Mueller though wants to know if a series of campaign contacts with Russian.
WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump’s summit with Russia’s VladimirPutin caps decades of efforts by the New York property tycoon to establishtop-level relations in Moscow.
Back in Washington, however, investigators are trying to discover whetherTrump, his family and advisors already had a surreptitious workingrelationship with Russians when he ran for and won the presidency in 2016.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller, investigating Russian meddling on Trump’sbehalf in 2016, has already indicted 31 people — including 12 Russiaintelligence agents on Friday — for hacking Democratic computer networks.
Mueller though wants to know if a series of campaign contacts with Russianand Russia-linked persons add up to more, possibly a conspiracy toillegally skew the presidential race.
Here is what Mueller is investigating:——————————
*The Ukraine link *——————————
Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort spent years working forMoscow-supported billionaire Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovych.
Manafort also worked with tycoon Dmitry Firtash, who has close ties to theKremlin, and Konstantin Kilimnik, a political operative in Ukraine believedtied to Russian intelligence. Manafort was in touch with both during thecampaign.
Manafort is facing a raft of federal charges.——————————
*London connection *——————————
George Papadopoulos, a young, previously unknown foreign affairs advisor onthe Trump campaign, worked Russian contacts in London with the aim ofsetting up a Trump trip to Moscow or a meeting with President VladimirPutin.
He also told the campaign that Moscow had damaging information on Trump’sDemocratic rival Hillary Clinton. Nothing ever came of his efforts, butthey were approved by senior campaign officials.
He has pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the FBI.——————————
*Spy contacts *——————————
Another foreign policy advisor, former investment banker Carter Page, wasinvestigated by US counterintelligence over meetings he held over severalyears through 2016 with Russian officials and other contacts either part ofor linked to Russian intelligence.——————————
*The Trump Tower meeting *——————————
Top campaign officials Manafort, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and sonDonald Trump Jr. met in New York on June 9, 2016 with Russian lawyerNatalia Veselnitskaya, who was offering dirt from the Russian government onClinton.
Helping arrange the meeting was an Azeri-Russian tycoon close to Putin whowas a former Trump business partner in Moscow.
Veselnitskaya however apparently arrived empty-handed, wanting to discussother issues.
Questions remain over what Trump himself knew about the meeting, and whymembers of Trump’s team tried to hide it.——————————
*Leaks of hacked Democratic documents *——————————
An indictment released Friday of 12 Russia spies for hacking Democraticdocuments during the campaign makes clear Mueller is examining whetherTrump staff and allies colluded with the leaks.
Trump advisor Roger Stone, Don Jr., and others were in contact with leakchannels WikiLeaks and Guccifer 2.0, which the indictment said were used byRussian spies to disseminate the documents.——————————
*The Kislyak connection *——————————
Before and after the election, then-Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak hadseveral encounters with campaign officials, and multiple communicationswith Kushner and national security advisor Michael Flynn.
Before the campaign, Flynn, a former Pentagon intelligence chief, had beenpaid tens of thousands of dollars to appear at events hosted by Russiancompanies, at one sitting next to Putin.
In December 2017, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about contactshe had with Russian officials during Trump’s presidential transition.——————————
*St Petersburg troll farm *——————————
Mueller has indicted 13 people involved with the Internet Research Agency,the Russian troll farm responsible for much of the social mediamanipulation that boosted Trump’s campaign.
Records show that some lower-level campaign staffers had contact with thegroup, though they possibly did not know they were Russians.——————————
*Business ties *——————————
Mueller is reportedly studying Trump’s business relations with Russians.Trump for decades sought to develop real estate in Moscow. In 2013, he tookhis Miss Universe pageant to the Russian capital, where he sought butfailed to meet Putin.
Afterwards, and reportedly well into the 2016 campaign, aides includingTrump fixer Michael Cohen continued to pursue a possible major developmentdeal in Moscow.
Meanwhile since the early 2000s, the Trump organization made numerousproperty sales to wealthy Russians, raising questions of whether it wasenabling money laundering with those deals.
They included Trump’s 2008 sale of a Palm Beach property to Russianoligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev for $95 million, $54 million more than Trumppaid for it four years earlier. – APP/AFP