Topical timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections


This is a timeline of events related to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, sorted by topics. It also includes events described in investigations into suspected inappropriate links between associates of Donald Trump and Russian officials. Those investigations continued in 2017, the first and second halves of 2018, and 2019, largely as parts of the Crossfire Hurricane FBI investigation, the Special Counsel investigation, multiple ongoing criminal investigations by several State Attorneys General, and the investigation resulting in the Inspector General report on FBI and DOJ actions in the 2016 election.

Background: presidential election campaign

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was the founder of the Russian "" association, and has worked with Alexander Torshin, who was the Russian Senator from Mari El Republic and Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Russia. From 2011 to 2016, Torshin and Butina developed contacts with the National Rifle Association, the foremost American gun lobby. Paul Erickson is a Republican activist involved in several presidential campaigns, and was a romantic partner of Butina.

Internet Research Agency

The Internet Research Agency is a Russian entity, sometimes called a "troll farm", tasked with coordinating online propaganda efforts to interfere in American elections. It is funded by Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, nicknamed "Putin’s chef", owner of the Concord company group. The IRA's finances were managed by Elena Khusyaynova, a Russian accountant, under the code name "Project Lakhta".
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is a political consultant who had worked for several Republican presidential campaigns in the 1980s and 1990s. He was first appointed convention manager for the Trump campaign in March 2016, then campaign chairman in May and finally campaign manager in June; he resigned in August 2016. Manafort picked his long-time business associate Rick Gates as deputy chairman.
Manafort had lobbied during several years for Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian former president of Ukraine, and his Party of Regions. He was also involved in international business and influence operations for Oleg Deripaska, a Russian aluminum magnate with close ties to Vladimir Putin. From 2005 to 2009, Manafort partnered with Rick Davis to lobby Congress and manage investments on behalf of Deripaska. Manafort often communicated with Deripaska via his "right-hand man in Kiev", Konstantin Kilimnik, an alleged Russian intelligence operative. Kilimnik had also been working since 2014 with W. Samuel Patten, an American lobbyist, to further the interests of the Ukrainian Opposition Bloc party in the United States.
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was an advisor to the Trump campaign on foreign policy. During the campaign, he had contacts with:
Papadopoulos later married Simona Mangiante, an Italian lawyer whom he had met when she worked for Mifsud.
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is the British publicist for Russian pop singer Emin Agalarov, son of real estate magnate Aras Agalarov who had organized Miss Universe 2013 in Moscow with Trump. In 2016 Goldstone made several overtures to the Trump campaign, offering notably to arrange a meeting between Trump and Putin. In June he set up the Trump Tower meeting, in which Natalia Veselnitskaya was supposed to deliver political "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. Instead, she discussed the Magnitsky Act. Ike Kaveladze, a Georgian-American senior vice president at the Crocus Group, also attended the meeting.
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is a petroleum industry consultant specialized in the Russian and Central Asian markets., who had been a target of Russian intelligence recruitment efforts in 2013 and 2015. He worked as an informal foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign from March to September 2016, and made a trip to Moscow in July 2016 purporting to represent the campaign. His activities were investigated by the FBI, and he was the subject of several FISA surveillance warrants. He was not indicted by the Mueller probe.
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is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general who was appointed National Security Advisor by the incoming Trump administration. He was quickly dismissed because he lied to Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of his conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Kislyak was also involved in discussions with Jeff Sessions, Jared Kushner, and other Trump associates.
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Even before running for office, Trump had made a number of public comments about Russian President Vladimir Putin, usually praising his leadership style, or pretending he "got to know him very well" even though they had never met.
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is a British politician who was leader of the UK Independence Party from 2006 to 2016 and a Member of the European Parliament since 1999. He has long advocated for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, a project known as Brexit, on which the British people voted in June 2016. Arron Banks is a British financier who co-founder the pro-Brexit Leave.EU campaign and backed it financially. Andy Wigmore, a close associate of Banks, was director of communications for Leave.EU. Farage, Banks and Wigmore had several contacts with Trump and his presidential campaign; Farage was notably invited to speak at a Trump rally.
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January–June 2015
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