Is this *the* smoking gun?
Junior is a liar just like his dad. Last night, Donald Trump, Jr. did his best to spin the timing of his likely criminal meeting with a Russian operative — a meeting he took in order to get “high level and sensitive information” described in his own email as part of “Russia and it’s government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
He claims it was eight to 10 months before “Russia mania,” which is flat out wrong. In reality, it was right in the middle of Russia’s cyber attack on the United States. The DNC was hacked by the Russians a full year earlier and the first batch of stolen emails was released by Wikileaks a month later.
In fact, Trump Jr. and Donald Trump’s own words at the time of the meeting proves they knew something was coming and they were all too eager to be a part of it. Now the White House is trying to cover it all up.
Trump Jr. released a series of emails that show he, then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort and now-White House adviser Jared Kushner met with a Russian operative with the sole purpose of getting dirt on the elder Trump’s campaign opponent Hillary Clinton.
How did we get here? Here’s what we know:
2013
Donald Trump hosted the Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow where he met Russian billionaire developer Aras Agalarov and his pop-star son Emin. Trump appeared in a music video for Emin Agalarov whose publicist is Rob Goldstone.
June 16, 2015
Donald Trump announces he’s running for president.
Summer 2015
Russian government hackers broke into the DNC email system.
Feb. 12, 2016
Michael Flynn joins Trump’s campaign as an adviser. Flynn is now under investigation.
March 2016
Paul Manafort and Carter Page join Trump’s campaign. Manafort would later become campaign manager. Both are now under investigation.
April 2016
Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner both have meetings with Russia Ambassador Kislyak. Kushner fails to disclose his conversations.
May 2016
The Department of Homeland Security sent experts to help candidates take measures to protect their campaigns from digital spying.
June 3, 2016
Trump, Jr. got an email from Goldstone that says Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya wanted to meet and share information that could damage Hillary Clinton. The email also said the information was acquired by the Russian government in support of Trump and his campaign.
Veselnitskaya’s associations and work to overturn sanctions on Russian citizens had already drawn the FBI’s attention by the time of the meeting.
After a few days of back-and-forth, a meeting is scheduled and Kushner and Manafort were invited, and forwarded the email.
June 7, 2016
Trump wins officially clinches the Republican nomination, and promises dirt on Clinton in his acceptance speech.
June 9, 2016
3:12 p.m.
According to the Washington Post, Goldstone twice checked in to Trump Tower on Facebook before the scheduled 4 p.m. meeting.
4 p.m.
Trump Jr., Manafort, and Kushner attend the meeting with Veselnitskaya and Goldstone.
Trump Jr. claims Veselnitskaya did not provide the promised useful information and called the meeting a “waste of my time.” Kushner failed to disclose this meeting on his form to obtain a security clearance.
June 13, 2016
Trump promises a “big speech” targeting Clinton directly.
June 15, 2016
DNC announced that its email system was hacked by two Russian-backed groups “Cozy Bear” and “Fancy Bear.” Guccifer 2.0 claims credit. House leaders Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy privately admitted Russia was behind the DNC hack.
July 2016
The FBI begins monitoring Carter Page, essentially kicking off the investigation in to the Trump campaign’s Russia ties.
July 18–19, 2016
During the GOP convention Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak met with Jeff Sessions, Carter Page, JD Gordon, and Walid Phares. Trump aides including Gordon removed a pro-Ukraine amendment from GOP platform.
July 22, 2016
Wikileaks posted 20,000 hacked DNC emails. A few days later, the FBI announced investigation into the hack.
July 27, 2016
Trump called on Russia to release Hillary Clinton’s emails in a speech.
Aug. 8, 2016
Roger Stone promised an “October Surprise” from WikiLeaks.
Aug. 19, 2016
Manafort resigned from the Trump campaign amidst fallout from a report that he received $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments for his work for a pro-Putin political party in Ukraine.
Oct. 7, 2016
The United States government formally accused Russia of attempting to interfere with the election.
Nov. 8, 2016
Trump won the election.
Nov. 14, 2016
Putin called to congratulate Trump.
December 2016
Jared Kushner and Michael Flynn met with Ambassador Kislyak at Trump Tower and Kushner proposed creating a secret back-channel for communications between the transition team and the Kremlin.
Dec. 29, 2016
Obama put sanctions on Russia for interference in the election. Flynn had five phone calls with Ambassador Kislyak and discussed sanctions.
Jan. 6, 2017
DNI released report stating Putin and the Russian government “aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances” through the hacks and the Russian military released emails through the persona Guccifer 2.0 and also relayed the hacked emails to Wikileaks. The FBI, CIA, and NSA supported this conclusion.
Jan. 20, 2017
Trump inaugurated.
Jan. 26, 2017
Acting Attorney General Sally Yates warned White House Counsel Don McGahn that Flynn “essentially could be blackmailed by the Russians.”
Feb. 13, 2017
Michael Flynn resigned as National Security Adviser eighteen days after the White House was warned he was compromised.
March 20, 2017
FBI Director Comey stated publicly for the first time in testimony that the FBI was investigating Russian interference in the election and links between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.
May 9, 2017
Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, claimed in termination letter that Comey gave him assurances on three occasions that he wasn’t under investigation.
May 10, 2017
Trump met with Russian Ambassador Kislyak and Foreign Minister Lavrov in the Oval Office. He gave them highly classified information from an Israeli source and bragged about firing Comey and called him a “nut job.”
May 17, 2017
Former FBI Director Robert Mueller named special counsel in Russia investigation by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. White House counsel was alerted after the fact.
May 18, 2017
Reports out that the FBI investigation includes a person of interest currently employed by the White House and is authorized to include whether White House officials engaged in a cover up.
May 25, 2017
Kushner is confirmed as a focus of the FBI investigation.
June 14, 2017
It’s reported that the special counsel investigation includes examination of whether President Trump obstructed justice.
July 9, 2017
New York Times reports that Trump Jr. met with a Russian lawyer to get damaging information on Clinton. Trump Jr. denies knowing that the lawyer had Kremlin ties or getting any information from the lawyer.
July 11, 2017
11 a.m.
In an attempt to preempt a New York Times story, Trump Jr. releases copies of his email correspondence, which confirms the story.
2 p.m.
Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders gives a press briefing and read a short statement from Trump who applauded Trump Jr.’s “transparency.”
10 p.m.
Trump Jr. went on Sean Hannity’s TV program and claimed that he wasn’t sure if he had meet any other Russians, but definitely didn’t have a formalized meeting because “why would I?”
July 12, 2017
Trump took to Twitter and called the incident with Trump Jr. a “witch hunt.”
Learn more about Trump’s Russia connections here:
