Russia Investigation Heating Up

[Solkern]

Ukraine isn't a member state. Though they're part of a strategic partner program.

But sending troops into Ukraine is risking another World War. And there's a good chance the West would be facing off against Russia AND China in that instance.

No one wins in that scenario.


Not necessarily, a token force would be enough to deter Russia. Last thing Russia wants is to make this conflict any bigger. I didn’t say go in and attack, but to defend.

[Tgo01]

Is Biden the president of Ukraine or Europe? You fucking people are pathetic.

You’re the type of twisted piece of shit that’ll blame Biden for this, and then when he does something say the US should stay out. You’re a fucking lunatic. You’re nuts. Seek help.

Funny how you fuckers spent 4+ years screeching that Trump will start WW3 and now that Biden is so fucking weak and pathetic and useless that WW3 just might start all you can do is defend the demented ghoul.

Fuck you.

[SHAFT]

Ukraine isn't a member state. Though they're part of a strategic partner program.

But sending troops into Ukraine is risking another World War. And there's a good chance the West would be facing off against Russia AND China in that instance.

No one wins in that scenario.

These people in Europe either stand up for themselves or they get ran over. They let Putin take Crimea and Georgia and now he’s entering Ukraine.

What’s next? Poland? Belarus? If he takes them what’s next after them?

[Solkern]

These people in Europe either stand up for themselves or they get ran over. They let Putin take Crimea and Georgia and now he’s entering Ukraine.

What’s next? Poland? Belarus? If he takes them what’s next after them?

I concur, nato needs to get off its ass and actually do what it’s supposed to do.

[Tgo01]

Ukraine isn't a member state. Though they're part of a strategic partner program.

But sending troops into Ukraine is risking another World War. And there's a good chance the West would be facing off against Russia AND China in that instance.

No one wins in that scenario.

How do you go from "Putin is evil! If you're against helping Ukraine then you're siding with authoritarianism and communists!!!" then 6 minutes later post this?

You don't get to have it both ways.

[SHAFT]

Funny how you fuckers spent 4+ years screeching that Trump will start WW3 and now that Biden is so fucking weak and pathetic and useless that WW3 just might start all you can do is defend the demented ghoul.

Fuck you.

Trump spent years degrading NATO and Ukraine. He offered to sell them military equipment and then tried to blackmail them over the sale. That’s why his fat ass got impeached for the second time.

You’re fucking deranged, though. I mean it when I say seek help. Fuck you.

[SHAFT]

I concur, nato needs to get off its ass and actually do what it’s supposed to do.

The fear of WW3 needs to end. This motherfucker is violating everything the world put in place after WW2.

No one is at fault here but Putin and his cronies. If the countries of Europe don’t defend themselves they’re at fault too.

[Tgo01]

Trump spent years degrading NATO and Ukraine.

Trump literally can't "degrade" NATO and Ukraine. What the fuck are you even talking about? Trump pushed for NATO countries to spend MORE on their militaries. You do know NATO's original mission was to counter Russian aggression right? How is asking NATO to spend more money on their militaries "degrading" NATO?

Make sense for a change and stop defending Biden. He is so beyond useless we have to start inventing new words to describe just how useless he is.

[Suppressed Poet]

The fear of WW3 needs to end. This motherfucker is violating everything the world put in place after WW2.

No one is at fault here but Putin and his cronies. If the countries of Europe don’t defend themselves they’re at fault too.

Oh go Crimea river.

I can’t believe it but I agree with time4fun. Ukraine is not a member state. Article 5 doesn’t apply. Ukraine isn’t worth the US getting into direct military conflict with Russia. We don’t want or need that kind of war.

[SHAFT]

Oh go Crimea river.

I can’t believe it but I agree with time4fun. Ukraine is not a member state. Article 5 doesn’t apply. Ukraine isn’t worth the US getting into direct military conflict with Russia. We don’t want or need that kind of war.

Europe. NATO. They need to defend this.

I realize Ukraine isn’t a NATO member, but where does this end? If NATO allows this, who’s to think he won’t press a NATO member?

This shit is evil. If you say otherwise…

[SHAFT]

Trump literally can't "degrade" NATO and Ukraine. What the fuck are you even talking about? Trump pushed for NATO countries to spend MORE on their militaries. You do know NATO's original mission was to counter Russian aggression right? How is asking NATO to spend more money on their militaries "degrading" NATO?

Make sense for a change and stop defending Biden. He is so beyond useless we have to start inventing new words to describe just how useless he is.

9903

[Seran]

The fear of WW3 needs to end. This motherfucker is violating everything the world put in place after WW2.

No one is at fault here but Putin and his cronies. If the countries of Europe don’t defend themselves they’re at fault too.

A good first step would be removing Russia from the UN Security Council.

[Seran]

Trump literally can't "degrade" NATO and Ukraine. What the fuck are you even talking about? Trump pushed for NATO countries to spend MORE on their militaries. You do know NATO's original mission was to counter Russian aggression right? How is asking NATO to spend more money on their militaries "degrading" NATO?

Make sense for a change and stop defending Biden. He is so beyond useless we have to start inventing new words to describe just how useless he is.

Meanwhile this nut job is the guy who defended Trump blackmailing Ukraine to try and win an election, supports Trump's brolove with Putin and is in general the biggest piece of shit on this forum.

[Suppressed Poet]

Europe. NATO. They need to defend this.

I realize Ukraine isn’t a NATO member, but where does this end? If NATO allows this, who’s to think he won’t press a NATO member?

This shit is evil. If you say otherwise…

It is evil and Putin is a little bitch. Economic sanctions are really the only option now outside of war. Germany and the EU really need to step up there, as US sanctions really don’t mean dick to Russia. If Germany and the rest of Europe find a way to get their fuel elsewhere, it’s going to be painful for Russia (and Europe in the short term).

Also thank you Biden for your idiotic economic and energy policies. It’s about to get much worse. Get ready for gas prices to soon be $5+ a gallon…

[Tgo01]

A good first step would be removing Russia from the UN Security Council.

Fuck’s sake, dude. Russia is a permanent member of the UN Security Council. They literally can’t be removed, unless the UN is going to prove once and for all that they are completely useless and their words mean nothing if they are going to just start completely changes their rules.

Do you have any knowledge at all on the subjects you pretend to be an expert in?

[Solkern]

https://reddit.com/r/oddlyterrifying/comments/t02qib/kyiv_ukraine_roughly_10_minutes_ago_air_raid/


Gave me chills.

[time4fun]

Trump literally can't "degrade" NATO and Ukraine. What the fuck are you even talking about? Trump pushed for NATO countries to spend MORE on their militaries. You do know NATO's original mission was to counter Russian aggression right? How is asking NATO to spend more money on their militaries "degrading" NATO?

Make sense for a change and stop defending Biden. He is so beyond useless we have to start inventing new words to describe just how useless he is.

There are no words for how deeply ignorant you are when it comes to Trump specifically and the world around you in general.

[Parkbandit]

Trump spent years degrading NATO and Ukraine. He offered to sell them military equipment and then tried to blackmail them over the sale. That’s why his fat ass got impeached for the second time.

You’re fucking deranged, though. I mean it when I say seek help. Fuck you.

You haven't been right about anything political.

Your streak continues.

[Parkbandit]

A good first step would be removing Russia from the UN Security Council.

How would the UN go about doing that, specifically?

I'll wait.

[Parkbandit]

There are no words for how deeply ignorant you are when it comes to Trump specifically and the world around you in general.
http://badbooksgoodtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/self-awareness-gif.gif

[Parkbandit]

https://c.tenor.com/owRVkW5mEzsAAAAM/peace-peaceinourtime.gif

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

And we currently have a President that doesn't even remember what he had for breakfast.....

[Shaps]

There are no words for how deeply ignorant you are when it comes to Trump specifically and the world around you in general.

Here's some facts for you... since you seem ignorant....

2014 - Obama/Biden - Russia Invades
2022 - Biden/Harris - Russia Invades

Your "feelings" and "hopes" does not negate facts. Biden is a puppet of the Kremlin, solely based upon the results during his tenure in office.

BTW - Trump ended the war in Afghanistan (Biden is just trying to take credit for the concept, and totally fucked up the withdrawal)

BTW - Trump ensured the vaccines were completed in record time (Biden is just trying to take credit, and in the process become an authoritarian monster)

BTW - Trump had multiple Mid-East Peace Deals during his tenure. Biden hasn't found his Coco-puffs for his morning breakfast yet.

BTW - Under Trump the US was energy independent. Biden has oil going to it's highest price in decades.

BTW - How is that Nuclear Clock looking these days? Did they move it up?

I could keep going... but let me just say... There are no words for how deeply ignorant you are when it comes to Biden specifically and the world around you in general.


PS. I know it hurts. I know you are crying on the inside right now trying to defend Biden. Your whole identity is wrapped up in thinking you know best. It's rough when you realize how wrong you are about yourself. You can get past it though, and pull your head out of your ass - that's step one to recovery.

[Tgo01]

There are no words for how deeply ignorant you are when it comes to Trump specifically and the world around you in general.

Enlighten us all then. How did Trump “degrade” NATO? Please be specific. I mean other than asking NATO countries to spend more on their militaries.

[Methais]

That's a dumb question, go back to your Ensure and Tucker Carlson.

You're literally the only person on the PC who watches Tucker Carlson. Stop projecting your butthurt. And stop being exactly like Androidpk while you're at it.

How old do you think I am anyway? Be specific. This should be good. :lol:

[Methais]

You are so painfully ignorant of the situation here that you have no idea that all you're doing is spouting off anti-democratic, pro-Russian propaganda.

Decades of NATO aggression? Do you have any idea why NATO exists, and why it's so critical to Europe AND the US? Do you know anything about what Russia has been doing to undermine democracy in Western nations in the last decade? (not to mention the decades before that) Do you know anything about the politics of the post-WW2 era that didn't come from a far right, hyper partisan publication?

Do you think that maybe there's a reason why the UN, EU, and NATO are all condemning what Putin is doing? You think it's possible that defending the authoritarian who is invading a Western democracy to subject its people to authoritarian rule and to expand its foothold in Europe is not the right stance?

Is it conceivable that taking the stance opposite of the democratic nations in Europe and North America, who are trying to keep Ukraine a free country is perhaps wrong?

Or are you so far down the damn rabbit hole that you've genuinely become a defender of dictators and a critic of free democratic societies?

Your posts smell like moth balls and cat piss.

[Methais]

So, once you "own" territory, you have the right to re-claim it at any point in time?

Tell me that's not the entire premise of your argument here.

https://i.imgur.com/Aa1jsUv.jpg

[Methais]

Funny how you fuckers spent 4+ years screeching that Trump will start WW3 and now that Biden is so fucking weak and pathetic and useless that WW3 just might start all you can do is defend the demented ghoul.

Fuck you.

It's because all the left knows how to do is project.

Exhibit A (http://forum.gsplayers.com/search.php?searchid=765627)

[Methais]

It is evil and Putin is a little bitch. Economic sanctions are really the only option now outside of war. Germany and the EU really need to step up there, as US sanctions really don’t mean dick to Russia. If Germany and the rest of Europe find a way to get their fuel elsewhere, it’s going to be painful for Russia (and Europe in the short term).

Also thank you Biden for your idiotic economic and energy policies. It’s about to get much worse. Get ready for gas prices to soon be $5+ a gallon…

In before democrats blame Trump.

[~Rocktar~]

Enlighten us all then. How did Trump “degrade” NATO? Please be specific. I mean other than asking NATO countries to spend more on their militaries.

Correction: Spend the signed and ratified treaty agreed upon amount on defense.

[~Rocktar~]

Your posts smell like moth balls and cat piss.

More like buyers remorse and regret.

[Neveragain]

The entire West is currently in a democratic backslide, and Russia is at the center of most of it. The UK's Brexit Movement

This is where everyone should have stopped reading your drivel.

It's pretty obvious what your political ambitions are and they don't include democracy.

[SHAFT]

In before democrats blame Trump.

This is on putin but please remember trump was impeached for blackmailing Ukraine. Funny how it all ties together huh? Think he got that idea on his own?

[Tgo01]

This on putin but please remember trump was impeached for blackmailing Ukraine. Funny how it all ties together huh? Think he got that idea on his own?

LOL!

"This is on Putin. But now that you mention it........................"

"Blackmailing" Ukraine. How exactly does Trump "blackmailing" Ukraine tie into Russia invading Ukraine while Biden is president? I sure do hope you show your daughter the same courtesy and tell her how you voted in this election so she can know the true consequences of your actions. "I didn't vote for Trump!" isn't enough. You voted for the current ghoul in the White House. Don't ever forget that.

[Solkern]

https://i.imgur.com/IQ51b7P.mp4

[Tgo01]

https://i.imgur.com/iEb7Add.mp4

Hey at least Trump isn't sending mean tweets anymore. Would you please think of the hurt feelings over all else?

