putin floats the idea of returning Edward Snowden to the US to “curry favor” with Trump.
13 February, 2017
After the revelation that he’d “misled” the president and vice president in the nature of his pre-inauguration talks with the Russian ambassador, Mike Flynn resigns as national security adviser. No one in the US defends him, but his ouster is marked by impassioned defenses from Russian lawmakers.
8 May, 2017
Trump fires James Comey, at the behest of Jared Kushner.
9 May, 2017: White House, Washington (“Oval Office”)
One day after firing FBI Director James Comey, Trump holds a closed-door meeting with Kislyak and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in the Oval Office. Details are not released.
7 July, 2017
At the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, Donald Trump meets his benefactor, Vladimir Putin, for (what we think is) the first time.
27 July, 2017
George Papadopoulos is arrested by the FBI at Dulles Airport.
5 October, 2017
George Papadopoulos pleads guilty to lying to the FBI.
30 October, 2017
“Mueller Monday.” Paul Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates, surrender to the FBI. They are indicted on 12 charges, including Conspiracy Against the United States. The indictment against Papadopoulos is announced.