[Neveragain]

Correction: Spend the signed and ratified treaty agreed upon amount on defense.

This is why the US should be doing nothing at all. We've spent the last 70 years bleeding the American middle class to defend Europe while Europe has failed to fund their own defense. Europe has continued to work towards unification which has proven time and time again to lead to a European conflict. Europe has displayed total disrespect towards the US as of late, yet, here they are once again groveling for the US to spend it's blood and treasure for European problems.

[Seran]

Fuck’s sake, dude. Russia is a permanent member of the UN Security Council. They literally can’t be removed, unless the UN is going to prove once and for all that they are completely useless and their words mean nothing if they are going to just start completely changes their rules.

Do you have any knowledge at all on the subjects you pretend to be an expert in?

Actually yes, they can be removed per the UN Charter :


Under Chapter VI, and under paragraph 3 of Article 52,a party to a dispute shall abstain from voting.

9 of the 15 votes can pass a resolution to effect the standing of the security council, it was done before to change the size of the security council. If nine of the fifteen were to vote to remove Russia as a permanent member of the security council and say grant it to the EU representative, Russia could not veto as they were the subject of the dispute and would be forced to abstain.

[Methais]

This is on putin but please remember trump was impeached for blackmailing Ukraine. Funny how it all ties together huh? Think he got that idea on his own?

And then he was acquitted, but you still can't let go of it due to chronic mental illness.

Cool projection though. And speaking of blackmailing Ukraine...

https://i.imgflip.com/3hnab9.jpg

[Tgo01]

And then he was acquitted, but you still can't let go of it due to chronic mental illness.

Cool projection though. And speaking of blackmailing Ukraine...

https://i.imgflip.com/3hnab9.jpg

Since Shaft wants to look for how things "tie together", how about the fact that Biden literally blackmailed Ukraine and then bragged about how he was successful, AND Russia invaded Ukraine both while Biden was vice president and now while he's president.

What's up with all of that, Shaft? Going to finally admit Biden is worthless and is encouraging dictators? Or does your bullshit theory of things "tying together" only work with Republican presidents who are not currently president?

[Solkern]

And then he was acquitted, but you still can't let go of it due to chronic mental illness.

Cool projection though. And speaking of blackmailing Ukraine...

https://i.imgflip.com/3hnab9.jpg

You do know Biden was just the messenger right? Not sure why you are putting it on him like it was 100% his idea.

[Seran]

BTW - Trump ended the war in Afghanistan (Biden is just trying to take credit for the concept, and totally fucked up the withdrawal)

Glad you're finally owning up to Trump's complicity in destabilizing Afghanistan, even if the rest of your post was a pack of lies. Your deposed dictator and chief arranged a one sided surrender with the Taliban and excluded the government of Afghanistan from the deal. The Afghanistan violated the deal several times in Trump's tenure, which was ignored. Afghanistan was brought to the brink of collapse at the end of Trump's presidency. Biden then took over and did the one intelligent thing in that entire fiasco: he got us out of it. In the process tens of thousands of Afghan workers were rescued in the single biggest and most successful airlift operation in the history of the armed forces. All executed masterfully by our commander and chief President Joe Biden

[SHAFT]

And then he was acquitted, but you still can't let go of it due to chronic mental illness.

Cool projection though. And speaking of blackmailing Ukraine...

https://i.imgflip.com/3hnab9.jpg

You’re not required to defend trump every chance you get.

[Seran]

This is on putin but please remember trump was impeached for blackmailing Ukraine. Funny how it all ties together huh? Think he got that idea on his own?

Yeah this really was the nail in the coffin for Ukraine relations under Trump, denying security assistance authorized by Congress until they interfered in our election. Funny how the country who benefited most by Trump's obsession with declaring Crimea as legitimately belonging to Russia is now at it again. And here's Trump praising Putin again for his masterful invasion of Ukraine.

[Tgo01]

You’re not required to defend trump every chance you get.


What's up with all of that, Shaft? Going to finally admit Biden is worthless and is encouraging dictators? Or does your bullshit theory of things "tying together" only work with Republican presidents who are not currently president?

So, yes, your "theory" only works for former Republican presidents and not the current ghoul occupying the White House. Gotta absolve yourself of all guilt for your vote while making yourself feel better because you can tell your daughter you didn't vote for Trump.

Listen to the screams of innocent Ukrainians dying and know your vote had something to do with that. Stop being a pussy.

Fuck you. You're not even worth the effort anymore. I didn't think anyone was as sick as Seran or Bhaalizmo and needed to also be added to my ignore list, but you have somehow managed to do it.

[Methais]

You’re not required to defend trump every chance you get.

You're not required to have TDS 24/7 while sucking on Biden's old moldy flaccid asshole for doing the things you accuse Trump of doing even after Trump gets acquitted, yet here you are.

Soon you'll be blaming skyrocketing gas prices on Trump too.

[Suppressed Poet]

Mainstream media is already blaming all of our current economic problems on the Ukraine conflict…

[Neveragain]

Mainstream media is already blaming all of our current economic problems on the Ukraine conflict…

They are also starting to push for US boots on the ground. I've heard as much propaganda from US media as I have from Putin.

[Methais]

They are also starting to push for US boots on the ground. I've heard as much propaganda from US media as I have from Putin.

Next week's headline: WE TOLD YOU TRUMP WAS GONNA START WW3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Suppressed Poet]

They are also starting to push for US boots on the ground. I've heard as much propaganda from US media as I have from Putin.

Yeah I’ve heard sending troops to save Ukraine from people on both sides of the political spectrum.

A show of force / determent options are off the table now that Russia invaded. Direct military engagement with Russia over Ukraine is just not worth it. It surprises me that some people feel otherwise... Ukraine is not a NATO member state and I don’t think some folks understand what a war with Russia would mean.

[Parkbandit]

More like buyers remorse and regret.

She has zero regret about voting for Biden. That would be accepting that she was, as usual, wrong.

That will never happen.

[Parkbandit]

You're not required to have TDS 24/7 while sucking on Biden's old moldy flaccid asshole for doing the things you accuse Trump of doing even after Trump gets acquitted, yet here you are.

Soon you'll be blaming skyrocketing gas prices on Trump too.

To be fair... if it weren't for President Trump creating a business environment to make us gas and oil independant so quickly.. bringing down the price of oil and gas... and just maintained the Obama/Biden policies.. gas and oil wouldn't have skyrocketed in price.. as we would have been used to paying $5-$7 a gallon by now.

[Parkbandit]

All executed masterfully by our commander and chief President Joe Biden

https://c.tenor.com/yoRx7H6P5j8AAAAC/troll-trolls.gif

[Seran]

So, yes, your "theory" only works for former Republican presidents and not the current ghoul occupying the White House. Gotta absolve yourself of all guilt for your vote while making yourself feel better because you can tell your daughter you didn't vote for Trump.

Listen to the screams of innocent Ukrainians dying and know your vote had something to do with that. Stop being a pussy.

Fuck you. You're not even worth the effort anymore. I didn't think anyone was as sick as Seran or Bhaalizmo and needed to also be added to my ignore list, but you have somehow managed to do it.

And just what hasn't Biden done that makes him a pussy and what exactly would Trump have done to prevent Russia from invading.

[Seran]

Trump said Putin's smart.' I mean, he's taken over a country for $2 worth of sanctions. I'd say that's pretty smart," Trump said. "He's taking over a country, literally, a vast, vast, location, a great piece of land with a lot of people, and just walking right in."

Donald Trump isn't even hiding his connections with Russia anymore. The reality he was a Russian agent meant to stir up domestic unrest in America is the truth every Republican will come to realize very soon.

[Parkbandit]

Donald Trump isn't even hiding his connections with Russia anymore. The reality he was a Russian agent meant to stir up domestic unrest in America is the truth every Republican will come to realize very soon.

HAHAHAHAHA... I honestly thought most people had given up on Trump being a Russian agent and that they realized they were played by the Clinton campaign.

But you are still here.. carrying her shit water.

Like a good little retard.

[Gelston]

Donald Trump isn't even hiding his connections with Russia anymore. The reality he was a Russian agent meant to stir up domestic unrest in America is the truth every Republican will come to realize very soon.

That just proves he thinks Putin is smart, not that he is working for him. You can think your enemies are smart. Kind of bad to think they are dumb.

[Methais]

Donald Trump isn't even hiding his connections with Russia anymore. The reality he was a Russian agent meant to stir up domestic unrest in America is the truth every Republican will come to realize very soon.

Is what Trump said not accurate? Russia made huge gains for basically zero cost.

Perhaps if you were capable of not being overly emotional with literally everything and try using logic and reason for a change, you'd understand the difference.

The left is responsible for the majority of the "domestic unrest" in this country. The problem is that the only thing you're capable of doing is mindlessly repeating what you're told to think by your TV.

You're so monumentally gullible that you make original timeline George McFly look like James Randi.

Is there anyone you know of anywhere on the planet who you disagree with about whatever, but still believe they're a smart person?

Should be a simple yes or no question, which is why you won't answer it.


That just proves he thinks Putin is smart, not that he is working for him. You can think your enemies are smart. Kind of bad to think they are dumb.


Seran's overwhelming estrogen surplus imbalance will never allow him to understand the difference.

[time4fun]

That just proves he thinks Putin is smart, not that he is working for him. You can think your enemies are smart. Kind of bad to think they are dumb.

You know better than that. A former US President who still wields significant political sway over chunks of the electorate going out of his way to compliment the dictator who is risking WW3 right now is far more significant than that.


As for the other people in this thread (not you Gelston) who seem so sure Trump would have done a better job- what he said about Putin the other day is the evidence that says you're deluding yourself. All Trump ever did was apologize for Putin. Even after he and his campaign were informed by representatives of Russian Intelligence that Putin was actively working to support his candidacy, he still got up in front of the entire country and tried to blame China for what Russia had obviously been doing. He complimented him constantly, and he tried everything he could to stop sanctions against Putin for his election meddling. Hell his campaign manager was sending polling data to someone with heavy ties to Russian intelligence at the behest of a Russian oligarch.


Can we stop playing revisionist history here? All Trump ever did was try to cover for Putin and enable his attacks on democracies around the world- including our own.

[Tgo01]

You know better than that. A former US President who still wields significant political sway over chunks of the electorate going out of his way to compliment the dictator who is risking WW3 right now is far more significant than that.

What about the current president who helped said dictator's economy and did nothing while said dictator rolled tanks and bombers into another sovereign nation? No biggie right?

You alt-leftists are something else. Even now you think "OMG! Mean words!" are more important and more dangerous than actual actions, or lack thereof in Biden's case.

[Seran]

What about the current president who helped said dictator's economy and did nothing while said dictator rolled tanks and bombers into another sovereign nation? No biggie right?

You alt-leftists are something else. Even now you think "OMG! Mean words!" are more important and more dangerous than actual actions, or lack thereof in Biden's case.

Did nothing beyond invoke sanctions, deploy troops to protect NATO allies from spillover aggression, provide armaments and supplies to the Ukrainian government (without the blackmail they're used to). So blind dude.

[Parkbandit]

You know better than that. A former US President who still wields significant political sway over chunks of the electorate going out of his way to compliment the dictator who is risking WW3 right now is far more significant than that.


As for the other people in this thread (not you Gelston) who seem so sure Trump would have done a better job- what he said about Putin the other day is the evidence that says you're deluding yourself. All Trump ever did was apologize for Putin. Even after he and his campaign were informed by representatives of Russian Intelligence that Putin was actively working to support his candidacy, he still got up in front of the entire country and tried to blame China for what Russia had obviously been doing. He complimented him constantly, and he tried everything he could to stop sanctions against Putin for his election meddling. Hell his campaign manager was sending polling data to someone with heavy ties to Russian intelligence at the behest of a Russian oligarch.


Can we stop playing revisionist history here? All Trump ever did was try to cover for Putin and enable his attacks on democracies around the world- including our own.

What she means to say: "Can we stop playing revisionist history here? Trump is a Russian asset and I know this because Hillary Clinton told us!"

Can you imagine being this fucking gullible and naive and retarded.. and 5 years later and after the entire premise has been debunked.. you are still out carrying Hillary's outhouse water?

The Democrats are so lucky to have someone like you. They could literally punch you square in the face and tell you that Trump made them do it.. and you would believe them.

Because you are literally that fucking stupid.

[Shaps]

2014 - Obama/Biden - Russia Invades
2022 - Biden/Harris - Russia Invades

Facts.

Biden is an agent of Russia.

[ClydeR]

Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, isn't it an enormous coincidence that Trump was convinced, by whom I don't know, that there were people in Ukraine who were threatening his political future? First, he believed that Ukraine was holding computers that would prove that Russia did not intervene in the 2016 election on Trump's behalf. Then, he believed that Ukraine's government was covering up information that Joe Biden was corrupt ahead of the 2020 election. What are the odds that this former Soviet country halfway around the world -- a country that Vladimir Putin wanted to invade -- would have such enormous influence on U.S. politics? If Trump had been reelected, which he likely would have been but for COVID, would his suspicion of Ukraine have tempered the U.S. response to Russia's aggression?

[time4fun]

Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, isn't it an enormous coincidence that Trump was convinced, by whom I don't know, that there were people in Ukraine who were threatening his political future? First, he believed that Ukraine was holding computers that would prove that Russia did not intervene in the 2016 election on Trump's behalf. Then, he believed that Ukraine's government was covering up information that Joe Biden was corrupt ahead of the 2020 election. What are the odds that this former Soviet country halfway around the world -- a country that Vladimir Putin wanted to invade -- would have such enormous influence on U.S. politics? If Trump had been reelected, which he likely would have been but for COVID, would his suspicion of Ukraine have tempered the U.S. response to Russia's aggression?

Point of clarification here. Trump didn't try to blackmail Ukraine to send him information. He tried to blackmail Ukraine into announcing an investigation into Hunter Biden.

He didn't even care about the investigation itself- he wanted the announcement.

[Methais]

You know better than that. A former US President who still wields significant political sway over chunks of the electorate going out of his way to compliment the dictator who is risking WW3 right now is far more significant than that.


As for the other people in this thread (not you Gelston) who seem so sure Trump would have done a better job- what he said about Putin the other day is the evidence that says you're deluding yourself. All Trump ever did was apologize for Putin. Even after he and his campaign were informed by representatives of Russian Intelligence that Putin was actively working to support his candidacy, he still got up in front of the entire country and tried to blame China for what Russia had obviously been doing. He complimented him constantly, and he tried everything he could to stop sanctions against Putin for his election meddling. Hell his campaign manager was sending polling data to someone with heavy ties to Russian intelligence at the behest of a Russian oligarch.


Can we stop playing revisionist history here? All Trump ever did was try to cover for Putin and enable his attacks on democracies around the world- including our own.

https://c.tenor.com/he4H8OP-vpoAAAAM/smash-smash-the-patriarchy.gif

[time4fun]

What about the current president who helped said dictator's economy and did nothing while said dictator rolled tanks and bombers into another sovereign nation? No biggie right?

You alt-leftists are something else. Even now you think "OMG! Mean words!" are more important and more dangerous than actual actions, or lack thereof in Biden's case.

Literally none of this is an accurate representation of reality

I get that your MAGA world fantasy "news" is telling you on repeat that Biden has been magically "weak" against Putin (whatever that's supposed to mean), but it's complete garbage

In fact, the new sanctions against Russia are from Biden since Congress couldn't get its act together.

[Tgo01]

Literally none of this is an accurate representation of reality

I get that your MAGA world fantasy "news" is telling you on repeat that Biden has been magically "weak" against Putin (whatever that's supposed to mean), but it's complete garbage

In fact, the new sanctions against Russia are from Biden since Congress couldn't get its act together.

Oh good, you can see my posts. So how about you respond to this post of mine:


Enlighten us all then. How did Trump “degrade” NATO? Please be specific. I mean other than asking NATO countries to spend more on their militaries.

[Methais]

Oh good, you can see my posts. So how about you respond to this post of mine:

In before crickets.

[Parkbandit]

Literally none of this is an accurate representation of reality

I get that your MAGA world fantasy "news" is telling you on repeat that Biden has been magically "weak" against Putin (whatever that's supposed to mean), but it's complete garbage

In fact, the new sanctions against Russia are from Biden since Congress couldn't get its act together.

LOL. Talk about revisionist history...

So let's actually talk facts:

Trump instituted sanctions on Russia https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/09/25/on-the-record-the-u-s-administrations-actions-on-russia/ that were still in place when Biden took office. One of the first things he did was to lift them. Once Putin started building up along the border of Ukraine, Biden decided to start putting in some sanctions... and even his own administration thought it was too little too late. https://fortune.com/2022/02/24/biden-aides-doubt-russia-sanctions-plan-change-putin-behavior-ukraine/

Trump shut down Nordstream 2 pipeline https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50875935 and weeks after taking office, Biden removed those sanctions: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57180674

Biden literally told Putin that as long as his "invasion" of Ukraine wasn't too large scale, that it would be fine. He was even asked about it to clarrify, he doubled down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiMDmtcQEEM&ab_channel=TheTelegraph

Putin knows Biden is a gigantic pussy liberal.. which is why he decided now to invade Ukraine instead during the Trump administration.

[Parkbandit]

Literally none of this is an accurate representation of reality

I get that your MAGA world fantasy "news" is telling you on repeat that Biden has been magically "weak" against Putin (whatever that's supposed to mean), but it's complete garbage

In fact, the new sanctions against Russia are from Biden since Congress couldn't get its act together.

He's not magically weak.. he's a liberal.. which is one of the main characteristics.

[Methais]

LOL. Talk about revisionist history...

So let's actually talk facts:

Trump instituted sanctions on Russia https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/09/25/on-the-record-the-u-s-administrations-actions-on-russia/ that were still in place when Biden took office. One of the first things he did was to lift them. Once Putin started building up along the border of Ukraine, Biden decided to start putting in some sanctions... and even his own administration thought it was too little too late. https://fortune.com/2022/02/24/biden-aides-doubt-russia-sanctions-plan-change-putin-behavior-ukraine/

Trump shut down Nordstream 2 pipeline https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50875935 and weeks after taking office, Biden removed those sanctions: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57180674

Biden literally told Putin that as long as his "invasion" of Ukraine wasn't too large scale, that it would be fine. He was even asked about it to clarrify, he doubled down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiMDmtcQEEM&ab_channel=TheTelegraph

Putin knows Biden is a gigantic pussy liberal.. which is why he decided now to invade Ukraine instead during the Trump administration.

https://i.imgur.com/p8FljLN.png

[Solkern]

LOL. Talk about revisionist history...

So let's actually talk facts:

Trump instituted sanctions on Russia https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/09/25/on-the-record-the-u-s-administrations-actions-on-russia/ that were still in place when Biden took office. One of the first things he did was to lift them. Once Putin started building up along the border of Ukraine, Biden decided to start putting in some sanctions... and even his own administration thought it was too little too late. https://fortune.com/2022/02/24/biden-aides-doubt-russia-sanctions-plan-change-putin-behavior-ukraine/.

This isn’t entirely true, Putin has been building up forces near the Ukrainian border since 2015, and has been planning this since well before he took Crimea. It went into full swing once he understood how the west would respond to an invasion. A few of my Marine friends that were stationed in Moscow knew this invasion was coming since 2017/2018(which was the start of their rotations)

If they knew, that means both Obama and Trump knew, and still really didn’t do shit. A failure on both administrations.

[SHAFT]

This isn’t entirely true, Putin has been building up forces near the Ukrainian border since 2015, and has been planning this since well before he took Crimea. It went into full swing once he understood how the west would respond to an invasion. A few of my Marine friends that were stationed in Moscow knew this invasion was coming since 2017/2018(which was the start of their rotation)

Not only is PB a waste of oxygen, carbon, nitrogen and hydrogen, he’s regularly wrong and simply full of shit. Useless in every sense.

[Parkbandit]

Not only is PB a waste of oxygen, carbon, nitrogen and hydrogen, he’s regularly wrong and simply full of shit. Useless in every sense.

Your TDS has mutated into PBDS... and it makes me so fucking happy.

Stay retarded Shaft (not like you have a choice, right?).. I'm so glad Trump exposed you for the absolute batshit insane idiot you have always been.

[SHAFT]

It’s the only way to fly

9913

[Parkbandit]

Imagine being too.fucking.stupid. to post a pic in normal size.

[Gelston]

It’s the only way to fly

9913

Is this a post for ants?

[Bhaalizmo]

It’s the only way to fly

9913

What it is

[Methais]

It’s the only way to fly

9913

https://i.imgur.com/BI24AS1.gif


Please learn how to use [ img ] [ /img ] tags so your future posts aren't as worthless as this one.

[Parkbandit]

https://i.imgur.com/BI24AS1.gif


Please learn how to use [ img ] [ /img ] tags so your future posts aren't as worthless as this one.

In Shaft's defense.. he could post in full size 7 font... and his posts would still be worthless.

[Suppa Hobbit Mage]

Oh shit.

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/fec-dnc-hillary-clinton-campaign-trump/2022/03/30/id/1063586/

FEC Fines Clinton Campaign, DNC for Funding Steele Dossier

[Suppa Hobbit Mage]

Trump is gonna make some money off this.

[Seran]

Trump has suckered supporters for $122 million last year telling them he's the President. I doubt he'll have any further problems getting idiots to hand over their earnings.


Trump's political operation enters 2022 with $122 million in the bank

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/592207-trumps-political-operation-enters-2021-with-122-million-in-the-bank

[Suppa Hobbit Mage]

Trump has suckered supporters for $122 million last year telling them he's the President. I doubt he'll have any further problems getting idiots to hand over their earnings.

Think of all the rent he's saving living in your head.

[Parkbandit]

Think of all the rent he's saving living in your head.

That's an unfurnished studio basement in a bad neighborhood.

[Parkbandit]

Oh shit.

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/fec-dnc-hillary-clinton-campaign-trump/2022/03/30/id/1063586/

FEC Fines Clinton Campaign, DNC for Funding Steele Dossier



Hopefully, Trump sues the shit out of everyone involved.. because you know the law won't touch them.

[Methais]

That's an unfurnished studio basement in a bad neighborhood.

It's this:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI_pPGq9HcA

[Methais]

Oh shit.

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/fec-dnc-hillary-clinton-campaign-trump/2022/03/30/id/1063586/

FEC Fines Clinton Campaign, DNC for Funding Steele Dossier

Seran will argue that it's still real and that Trump is a Russian agent.

Best case, he'll praise Hillary over doing this this like...

https://c.tenor.com/P5_hF2KzfqEAAAAC/uhhuh-clap.gif

[Shaps]

As have said before... facts don't matter to them... lies are okay, so long as it works for them... they will never hold people to a standard, only a double standard... we've wasted our breath on people that will never admit their failings or bias.

[Alfster]

As have said before... facts don't matter to them... lies are okay, so long as it works for them... they will never hold people to a standard, only a double standard... we've wasted our breath on people that will never admit their failings or bias.

I'm struggling to see if you're talking about dems or republicans here.

Biggest issue across the board is misinformation and lack of accountability to it

[Methais]

I'm struggling to see if you're talking about dems or republicans here.

Biggest issue across the board is misinformation and lack of accountability to it

If you follow the thread, it's pretty easy to figure out who he's talking about.


The thread:


Oh shit.

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/fec-dnc-hillary-clinton-campaign-trump/2022/03/30/id/1063586/

FEC Fines Clinton Campaign, DNC for Funding Steele Dossier




Seran will argue that it's still real and that Trump is a Russian agent.

Best case, he'll praise Hillary over doing this this like...

https://c.tenor.com/P5_hF2KzfqEAAAAC/uhhuh-clap.gif




As have said before... facts don't matter to them... lies are okay, so long as it works for them... they will never hold people to a standard, only a double standard... we've wasted our breath on people that will never admit their failings or bias.

[Alfster]

If you follow the thread, it's pretty easy to figure out who he's talking about.


The thread:

Whooooooooooooosh

[Jeril]

I'm struggling to see if you're talking about dems or republicans here.

Biggest issue across the board is misinformation and lack of accountability to it

You do realize this would basically destroy the democratic party right? The biggest problem with republicans is that they don't stand up to the dems BS. The fact that you seem to view the misinformation from both sides as being equal is rather laughable. But I guess at least you can get points for admitting that it's a problem with dems.

[Seran]

You do realize this would basically destroy the democratic party right? The biggest problem with republicans is that they don't stand up to the dems BS. The fact that you seem to view the misinformation from both sides as being equal is rather laughable. But I guess at least you can get points for admitting that it's a problem with dems.

Pot, kettle, black.

[Seran]

Republicans are in lockstep to not give any victories whatsoever to the Democrats, despite any attempts at bipartisanship. With Manchin being a Republican that somehow caucuses with the Democrats, this has effectively shut down governance and the ability to fill vacant high office positions. Yet it's somehow Democrats bs that any Republican attempting compromise becomes a target for the RNC and the Trump fanatics.

[Parkbandit]

Republicans are in lockstep to not give any victories whatsoever to the Democrats, despite any attempts at bipartisanship. With Manchin being a Republican that somehow caucuses with the Democrats, this has effectively shut down governance and the ability to fill vacant high office positions. Yet it's somehow Democrats bs that any Republican attempting compromise becomes a target for the RNC and the Trump fanatics.

Manchin has stopped the bleeding.. hopefully in November, we can set the Congress back on the right track.

[~Rocktar~]

Republicans are in lockstep to not give any victories whatsoever to the Democrats, despite any attempts at bipartisanship. With Manchin being a Republican that somehow caucuses with the Democrats, this has effectively shut down governance and the ability to fill vacant high office positions. Yet it's somehow Democrats bs that any Republican attempting compromise becomes a target for the RNC and the Trump fanatics.

Because nominating ridiculously extremist, radical whackos has nothing to do with it at all.

[Methais]

Whooooooooooooosh

https://media3.giphy.com/media/6JB4v4xPTAQFi/giphy.gif

[Methais]

Pot, kettle, black.


Republicans are in lockstep to not give any victories whatsoever to the Democrats, despite any attempts at bipartisanship. With Manchin being a Republican that somehow caucuses with the Democrats, this has effectively shut down governance and the ability to fill vacant high office positions. Yet it's somehow Democrats bs that any Republican attempting compromise becomes a target for the RNC and the Trump fanatics.

It's possible to acknowledge that both parties suck and are full of shit while also acknowledging that one of those parties is more full of shit than the other, despite both generally being full of shit.

That's the difference between you and most people...most people agree that both parties are trash, even people who just vote party lines. You on the other hand, think democrats are everything that is pure and good, and republicans are evil incarnate.

It's primarily because you're extraordinarily stupid.

[~Rocktar~]

So, not only was the Steele Dossier a complete fabrication, the FBI knew it was a lie and they PAID the faker a heap of cash to keep lying and come up with better lies to go after Trump. All admitted to under oath in court. Talk about politicizing the DOJ/FBI. I hope a lot of people go to jail for this. I can't wait for Seran's mental gymnastics over it, they should be a good laugh on top of all the smooth brained Leftists that will discount the source. But hey, court records under oath.

I would like all the idiots that signed letters backing this mess to lose their clearance forever. Along with the idiots that signed the letter to cover for the laptop but you know, a guy can dream.


https://youtu.be/M5Y3Wz_xiA4

[Seran]

You know your party is in trouble when you believe the best arguments come from people spinning lies on YouTube. FoxNews viewers recently said the same when it was pointed out that 30% of their news is headlines about shit people posted on Twitter, Reddit or YouTube.

[Parkbandit]

You know your party is in trouble when you believe the best arguments come from people spinning lies on YouTube. FoxNews viewers recently said the same when it was pointed out that 30% of their news is headlines about shit people posted on Twitter, Reddit or YouTube.

The Republicans are in trouble?

We shall see.. 11/8/22 can't come soon enough.

Time to get this country back on the right track.

[Seran]

It's even funnier when you realize the last time the Conservashits made massive waves about Durham blowing up in court, the evidence he presented was insubstantial and overruled in court. Twice now. How many acquittals has it been 2, 3? His one conviction.. For fibbing. Haha.

So much for this massive conspiracy only existing in Conservative heads.

[Gelston]

You know your party is in trouble when you believe the best arguments come from people spinning lies on YouTube. FoxNews viewers recently said the same when it was pointed out that 30% of their news is headlines about shit people posted on Twitter, Reddit or YouTube.

Don't act like democrats don't do the exact same shit.

[~Rocktar~]

You know your party is in trouble when you believe the best arguments come from people spinning lies on YouTube. FoxNews viewers recently said the same when it was pointed out that 30% of their news is headlines about shit people posted on Twitter, Reddit or YouTube.

Gee, it's almost as if I knew what you would say.

BTW, wait to see what happens to headlines and so called "news" on folks like MSNBC, CNN and so on once Musk gets full charge of Twitter. That's where they get a massive quantity of their so called "news".

[Methais]

You know your party is in trouble when you believe the best arguments come from people spinning lies on YouTube. FoxNews viewers recently said the same when it was pointed out that 30% of their news is headlines about shit people posted on Twitter, Reddit or YouTube.

Project a little more why don't you.

It's democrats who are in a panic right now, not republicans. But keep deluding yourself like you've been doing for your entire life of retardedness. It will make your post-midterm meltdowns that much better.

[Methais]

It's even funnier when you realize the last time the Conservashits made massive waves about Durham blowing up in court, the evidence he presented was insubstantial and overruled in court. Twice now. How many acquittals has it been 2, 3? His one conviction.. For fibbing. Haha.

So much for this massive conspiracy only existing in Conservative heads.

Just like Trump with impeachments and investigations, except 0 convictions, and in every case other than the 2 laughable impeachments that only megatards like you took seriously, 0 charges or indictments.

I'd ask for your thoughts on that, but you won't respond because you know how monumentally retarded answering honestly would make you look, even though everyone here is already aware of how retarded you are.

[Seran]

Don't act like democrats don't do the exact same shit.

Not with the amount of frequency as you'll regularly see on FoxNews and others. Those rags throw out the entire concept of investigative journalism out the window and instead find the most incendiary, fact less social media posts to pass off as news.

[Seran]

Meanwhile, Alex Jones is ordered to pay in excess of a billion dollars for his fake reporting. Advertisers are leaving Carlson and Sleezy both after the truth of his anti-semetism came out.

[Methais]

Not with the amount of frequency as you'll regularly see on FoxNews and others. Those rags throw out the entire concept of investigative journalism out the window and instead find the most incendiary, fact less social media posts to pass off as news.

^ :rofl:

[Methais]

Meanwhile, Alex Jones is ordered to pay in excess of a billion dollars for his fake reporting. Advertisers are leaving Carlson and Sleezy both after the truth of his anti-semetism came out.

No one gives a fuck about Alex Jones or Kanye.

Well except for you of course, but you're an NPC and don't count.

[Neveragain]

No one gives a fuck about Alex Jones or Kanye.

Well except for you of course, but you're an NPC and don't count.

You kind of care about Alex Jones:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufOgTllmr1E

[Gelston]

Not with the amount of frequency as you'll regularly see on FoxNews and others. Those rags throw out the entire concept of investigative journalism out the window and instead find the most incendiary, fact less social media posts to pass off as news.

Yes, with the same or more frequency.

[Seran]

Igor Danchenko, the primary source for the infamous Trump-Russia dossier, was acquitted Tuesday of four counts of lying to the FBI in an embarrassing defeat for special counsel John Durham.

Durham has taken two cases to trial, and both have ended in acquittals. After more than three years looking for misconduct in the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe, Durham has only secured one conviction: the guilty plea of a low-level FBI lawyer, who got probation.

The special prosecutor Trump appointed has struck out again, talking about a witch hunt. Mueller had over thirty convictions as a result of his investigation!

[Gelston]

The special master Trump appointed has struck out again, talking about a witch hunt. Mueller had over thirty convictions as a result of his investigation!

You enjoy eating poop.

[Parkbandit]

Former top FBI official Charles McGonigal arrested over ties to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska
https://abcnews.go.com/US/former-fbi-official-charles-mcgonigal-arrested-ties-russian/story?id=96609658

You can't make this shit up folks... so the guy who was investigating russian collusion was... colluding with Russia.......

[Seran]

Former top FBI official Charles McGonigal arrested over ties to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska
https://abcnews.go.com/US/former-fbi-official-charles-mcgonigal-arrested-ties-russian/story?id=96609658

You can't make this shit up folks... so the guy who was investigating russian collusion was... colluding with Russia.......

Sounds like a valid reason to reopen the investigation into Trump's ties to Russia given the prior investigation may have been tampered with by someone with active Russian interests.

[Methais]

Soy

This is correct.

[Parkbandit]

Sounds like a valid reason to reopen the investigation into Trump's ties to Russia given the prior investigation may have been tampered with by someone with active Russian interests.

If you want to waste even more time and money on a fool's errand.

Oh wait... those are the only errands your mommy lets you go on.

[Methais]

Are things still heating up?

[Suppa Hobbit Mage]

Sounds like a valid reason to reopen the investigation into Trump's ties to Russia given the prior investigation may have been tampered with by someone with active Russian interests.

Trump living in your head 24/7/365. I love it, please stay triggered and wrong all day, every day.

[Seran]

Trump living in your head 24/7/365. I love it, please stay triggered and wrong all day, every day.

Trump throws himself into the media everyday with his deranged rants, legal troubles, or controversial statements and you're surprised people are aware of it? Keep living in your little denial bubble.

While your at it, take a gander at those Russian agents just evicted from one of Trump's residential properties where he disclosed as keeping classified information.

[Methais]

Trump throws himself into the media everyday with his deranged rants, legal troubles, or controversial statements and you're surprised people are aware of it? Keep living in your little denial bubble.

While your at it, take a gander at those Russian agents just evicted from one of Trump's residential properties where he disclosed as keeping classified information.

Are still things heating up though?

[ClydeR]

Last week, Putin banned a lot of Americans from traveling to Russia. Most of these people don't have anything to do with foreign relations. In fact, the only thing they have in common is that they are Trump critics or prosecutors who are investigating Trump. Hmm.


https://i.imgur.com/AHOospc.png
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-azbTumFOE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-azbTumFOE)

[Suppressed Poet]

Last week, Putin banned a lot of Americans from traveling to Russia. Most of these people don't have anything to do with foreign relations. In fact, the only thing they have in common is that they are Trump critics or prosecutors who are investigating Trump. Hmm.


https://i.imgur.com/AHOospc.png
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-azbTumFOE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-azbTumFOE)

Russia banned Rachel Maddow!!! ZOMG!!! Proof!!! :rofl:

[Seran]

Last week, Putin banned a lot of Americans from traveling to Russia. Most of these people don't have anything to do with foreign relations. In fact, the only thing they have in common is that they are Trump critics or prosecutors who are investigating Trump. Hmm.


https://i.imgur.com/AHOospc.png
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-azbTumFOE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-azbTumFOE)

Manchurian Candidate meets Russian Puppet

[Parkbandit]

4 years after the Mueller report came out, finding no collusion between Russia and Trump... Seran still believes it's real.

Oh, you retarded, gullible fool.

[Seran]

4 years after the Mueller report came out, finding no collusion between Russia and Trump... Seran still believes it's real.

Oh, you retarded, gullible fool.

Everytime you say that your nose must get bigger, because the Mueller report not only /did/ find contact between Trump campaign and Russian operatives, but also returned multiple related and unrelated convictions of the Trump team. Your spin is so fuckin inaccurate.

[Seran]

The fact the document and testimony proved there was contact and cooperation between Russian operatives and Trump's staff and son are right before your nose. The fact Mueller did not return a finding to support criminal conspiracy or criminal collusion doesn't change the fact Trump's team openly worked with Russian operatives. Learn to read.


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Special Counsel Robert Mueller may not have found evidence of a criminal conspiracy between Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia, but his report details extensive contacts between the campaign and Russian operatives who sought to influence the election.

Mueller said in his report released on Thursday that he found “numerous links” and that the Trump campaign “expected it would benefit” from Russia’s effort to tilt the ballot in Trump’s favour.

Ultimately, Mueller determined the various contacts either didn’t amount to criminal behaviour or would be difficult to prove in court, even if people in Trump’s orbit sometimes displayed a willingness to accept Russian help, the report showed.

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-trump-russia-collusion/mueller-finds-no-conspiracy-but-extensive-trump-russia-contacts-idUKKCN1RU2MF

[Methais]

The fact the document and testimony proved there was contact and cooperation between Russian operatives and Trump's staff and son are right before your nose. The fact Mueller did not return a finding to support criminal conspiracy or criminal collusion doesn't change the fact Trump's team openly worked with Russian operatives. Learn to read.

Must be why even Jake Tapper, who hates Trump, and who works at at CNN, who also hates Trump, literally said that the Durham report exonerated Trump.

Must also be why Schiff never coughed up any of this "proof" he claimed he had this entire time. Now he's looking at expulsion for being a piece of shit. Which I'm sure you're very upset over.

Stop being an NPC 24/7 and at least try to have some sort of thoughts of your own other than "When does my next welfare check get here?"

[Seran]

To a degree

Only morons who can't read would parse that statement as nullifying the findings of the Mueller Report.

[Parkbandit]

Everytime you say that your nose must get bigger, because the Mueller report not only /did/ find contact between Trump campaign and Russian operatives, but also returned multiple related and unrelated convictions of the Trump team. Your spin is so fuckin inaccurate.

There was no grand conspiracy of collusion between Trump and Russia. That was nothing more than a story, created by the Clinton campaign, to give themselves some cover for losing the election.

How are you this fucking gullible and retarded, even after 4 years of knowing the Russian collusion was nothing but a smokescreen?

[Solkern]

There was no grand conspiracy of collusion between Trump and Russia. That was nothing more than a story, created by the Clinton campaign, to give themselves some cover for losing the election.

How are you this fucking gullible and retarded, even after 4 years of knowing the Russian collusion was nothing but a smokescreen?

There is no grand conspiracy theory of collusion by the democrats and the media. That is nothing more than a story, created by the Trump campaign and the right, to give themselves some cover for losing the election and everything else.

You see how that works?

[Seran]

There was no grand conspiracy of collusion between Trump and Russia. That was nothing more than a story, created by the Clinton campaign, to give themselves some cover for losing the election.

How are you this fucking gullible and retarded, even after 4 years of knowing the Russian collusion was nothing but a smokescreen?

Amazing how no collusion was actually coordinated releases with the Russian operatives. Amazing how Trump said Crimea was properly Russian after making the promise to Russia's desires on eastern Ukraine as a condition of their interference in our election.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY TO VOLUME I

RUSSIAN SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN

The Internet Research Agency (IRA) carried out the earliest Russian interference operations identified by the investigation—a social media campaign designed to provoke and amplify political and social discord in the United States. The IRA was based in St. Petersburg, Russia, and received funding from Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin and companies he controlled. Prigozhin is widely reported to have ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter]

In mid-2014, the IRA sent employees to the United States on an intelligence-gathering mission with instructions [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter]

The IRA later used social media accounts and interest groups to sow discord in the U.S. political system through what it termed "information warfare." The campaign evolved from a generalized program designed in 2014 and 2015 to undermine the U.S. electoral system, to a targeted operation that by early 2016 favored candidate Trump and disparaged candidate Clinton. The IRA's operation also included the purchase of political advertisements on social media in the names of U.S. persons and entities, as well as the staging of political rallies inside the United States. To organize those rallies, IRA employees posed as U.S. grassroots entities and persons and made contact with Trump supporters and Trump Campaign officials in the United States. The investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons conspired or coordinated with the IRA. Section II of this report details the Office's investigation of the Russian social media campaign.

RUSSIAN HACKING OPERATIONS

At the same time that the IRA operation began to focus on supporting candidate Trump in early 2016, the Russian government employed a second form of interference: cyber intrusions (hacking) and releases of hacked materials damaging to the Clinton Campaign. The Russian intelligence service known as the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Army (GRU) carried out these operations.

In March 2016, the GRU began hacking the email accounts of Clinton Campaign volunteers and employees, including campaign chairman John Podesta. In April 2016, the GRU hacked into the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The GRU stole hundreds of thousands of documents from the compromised email accounts and networks. Around the time that the DNC announced in mid-June 2016 the Russian government's role in hacking its network, the GRU began disseminating stolen materials through the fictitious online personas "DCLeaks" and "Guccifer 2.0." The GRU later released additional materials through the organization WikiLeaks.

The presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump ("Trump Campaign" or "Campaign") showed interest in WikiLeaks's releases of documents and welcomed their potential to damage candidate Clinton. Beginning in June 2016, [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter] forecast to senior Campaign officials that WikiLeaks would release information damaging to candidate Clinton. WikiLeaks's first release came in July 2016. Around the same time, candidate Trump announced that he hoped Russia would recover emails described as missing from a private server used by Clinton when she was Secretary of State (he later said that he was speaking sarcastically). [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter] WikiLeaks began releasing Podesta’s stolen emails on October 7, 2016, less than one hour after a U.S. media outlet released video considered damaging to candidate Trump. Section III of this Report details the Office's investigation into the Russian hacking operations, as well as other efforts by Trump Campaign supporters to obtain Clinton-related emails.

RUSSIAN CONTACTS WITH THE CAMPAIGN

The social media campaign and the GRU hacking operations coincided with a series of contacts between Trump Campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government. The Office investigated whether those contacts reflected or resulted in the Campaign conspiring or coordinating with Russia in its election-interference activities. Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

The Russian contacts consisted of business connections, offers of assistance to the Campaign, invitations for candidate Trump and Putin to meet in person, invitations for Campaign officials and representatives of the Russian government to meet, and policy positions seeking improved U.S.-Russian relations. Section IV of this Report details the contacts between Russia and the Trump Campaign during the campaign and transition periods, the most salient of which are summarized below in chronological order.

2015. Some of the earliest contacts were made in connection with a Trump Organization real-estate project in Russia known as Trump Tower Moscow. Candidate Trump signed a Letter of Intent for Trump Tower Moscow by November 2015, and in January 2016 Trump Organization executive Michael Cohen emailed and spoke about the project with the office of Russian government press secretary Dmitry Peskov. The Trump Organization pursued the project through at least June 2016, including by considering travel to Russia by Cohen and candidate Trump.

Spring 2016. Campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos made early contact with Joseph Mifsud, a London-based professor who had connections to Russia and traveled to Moscow in April 2016. Immediately upon his return to London from that trip, Mifsud told Papadopoulos that the Russian government had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. One week later, in the first week of May 2016, Papadopoulos suggested to a representative of a foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to candidate Clinton. Throughout that period of time and for several months thereafter, Papadopoulos worked with Mifsud and two Russian nationals to arrange a meeting between the Campaign and the Russian government. No meeting took place.

Summer 2016. Russian outreach to the Trump Campaign continued into the summer of 2016, as candidate Trump was becoming the presumptive Republican nominee for President. On June 9, 2016, for example, a Russian lawyer met with senior Trump Campaign officials Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and campaign chairman Paul Manafort to deliver what the email proposing the meeting had described as "official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary." The materials were offered to Trump Jr. as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." The written communications setting up the meeting showed that the Campaign anticipated receiving information from Russia that could assist candidate Trump's electoral prospects, but the Russian lawyer's presentation did not provide such information.

Days after the June 9 meeting, on June 14, 2016, a cybersecurity firm and the DNC announced that Russian government hackers had infiltrated the DNC and obtained access to opposition research on candidate Trump, among other documents.

In July 2016, Campaign foreign policy advisor Carter Page traveled in his personal capacity to Moscow and gave the keynote address at the New Economic School. Page had lived and worked in Russia between 2003 and 2007. After returning to the United States, Page became acquainted with at least two Russian intelligence officers, one of whom was later charged in 2015 with conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of Russia. Page's July 2016 trip to Moscow and his advocacy for pro-Russian foreign policy drew media attention. The Campaign then distanced itself from Page and, by late September 2016, removed him from the Campaign.

July 2016 was also the month WikiLeaks first released emails stolen by the GRU from the DNC. On July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks posted thousands of internal DNC documents revealing information about the Clinton Campaign. Within days, there was public reporting that U.S. intelligence agencies had "high confidence" that the Russian government was behind the theft of emails and documents from the DNC. And within a week of the release, a foreign government informed the FBI about its May 2016 interaction with Papadopoulos and his statement that the Russian government could assist the Trump Campaign. On July 31, 2016, based on the foreign government reporting, the FBI opened an investigation into potential coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign.

Separately, on August 2, 2016, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort met in New York City with his long-time business associate Konstantin Kilimnik, who the FBI assesses to have ties to Russian intelligence. Kilimnik requested the meeting to deliver in person a peace plan for Ukraine that Manafort acknowledged to the Special Counsel's Office was a "backdoor" way for Russia to control part of eastern Ukraine; both men believed the plan would require candidate Trump's assent to succeed (were he to be elected President). They also discussed the status of the Trump Campaign and Manafort's strategy for winning Democratic votes in Midwestern states. Months before that meeting, Manafort had caused internal polling data to be shared with Kilimnik, and the sharing continued for some period of time after their August meeting.

Fall 2016. On October 7, 2016, the media released video of candidate Trump speaking in graphic terms about women years earlier, which was considered damaging to his candidacy. Less than an hour later, WikiLeaks made its second release: thousands of John Podesta's emails that had been stolen by the GRU in late March 2016. The FBI and other U.S. government institutions were at the time continuing their investigation of suspected Russian government efforts to interfere in the presidential election. That same day, October 7, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint public statement "that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations." Those "thefts" and the "disclosures" of the hacked materials through online platforms such as WikiLeaks, the statement continued, "are intended to interfere with the US election process."

Post-2016 Election. Immediately after the November 8 election, Russian government officials and prominent Russian businessmen began trying to make inroads into the new administration. The most senior levels of the Russian government encouraged these efforts. The Russian Embassy made contact hours after the election to congratulate the President-Elect and to arrange a call with President Putin. Several Russian businessmen picked up the effort from there.

Kirill Dmitriev, the chief executive officer of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, was among the Russians who tried to make contact with the incoming administration. In early December, a business associate steered Dmitriev to Erik Prince, a supporter of the Trump Campaign and an associate of senior Trump advisor Steve Bannon. Dmitriev and Prince later met face-to-face in January 2017 in the Seychelles and discussed U.S.-Russia relations. During the same period, another business associate introduced Dmitriev to a friend of Jared Kushner who had not served on the Campaign or the Transition Team. Dmitriev and Kushner's friend collaborated on a short written reconciliation plan for the United States and Russia, which Dmitriev implied had been cleared through Putin. The friend gave that proposal to Kushner before the inauguration, and Kushner later gave copies to Bannon and incoming Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

On December 29, 2016, then-President Obama imposed sanctions on Russia for having interfered in the election. Incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn called Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and asked Russia not to escalate the situation in response to the sanctions. The following day, Putin announced that Russia would not take retaliatory measures in response to the sanctions at that time. Hours later, President-Elect Trump tweeted, "Great move on delay (by V. Putin)." The next day, on December 31, 2016, Kislyak called Flynn and told him the request had been received at the highest levels and Russia had chosen not to retaliate as a result of Flynn's request.

***

On January 6, 2017, members of the intelligence community briefed President-Elect Trump on a joint assessment—drafted and coordinated among the Central Intelligence Agency, FBI, and National Security Agency—that concluded with high confidence that Russia had intervened in the election through a variety of means to assist Trump's candidacy and harm Clinton's. A declassified version of the assessment was publicly released that same day.

Between mid-January 2017 and early February 2017, three congressional committees—the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), and the Senate Judiciary Committee (SJC)—announced that they would conduct inquiries, or had already been conducting inquiries, into Russian interference in the election. Then-FBI Director James Comey later confirmed to Congress the existence of the FBI's investigation into Russian interference that had begun before the election. On March 20, 2017, in open-session testimony before HPSCI, Comey stated:

I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia's efforts. . . . As with any counterintelligence investigation, this will also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed.

The investigation continued under then-Director Comey for the next seven weeks until May 9, 2017, when President Trump fired Comey as FBI Director—an action which is analyzed in Volume II of the report.

On May 17, 2017, Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed the Special Counsel and authorized him to conduct the investigation that Comey had confirmed in his congressional testimony, as well as matters arising directly from the investigation, and any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a), which generally covers efforts to interfere with or obstruct the investigation.

President Trump reacted negatively to the Special Counsel's appointment. He told advisors that it was the end of his presidency, sought to have Attorney General Jefferson (Jeff) Sessions unrecuse from the Russia investigation and to have the Special Counsel removed, and engaged in efforts to curtail the Special Counsel's investigation and prevent the disclosure of evidence to it, including through public and private contacts with potential witnesses. Those and related actions are described and analyzed in Volume II of the report.

***

THE SPECIAL COUNSEL'S CHARGING DECISIONS

In reaching the charging decisions described in Volume I of the report, the Office determined whether the conduct it found amounted to a violation of federal criminal law chargeable under the Principles of Federal Prosecution. See Justice Manual § 9-27.000 et seq. (2018). The standard set forth in the Justice Manual is whether the conduct constitutes a crime; if so, whether admissible evidence would probably be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction; and whether prosecution would serve a substantial federal interest that could not be adequately served by prosecution elsewhere or through non-criminal alternatives. See Justice Manual § 9-27.220.

Section V of the report provides detailed explanations of the Office's charging decisions, which contain three main components.

First, the Office determined that Russia's two principal interference operations in the 2016 U.S. presidential election—the social media campaign and the hacking-and-dumping operations—violated U.S. criminal law. Many of the individuals and entities involved in the social media campaign have been charged with participating in a conspiracy to defraud the United States by undermining through deceptive acts the work of federal agencies charged with regulating foreign influence in U.S. elections, as well as related counts of identity theft. See United States v. Internet Research Agency, et al., No. 18-cr-32 (D.D.C.). Separately, Russian intelligence officers who carried out the hacking into Democratic Party computers and the personal email accounts of individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign conspired to violate, among other federal laws, the federal computer-intrusion statute, and they have been so charged. See United States v. Netyksho, et al., No. 18-cr-215 (D.D.C.). [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter, Personal Privacy]

Second, while the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges. Among other things, the evidence was not sufficient to charge any Campaign official as an unregistered agent of the Russian government or other Russian principal. And our evidence about the June 9, 2016 meeting and WikiLeaks's releases of hacked materials was not sufficient to charge a criminal campaign-finance violation. Further, the evidence was not sufficient to charge that any member of the Trump Campaign conspired with representatives of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election.

Third, 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. The Office charged some of those lies as violations of the federal false statements statute. Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying about his interactions with Russian Ambassador Kislyak during the transition period. George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy advisor during the campaign period, pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about, inter alia, the nature and timing of his interactions with Joseph Mifsud, the professor who told Papadopoulos that the Russians had dirt on candidate Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. Former Trump Organization attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to making false statements to Congress about the Trump Moscow project. [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter] And in February 2019, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found that Manafort lied to the Office and the grand jury concerning his interactions and communications with Konstantin Kilimnik about Trump Campaign polling data and a peace plan for Ukraine.

***

The Office investigated several other events that have been publicly reported to involve potential Russia-related contacts. For example, the investigation established that interaction between Russian Ambassador Kislyak and Trump Campaign officials both at the candidate's April 2016 foreign policy speech in Washington, D.C., and during the week of the Republican National Convention were brief, public, and non-substantive. And the investigation did not establish that one Campaign official's efforts to dilute a portion of the Republican Party platform on providing assistance to Ukraine were undertaken at the behest of candidate Trump or Russia. The investigation also did not establish that a meeting between Kislyak and Sessions in September 2016 at Sessions's Senate office included any more than a passing mention of the presidential campaign.

The investigation did not always yield admissible information or testimony, or a complete picture of the activities undertaken by subjects of the investigation. Some individuals invoked their Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination and were not, in the Office's judgment, appropriate candidates for grants of immunity. The Office limited its pursuit of other witnesses and information—such as information known to attorneys or individuals claiming to be members of the media—in light of internal Department of Justice policies. See, e.g., Justice Manual §§ 9-13.400, 13.410. Some of the information obtained via court process, moreover, was presumptively covered by legal privilege and was screened from investigators by a filter (or "taint") team. Even when individuals testified or agreed to be interviewed, they sometimes provided information that was false or incomplete, leading to some of the false-statements charges described above. And the Office faced practical limits on its ability to access relevant evidence as well-numerous witnesses and subjects lived abroad, and documents were held outside the United States.

Further, the Office learned that some of the individuals we interviewed or whose conduct we investigated—including some associated with the Trump Campaign—deleted relevant communications or communicated during the relevant period using applications that feature encryption or that do not provide for long-term retention of data or communications records. In such cases, the Office was not able to corroborate witness statements through comparison to contemporaneous communications or fully question witnesses about statements that appeared inconsistent with other known facts.

Accordingly, while this report embodies factual and legal determinations that the Office believes to be accurate and complete to the greatest extent possible, given these identified gaps, the Office cannot rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed additional light on (or cast in a new light) the events described in the report.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY TO VOLUME II

Our obstruction-of-justice inquiry focused on a series of actions by the President that related to the Russian-interference investigations, including the President's conduct towards the law enforcement officials overseeing the investigations and the witnesses to relevant events.

FACTUAL RESULTS OF THE OBSTRUCTION INVESTIGATION

The key issues and events we examined include the following:

The Campaign's response to reports about Russian support for Trump. During the 2016 presidential campaign, questions arose about the Russian government's apparent support for candidate Trump. After WikiLeaks released politically damaging Democratic Party emails that were reported to have been hacked by Russia, Trump publicly expressed skepticism that Russia was responsible for the hacks at the same time that he and other Campaign officials privately sought information [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter] about any further planned WikiLeaks releases. Trump also denied having any business in or connections to Russia, even though as late as June 2016 the Trump Organization had been pursuing a licensing deal for a skyscraper to be built in Russia called Trump Tower Moscow. After the election, the President expressed concerns to advisors that reports of Russia's election interference might lead the public to question the legitimacy of his election.

Conduct involving FBI Director Comey and Michael Flynn. In mid-January 2017, incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn falsely denied to the Vice President, other administration officials, and FBI agents that he had talked to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about Russia's response to U.S. sanctions on Russia for its election interference. On January 27, the day after the President was told that Flynn had lied to the Vice President and had made similar statements to the FBI, the President invited FBI Director Comey to a private dinner at the White House and told Comey that he needed loyalty. On February 14, the day after the President requested Flynn's resignation, the President told an outside advisor, "Now that we fired Flynn, the Russia thing is over." The advisor disagreed and said the investigations would continue.

Later that afternoon, the President cleared the Oval Office to have a one-on-one meeting with Comey. Referring to the FBI's investigation of Flynn, the President said, "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go." Shortly after requesting Flynn's resignation and speaking privately to Comey, the President sought to have Deputy National Security Advisor K.T. McFarland draft an internal letter stating that the President had not directed Flynn to discuss sanctions with Kislyak. McFarland declined because she did not know whether that was true, and a White House Counsel's Office attorney thought that the request would look like a quid pro quo for an ambassadorship she had been offered.

The President's reaction to the continuing Russia investigation. In February 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions began to assess whether he had to recuse himself from campaign-related investigations because of his role in the Trump Campaign. In early March, the President told White House Counsel Donald McGahn to stop Sessions from recusing. And after Sessions announced his recusal on March 2, the President expressed anger at the decision and told advisors that he should have an Attorney General who would protect him. That weekend, the President took Sessions aside at an event and urged him to "unrecuse." Later in March, Comey publicly disclosed at a congressional hearing that the FBI was investigating "the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election," including any links or coordination between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign. In the following days, the President reached out to the Director of National Intelligence and the leaders of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) to ask them what they could do to publicly dispel the suggestion that the President had any connection to the Russian election-interference effort. The President also twice called Comey directly, notwithstanding guidance from McGahn to avoid direct contacts with the Department of Justice. Comey had previously assured the President that the FBI was not investigating him personally, and the President asked Comey to "lift the cloud" of the Russia investigation by saying that publicly.

The President's termination of Comey. On May 3, 2017, Comey testified in a congressional hearing, but declined to answer questions about whether the President was personally under investigation. Within days, the President decided to terminate Comey. The President insisted that the termination letter, which was written for public release, state that Comey had informed the President that he was not under investigation. The day of the firing, the White House maintained that Comey's termination resulted from independent recommendations from the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General that Comey should be discharged for mishandling the Hillary Clinton email investigation. But the President had decided to fire Comey before hearing from the Department of Justice. The day after firing Comey, the President told Russian officials that he had "faced great pressure because of Russia," which had been "taken off' by Comey's firing. The next day, the President acknowledged in a television interview that he was going to fire Comey regardless of the Department of Justice's recommendation and that when he "decided to just do it," he was thinking that "this thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story." In response to a question about whether he was angry with Comey about the Russia investigation, the President said, "As far as I'm concerned, I want that thing to be absolutely done properly," adding that firing Comey "might even lengthen out the investigation."

The appointment of a Special Counsel and efforts to remove him. On May 17, 2017, the Acting Attorney General for the Russia investigation appointed a Special Counsel to conduct the investigation and related matters. The President reacted to news that a Special Counsel had been appointed by telling advisors that it was "the end of his presidency" and demanding that Sessions resign. Sessions submitted his resignation, but the President ultimately did not accept it. The President told aides that the Special Counsel had conflicts of interest and suggested that the Special Counsel therefore could not serve. The President's advisors told him the asserted conflicts were meritless and had already been considered by the Department of Justice.

On June 14, 2017, the media reported that the Special Counsel's Office was investigating whether the President had obstructed justice. Press reports called this "a major turning point" in the investigation: while Comey had told the President he was not under investigation, following Comey's firing, the President now was under investigation. The President reacted to this news with a series of tweets criticizing the Department of Justice and the Special Counsel's investigation. On June 17, 2017, the President called McGahn at home and directed him to call the Acting Attorney General and say that the Special Counsel had conflicts of interest and must be removed. McGahn did not carry out the direction, however, deciding that he would resign rather than trigger what he regarded as a potential Saturday Night Massacre.

Efforts to curtail the Special Counsel's investigation. Two days after directing McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed, the President made another attempt to affect the course of the Russia investigation. On June 19, 2017, the President met one-on-one in the Oval Office with his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, a trusted advisor outside the government, and dictated a message for Lewandowski to deliver to Sessions. The message said that Sessions should publicly announce that, notwithstanding his recusal from the Russia investigation, the investigation was "very unfair" to the President, the President had done nothing wrong, and Sessions planned to meet with the Special Counsel and "let [him] move forward with investigating election meddling for future elections." Lewandowski said he understood what the President wanted Sessions to do.

One month later, in another private meeting with Lewandowski on July 19, 2017, the President asked about the status of his message for Sessions to limit the Special Counsel investigation to future election interference. Lewandowski told the President that the message would be delivered soon. Hours after that meeting, the President publicly criticized Sessions in an interview with the New York Times, and then issued a series of tweets making it clear that Sessions's job was in jeopardy. Lewandowski did not want to deliver the President's message personally, so he asked senior White House official Rick Dearborn to deliver it to Sessions. Dearborn was uncomfortable with the task and did not follow through.

Efforts to prevent public disclosure of evidence. In the summer of 2017, the President learned that media outlets were asking questions about the June 9, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between senior campaign officials, including Donald Trump Jr., and a Russian lawyer who was said to be offering damaging information about Hillary Clinton as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." On several occasions, the President directed aides not to publicly disclose the emails setting up the June 9 meeting, suggesting that the emails would not leak and that the number of lawyers with access to them should be limited. Before the emails became public, the President edited a press statement for Trump Jr. by deleting a line that acknowledged that the meeting was with "an individual who [Trump Jr.] was told might have information helpful to the campaign" and instead said only that the meeting was about adoptions of Russian children. When the press asked questions about the President's involvement in Trump Jr.'s statement, the President's personal lawyer repeatedly denied the President had played any role.

Further efforts to have the Attorney General take control of the investigation. In early summer 2017, the President called Sessions at home and again asked him to reverse his recusal from the Russia investigation. Sessions did not reverse his recusal. In October 20 17, the President met privately with Sessions in the Oval Office and asked him to "take [a] look" at investigating Clinton. In December 2017, shortly after Flynn pleaded guilty pursuant to a cooperation agreement, the President met with Sessions in the Oval Office and suggested, according to notes taken by a senior advisor, that if Sessions unrecused and took back supervision of the Russia investigation, he would be a "hero." The President told Sessions, "I'm not going to do anything or direct you to do anything. I just want to be treated fairly." In response, Sessions volunteered that he had never seen anything "improper" on the campaign and told the President there was a "whole new leadership team" in place. He did not unrecuse.

Efforts to have McGahn deny that the President had ordered him to have the Special Counsel removed. In early 2018, the press reported that the President had directed McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed in June 2017 and that McGahn had threatened to resign rather than carry out the order. The President reacted to the news stories by directing White House officials to tell McGahn to dispute the story and create a record stating he had not been ordered to have the Special Counsel removed. McGahn told those officials that the media reports were accurate in stating that the President had directed McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed. The President then met with McGahn in the Oval Office and again pressured him to deny the reports. Tn the same meeting, the President also asked McGahn why he had told the Special Counsel about the President's effort to remove the Special Counsel and why McGahn took notes of his conversations with the President. McGahn refused to back away from what he remembered happening and perceived the President to be testing his mettle.

Conduct towards Flynn, Manafort, [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter]. After Flynn withdrew from a joint defense agreement with the President and began cooperating with the government, the President's personal counsel left a message for Flynn's attorneys reminding them of the President's warm feelings towards Flynn, which he said "still remains," and asking for a "heads up" if Flynn knew "information that implicates the President." When Flynn's counsel reiterated that Flynn could no longer share information pursuant to a joint defense agreement, the President's personal counsel said he would make sure that the President knew that Flynn's actions reflected " hostility" towards the President. During Manafort's prosecution and when the jury in his criminal trial was deliberating, the President praised Manafort in public, said that Manafort was being treated unfairly, and declined to rule out a pardon. After Manafort was convicted, the President called Manafort “a brave man” for refusing to “break” and said that “flipping” “almost ought to be outlawed.” [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter]

Conduct involving Michael Cohen. The President's conduct towards Michael Cohen, a former Trump Organization executive, changed from praise for Cohen when he falsely minimized the President's involvement in the Trump Tower Moscow project, to castigation of Cohen when he became a cooperating witness. From September 2015 to June 2016, Cohen had pursued the Trump Tower Moscow project on behalf of the Trump Organization and had briefed candidate Trump on the project numerous times, including discussing whether Trump should travel to Russia to advance the deal. In 2017, Cohen provided false testimony to Congress about the project, including stating that he had only briefed Trump on the project three times and never discussed travel to Russia with him, in an effort to adhere to a "party line" that Cohen said was developed to minimize the President's connections to Russia. While preparing for his congressional testimony, Cohen had extensive discussions with the President's personal counsel, who, according to Cohen, said that Cohen should "stay on message" and not contradict the President. After the FBI searched Cohen's home and office in April 2018, the President publicly asserted that Cohen would not "flip," contacted him directly to tell him to "stay strong," and privately passed messages of support to him. Cohen also discussed pardons with the President's personal counsel and believed that if he stayed on message he would be taken care of. But after Cohen began cooperating with the government in the summer of 2018, the President publicly criticized him, called him a "rat," and suggested that his family members had committed crimes.

Overarching factual issues. We did not make a traditional prosecution decision about these facts, but the evidence we obtained supports several general statements about the President's conduct.

Several features of the conduct we investigated distinguish it from typical obstruction-of-justice cases. First, the investigation concerned the President, and some of his actions, such as firing the FBI director, involved facially lawful acts within his Article II authority, which raises constitutional issues discussed below. At the same time, the President's position as the head of the Executive Branch provided him with unique and powerful means of influencing official proceedings, subordinate officers, and potential witnesses—all of which is relevant to a potential obstruction-of-justice analysis. Second, unlike cases in which a subject engages in obstruction of justice to cover up a crime, the evidence we obtained did not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference. Although the obstruction statutes do not require proof of such a crime, the absence of that evidence affects the analysis of the President's intent and requires consideration of other possible motives for his conduct. Third, many of the President's acts directed at witnesses, including discouragement of cooperation with the government and suggestions of possible future pardons, took place in public view. That circumstance is unusual, but no principle of law excludes public acts from the reach of the obstruction laws. If the likely effect of public acts is to influence witnesses or alter their testimony, the harm to the justice system's integrity is the same.

Although the series of events we investigated involved discrete acts, the overall pattern of the President's conduct towards the investigations can shed light on the nature of the President's acts and the inferences that can be drawn about his intent. In particular, the actions we investigated can be divided into two phases, reflecting a possible shift in the President's motives. The first phase covered the period from the President's first interactions with Comey through the President's firing of Comey. During that time, the President had been repeatedly told he was not personally under investigation. Soon after the firing of Comey and the appointment of the Special Counsel, however, the President became aware that his own conduct was being investigated in an obstruction-of-justice inquiry. At that point, the President engaged in a second phase of conduct, involving public attacks on the investigation, non-public efforts to control it, and efforts in both public and private to encourage witnesses not to cooperate with the investigation. Judgments about the nature of the President's motives during each phase would be informed by the totality of the evidence.

STATUTORY AND CONSTITUTIONAL DEFENSES

The President's counsel raised statutory and constitutional defenses to a possible obstruction-of-justice analysis of the conduct we investigated. We concluded that none of those legal defenses provided a basis for declining to investigate the facts.

Statutory defenses. Consistent with precedent and the Department of Justice's general approach to interpreting obstruction statutes, we concluded that several statutes could apply here. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 1503, 1505, 1512(b)(3), 1512(c)(2). Section 1512(c)(2) is an omnibus obstruction-of-justice provision that covers a range of obstructive acts directed at pending or contemplated official proceedings. No principle of statutory construction justifies narrowing the provision to cover only conduct that impairs the integrity or availability of evidence. Sections 1503 and 1505 also offer broad protection against obstructive acts directed at pending grand jury, judicial, administrative, and congressional proceedings, and they are supplemented by a provision

in Section 1512(b) aimed specifically at conduct intended to prevent or hinder the communication to law enforcement of information related to a federal crime.

Constitutional defenses. As for constitutional defenses arising from the President's status as the head of the Executive Branch, we recognized that the Department of Justice and the courts have not definitively resolved these issues. We therefore examined those issues through the framework established by Supreme Court precedent governing separation-of-powers issues. The Department of Justice and the President's personal counsel have recognized that the President is subject to statutes that prohibit obstruction of justice by bribing a witness or suborning perjury because that conduct does not implicate his constitutional authority. With respect to whether the President can be found to have obstructed justice by exercising his powers under Article II of the Constitution, we concluded that Congress has authority to prohibit a President's corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice.

Under applicable Supreme Court precedent, the Constitution does not categorically and permanently immunize a President for obstructing justice through the use of his Article II powers. The separation-of-powers doctrine authorizes Congress to protect official proceedings, including those of courts and grand juries, from corrupt, obstructive acts regardless of their source. We also concluded that any inroad on presidential authority that would occur from prohibiting corrupt acts does not undermine the President's ability to fulfill his constitutional mission. The term "corruptly" sets a demanding standard. It requires a concrete showing that a person acted with an intent to obtain an improper advantage for himself or someone else, inconsistent with official duty and the rights of others. A preclusion of "corrupt" official action does not diminish the President's ability to exercise Article Il powers. For example, the proper supervision of criminal law does not demand freedom for the President to act with a corrupt intention of shielding himself from criminal punishment, avoiding financial liability, or preventing personal embarrassment. To the contrary, a statute that prohibits official action undertaken for such corrupt purposes furthers, rather than hinders, the impartial and evenhanded administration of the law. It also aligns with the President's constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws. Finally, we concluded that in the rare case in which a criminal investigation of the President's conduct is justified, inquiries to determine whether the President acted for a corrupt motive should not impermissibly chill his performance of his constitutionally assigned duties. The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President's corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.

CONCLUSION

Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President's conduct. The evidence we obtained about the President's actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment. At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.

[Parkbandit]

Like I said... no evidence of any collusion.

I bet you still believe that Trump went over to Russia to pee on the bed that Obama allegedly slept in too.. because the Steele Dossier is real dammit and fuck the facts.. because orangemanrbad!

And people wonder why this country is on the shit path it's on currently... because the average IQ of the Democrat base is closer to 0 than it is 100.

[Shaps]

Only part of any of it that matters....

"Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."

Do you really think if he committed a crime they would have written the above... All those investigations for years upon years... And the best they can say is:

"We can't prove he did it... but in the meantime, we can't prove he didn't do it! So he must have done it!"

Astounding the morons still eat the bullshit they're fed.

[Methais]

Amazing how no collusion was actually coordinated releases with the Russian operatives. Amazing how Trump said Crimea was properly Russian after making the promise to Russia's desires on eastern Ukraine as a condition of their interference in our election.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY TO VOLUME I

RUSSIAN SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN

The Internet Research Agency (IRA) carried out the earliest Russian interference operations identified by the investigation—a social media campaign designed to provoke and amplify political and social discord in the United States. The IRA was based in St. Petersburg, Russia, and received funding from Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin and companies he controlled. Prigozhin is widely reported to have ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter]

In mid-2014, the IRA sent employees to the United States on an intelligence-gathering mission with instructions [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter]

The IRA later used social media accounts and interest groups to sow discord in the U.S. political system through what it termed "information warfare." The campaign evolved from a generalized program designed in 2014 and 2015 to undermine the U.S. electoral system, to a targeted operation that by early 2016 favored candidate Trump and disparaged candidate Clinton. The IRA's operation also included the purchase of political advertisements on social media in the names of U.S. persons and entities, as well as the staging of political rallies inside the United States. To organize those rallies, IRA employees posed as U.S. grassroots entities and persons and made contact with Trump supporters and Trump Campaign officials in the United States. The investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons conspired or coordinated with the IRA. Section II of this report details the Office's investigation of the Russian social media campaign.

RUSSIAN HACKING OPERATIONS

At the same time that the IRA operation began to focus on supporting candidate Trump in early 2016, the Russian government employed a second form of interference: cyber intrusions (hacking) and releases of hacked materials damaging to the Clinton Campaign. The Russian intelligence service known as the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Army (GRU) carried out these operations.

In March 2016, the GRU began hacking the email accounts of Clinton Campaign volunteers and employees, including campaign chairman John Podesta. In April 2016, the GRU hacked into the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The GRU stole hundreds of thousands of documents from the compromised email accounts and networks. Around the time that the DNC announced in mid-June 2016 the Russian government's role in hacking its network, the GRU began disseminating stolen materials through the fictitious online personas "DCLeaks" and "Guccifer 2.0." The GRU later released additional materials through the organization WikiLeaks.

The presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump ("Trump Campaign" or "Campaign") showed interest in WikiLeaks's releases of documents and welcomed their potential to damage candidate Clinton. Beginning in June 2016, [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter] forecast to senior Campaign officials that WikiLeaks would release information damaging to candidate Clinton. WikiLeaks's first release came in July 2016. Around the same time, candidate Trump announced that he hoped Russia would recover emails described as missing from a private server used by Clinton when she was Secretary of State (he later said that he was speaking sarcastically). [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter] WikiLeaks began releasing Podesta’s stolen emails on October 7, 2016, less than one hour after a U.S. media outlet released video considered damaging to candidate Trump. Section III of this Report details the Office's investigation into the Russian hacking operations, as well as other efforts by Trump Campaign supporters to obtain Clinton-related emails.

RUSSIAN CONTACTS WITH THE CAMPAIGN

The social media campaign and the GRU hacking operations coincided with a series of contacts between Trump Campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government. The Office investigated whether those contacts reflected or resulted in the Campaign conspiring or coordinating with Russia in its election-interference activities. Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

The Russian contacts consisted of business connections, offers of assistance to the Campaign, invitations for candidate Trump and Putin to meet in person, invitations for Campaign officials and representatives of the Russian government to meet, and policy positions seeking improved U.S.-Russian relations. Section IV of this Report details the contacts between Russia and the Trump Campaign during the campaign and transition periods, the most salient of which are summarized below in chronological order.

2015. Some of the earliest contacts were made in connection with a Trump Organization real-estate project in Russia known as Trump Tower Moscow. Candidate Trump signed a Letter of Intent for Trump Tower Moscow by November 2015, and in January 2016 Trump Organization executive Michael Cohen emailed and spoke about the project with the office of Russian government press secretary Dmitry Peskov. The Trump Organization pursued the project through at least June 2016, including by considering travel to Russia by Cohen and candidate Trump.

Spring 2016. Campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos made early contact with Joseph Mifsud, a London-based professor who had connections to Russia and traveled to Moscow in April 2016. Immediately upon his return to London from that trip, Mifsud told Papadopoulos that the Russian government had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. One week later, in the first week of May 2016, Papadopoulos suggested to a representative of a foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to candidate Clinton. Throughout that period of time and for several months thereafter, Papadopoulos worked with Mifsud and two Russian nationals to arrange a meeting between the Campaign and the Russian government. No meeting took place.

Summer 2016. Russian outreach to the Trump Campaign continued into the summer of 2016, as candidate Trump was becoming the presumptive Republican nominee for President. On June 9, 2016, for example, a Russian lawyer met with senior Trump Campaign officials Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and campaign chairman Paul Manafort to deliver what the email proposing the meeting had described as "official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary." The materials were offered to Trump Jr. as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." The written communications setting up the meeting showed that the Campaign anticipated receiving information from Russia that could assist candidate Trump's electoral prospects, but the Russian lawyer's presentation did not provide such information.

Days after the June 9 meeting, on June 14, 2016, a cybersecurity firm and the DNC announced that Russian government hackers had infiltrated the DNC and obtained access to opposition research on candidate Trump, among other documents.

In July 2016, Campaign foreign policy advisor Carter Page traveled in his personal capacity to Moscow and gave the keynote address at the New Economic School. Page had lived and worked in Russia between 2003 and 2007. After returning to the United States, Page became acquainted with at least two Russian intelligence officers, one of whom was later charged in 2015 with conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of Russia. Page's July 2016 trip to Moscow and his advocacy for pro-Russian foreign policy drew media attention. The Campaign then distanced itself from Page and, by late September 2016, removed him from the Campaign.

July 2016 was also the month WikiLeaks first released emails stolen by the GRU from the DNC. On July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks posted thousands of internal DNC documents revealing information about the Clinton Campaign. Within days, there was public reporting that U.S. intelligence agencies had "high confidence" that the Russian government was behind the theft of emails and documents from the DNC. And within a week of the release, a foreign government informed the FBI about its May 2016 interaction with Papadopoulos and his statement that the Russian government could assist the Trump Campaign. On July 31, 2016, based on the foreign government reporting, the FBI opened an investigation into potential coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign.

Separately, on August 2, 2016, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort met in New York City with his long-time business associate Konstantin Kilimnik, who the FBI assesses to have ties to Russian intelligence. Kilimnik requested the meeting to deliver in person a peace plan for Ukraine that Manafort acknowledged to the Special Counsel's Office was a "backdoor" way for Russia to control part of eastern Ukraine; both men believed the plan would require candidate Trump's assent to succeed (were he to be elected President). They also discussed the status of the Trump Campaign and Manafort's strategy for winning Democratic votes in Midwestern states. Months before that meeting, Manafort had caused internal polling data to be shared with Kilimnik, and the sharing continued for some period of time after their August meeting.

Fall 2016. On October 7, 2016, the media released video of candidate Trump speaking in graphic terms about women years earlier, which was considered damaging to his candidacy. Less than an hour later, WikiLeaks made its second release: thousands of John Podesta's emails that had been stolen by the GRU in late March 2016. The FBI and other U.S. government institutions were at the time continuing their investigation of suspected Russian government efforts to interfere in the presidential election. That same day, October 7, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint public statement "that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations." Those "thefts" and the "disclosures" of the hacked materials through online platforms such as WikiLeaks, the statement continued, "are intended to interfere with the US election process."

Post-2016 Election. Immediately after the November 8 election, Russian government officials and prominent Russian businessmen began trying to make inroads into the new administration. The most senior levels of the Russian government encouraged these efforts. The Russian Embassy made contact hours after the election to congratulate the President-Elect and to arrange a call with President Putin. Several Russian businessmen picked up the effort from there.

Kirill Dmitriev, the chief executive officer of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, was among the Russians who tried to make contact with the incoming administration. In early December, a business associate steered Dmitriev to Erik Prince, a supporter of the Trump Campaign and an associate of senior Trump advisor Steve Bannon. Dmitriev and Prince later met face-to-face in January 2017 in the Seychelles and discussed U.S.-Russia relations. During the same period, another business associate introduced Dmitriev to a friend of Jared Kushner who had not served on the Campaign or the Transition Team. Dmitriev and Kushner's friend collaborated on a short written reconciliation plan for the United States and Russia, which Dmitriev implied had been cleared through Putin. The friend gave that proposal to Kushner before the inauguration, and Kushner later gave copies to Bannon and incoming Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

On December 29, 2016, then-President Obama imposed sanctions on Russia for having interfered in the election. Incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn called Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and asked Russia not to escalate the situation in response to the sanctions. The following day, Putin announced that Russia would not take retaliatory measures in response to the sanctions at that time. Hours later, President-Elect Trump tweeted, "Great move on delay (by V. Putin)." The next day, on December 31, 2016, Kislyak called Flynn and told him the request had been received at the highest levels and Russia had chosen not to retaliate as a result of Flynn's request.

***

On January 6, 2017, members of the intelligence community briefed President-Elect Trump on a joint assessment—drafted and coordinated among the Central Intelligence Agency, FBI, and National Security Agency—that concluded with high confidence that Russia had intervened in the election through a variety of means to assist Trump's candidacy and harm Clinton's. A declassified version of the assessment was publicly released that same day.

Between mid-January 2017 and early February 2017, three congressional committees—the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), and the Senate Judiciary Committee (SJC)—announced that they would conduct inquiries, or had already been conducting inquiries, into Russian interference in the election. Then-FBI Director James Comey later confirmed to Congress the existence of the FBI's investigation into Russian interference that had begun before the election. On March 20, 2017, in open-session testimony before HPSCI, Comey stated:

I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia's efforts. . . . As with any counterintelligence investigation, this will also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed.

The investigation continued under then-Director Comey for the next seven weeks until May 9, 2017, when President Trump fired Comey as FBI Director—an action which is analyzed in Volume II of the report.

On May 17, 2017, Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed the Special Counsel and authorized him to conduct the investigation that Comey had confirmed in his congressional testimony, as well as matters arising directly from the investigation, and any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a), which generally covers efforts to interfere with or obstruct the investigation.

President Trump reacted negatively to the Special Counsel's appointment. He told advisors that it was the end of his presidency, sought to have Attorney General Jefferson (Jeff) Sessions unrecuse from the Russia investigation and to have the Special Counsel removed, and engaged in efforts to curtail the Special Counsel's investigation and prevent the disclosure of evidence to it, including through public and private contacts with potential witnesses. Those and related actions are described and analyzed in Volume II of the report.

***

THE SPECIAL COUNSEL'S CHARGING DECISIONS

In reaching the charging decisions described in Volume I of the report, the Office determined whether the conduct it found amounted to a violation of federal criminal law chargeable under the Principles of Federal Prosecution. See Justice Manual § 9-27.000 et seq. (2018). The standard set forth in the Justice Manual is whether the conduct constitutes a crime; if so, whether admissible evidence would probably be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction; and whether prosecution would serve a substantial federal interest that could not be adequately served by prosecution elsewhere or through non-criminal alternatives. See Justice Manual § 9-27.220.

Section V of the report provides detailed explanations of the Office's charging decisions, which contain three main components.

First, the Office determined that Russia's two principal interference operations in the 2016 U.S. presidential election—the social media campaign and the hacking-and-dumping operations—violated U.S. criminal law. Many of the individuals and entities involved in the social media campaign have been charged with participating in a conspiracy to defraud the United States by undermining through deceptive acts the work of federal agencies charged with regulating foreign influence in U.S. elections, as well as related counts of identity theft. See United States v. Internet Research Agency, et al., No. 18-cr-32 (D.D.C.). Separately, Russian intelligence officers who carried out the hacking into Democratic Party computers and the personal email accounts of individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign conspired to violate, among other federal laws, the federal computer-intrusion statute, and they have been so charged. See United States v. Netyksho, et al., No. 18-cr-215 (D.D.C.). [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter, Personal Privacy]

Second, while the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges. Among other things, the evidence was not sufficient to charge any Campaign official as an unregistered agent of the Russian government or other Russian principal. And our evidence about the June 9, 2016 meeting and WikiLeaks's releases of hacked materials was not sufficient to charge a criminal campaign-finance violation. Further, the evidence was not sufficient to charge that any member of the Trump Campaign conspired with representatives of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election.

Third, 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. The Office charged some of those lies as violations of the federal false statements statute. Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying about his interactions with Russian Ambassador Kislyak during the transition period. George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy advisor during the campaign period, pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about, inter alia, the nature and timing of his interactions with Joseph Mifsud, the professor who told Papadopoulos that the Russians had dirt on candidate Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. Former Trump Organization attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to making false statements to Congress about the Trump Moscow project. [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter] And in February 2019, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found that Manafort lied to the Office and the grand jury concerning his interactions and communications with Konstantin Kilimnik about Trump Campaign polling data and a peace plan for Ukraine.

***

The Office investigated several other events that have been publicly reported to involve potential Russia-related contacts. For example, the investigation established that interaction between Russian Ambassador Kislyak and Trump Campaign officials both at the candidate's April 2016 foreign policy speech in Washington, D.C., and during the week of the Republican National Convention were brief, public, and non-substantive. And the investigation did not establish that one Campaign official's efforts to dilute a portion of the Republican Party platform on providing assistance to Ukraine were undertaken at the behest of candidate Trump or Russia. The investigation also did not establish that a meeting between Kislyak and Sessions in September 2016 at Sessions's Senate office included any more than a passing mention of the presidential campaign.

The investigation did not always yield admissible information or testimony, or a complete picture of the activities undertaken by subjects of the investigation. Some individuals invoked their Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination and were not, in the Office's judgment, appropriate candidates for grants of immunity. The Office limited its pursuit of other witnesses and information—such as information known to attorneys or individuals claiming to be members of the media—in light of internal Department of Justice policies. See, e.g., Justice Manual §§ 9-13.400, 13.410. Some of the information obtained via court process, moreover, was presumptively covered by legal privilege and was screened from investigators by a filter (or "taint") team. Even when individuals testified or agreed to be interviewed, they sometimes provided information that was false or incomplete, leading to some of the false-statements charges described above. And the Office faced practical limits on its ability to access relevant evidence as well-numerous witnesses and subjects lived abroad, and documents were held outside the United States.

Further, the Office learned that some of the individuals we interviewed or whose conduct we investigated—including some associated with the Trump Campaign—deleted relevant communications or communicated during the relevant period using applications that feature encryption or that do not provide for long-term retention of data or communications records. In such cases, the Office was not able to corroborate witness statements through comparison to contemporaneous communications or fully question witnesses about statements that appeared inconsistent with other known facts.

Accordingly, while this report embodies factual and legal determinations that the Office believes to be accurate and complete to the greatest extent possible, given these identified gaps, the Office cannot rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed additional light on (or cast in a new light) the events described in the report.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY TO VOLUME II

Our obstruction-of-justice inquiry focused on a series of actions by the President that related to the Russian-interference investigations, including the President's conduct towards the law enforcement officials overseeing the investigations and the witnesses to relevant events.

FACTUAL RESULTS OF THE OBSTRUCTION INVESTIGATION

The key issues and events we examined include the following:

The Campaign's response to reports about Russian support for Trump. During the 2016 presidential campaign, questions arose about the Russian government's apparent support for candidate Trump. After WikiLeaks released politically damaging Democratic Party emails that were reported to have been hacked by Russia, Trump publicly expressed skepticism that Russia was responsible for the hacks at the same time that he and other Campaign officials privately sought information [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter] about any further planned WikiLeaks releases. Trump also denied having any business in or connections to Russia, even though as late as June 2016 the Trump Organization had been pursuing a licensing deal for a skyscraper to be built in Russia called Trump Tower Moscow. After the election, the President expressed concerns to advisors that reports of Russia's election interference might lead the public to question the legitimacy of his election.

Conduct involving FBI Director Comey and Michael Flynn. In mid-January 2017, incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn falsely denied to the Vice President, other administration officials, and FBI agents that he had talked to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about Russia's response to U.S. sanctions on Russia for its election interference. On January 27, the day after the President was told that Flynn had lied to the Vice President and had made similar statements to the FBI, the President invited FBI Director Comey to a private dinner at the White House and told Comey that he needed loyalty. On February 14, the day after the President requested Flynn's resignation, the President told an outside advisor, "Now that we fired Flynn, the Russia thing is over." The advisor disagreed and said the investigations would continue.

Later that afternoon, the President cleared the Oval Office to have a one-on-one meeting with Comey. Referring to the FBI's investigation of Flynn, the President said, "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go." Shortly after requesting Flynn's resignation and speaking privately to Comey, the President sought to have Deputy National Security Advisor K.T. McFarland draft an internal letter stating that the President had not directed Flynn to discuss sanctions with Kislyak. McFarland declined because she did not know whether that was true, and a White House Counsel's Office attorney thought that the request would look like a quid pro quo for an ambassadorship she had been offered.

The President's reaction to the continuing Russia investigation. In February 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions began to assess whether he had to recuse himself from campaign-related investigations because of his role in the Trump Campaign. In early March, the President told White House Counsel Donald McGahn to stop Sessions from recusing. And after Sessions announced his recusal on March 2, the President expressed anger at the decision and told advisors that he should have an Attorney General who would protect him. That weekend, the President took Sessions aside at an event and urged him to "unrecuse." Later in March, Comey publicly disclosed at a congressional hearing that the FBI was investigating "the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election," including any links or coordination between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign. In the following days, the President reached out to the Director of National Intelligence and the leaders of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) to ask them what they could do to publicly dispel the suggestion that the President had any connection to the Russian election-interference effort. The President also twice called Comey directly, notwithstanding guidance from McGahn to avoid direct contacts with the Department of Justice. Comey had previously assured the President that the FBI was not investigating him personally, and the President asked Comey to "lift the cloud" of the Russia investigation by saying that publicly.

The President's termination of Comey. On May 3, 2017, Comey testified in a congressional hearing, but declined to answer questions about whether the President was personally under investigation. Within days, the President decided to terminate Comey. The President insisted that the termination letter, which was written for public release, state that Comey had informed the President that he was not under investigation. The day of the firing, the White House maintained that Comey's termination resulted from independent recommendations from the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General that Comey should be discharged for mishandling the Hillary Clinton email investigation. But the President had decided to fire Comey before hearing from the Department of Justice. The day after firing Comey, the President told Russian officials that he had "faced great pressure because of Russia," which had been "taken off' by Comey's firing. The next day, the President acknowledged in a television interview that he was going to fire Comey regardless of the Department of Justice's recommendation and that when he "decided to just do it," he was thinking that "this thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story." In response to a question about whether he was angry with Comey about the Russia investigation, the President said, "As far as I'm concerned, I want that thing to be absolutely done properly," adding that firing Comey "might even lengthen out the investigation."

The appointment of a Special Counsel and efforts to remove him. On May 17, 2017, the Acting Attorney General for the Russia investigation appointed a Special Counsel to conduct the investigation and related matters. The President reacted to news that a Special Counsel had been appointed by telling advisors that it was "the end of his presidency" and demanding that Sessions resign. Sessions submitted his resignation, but the President ultimately did not accept it. The President told aides that the Special Counsel had conflicts of interest and suggested that the Special Counsel therefore could not serve. The President's advisors told him the asserted conflicts were meritless and had already been considered by the Department of Justice.

On June 14, 2017, the media reported that the Special Counsel's Office was investigating whether the President had obstructed justice. Press reports called this "a major turning point" in the investigation: while Comey had told the President he was not under investigation, following Comey's firing, the President now was under investigation. The President reacted to this news with a series of tweets criticizing the Department of Justice and the Special Counsel's investigation. On June 17, 2017, the President called McGahn at home and directed him to call the Acting Attorney General and say that the Special Counsel had conflicts of interest and must be removed. McGahn did not carry out the direction, however, deciding that he would resign rather than trigger what he regarded as a potential Saturday Night Massacre.

Efforts to curtail the Special Counsel's investigation. Two days after directing McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed, the President made another attempt to affect the course of the Russia investigation. On June 19, 2017, the President met one-on-one in the Oval Office with his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, a trusted advisor outside the government, and dictated a message for Lewandowski to deliver to Sessions. The message said that Sessions should publicly announce that, notwithstanding his recusal from the Russia investigation, the investigation was "very unfair" to the President, the President had done nothing wrong, and Sessions planned to meet with the Special Counsel and "let [him] move forward with investigating election meddling for future elections." Lewandowski said he understood what the President wanted Sessions to do.

One month later, in another private meeting with Lewandowski on July 19, 2017, the President asked about the status of his message for Sessions to limit the Special Counsel investigation to future election interference. Lewandowski told the President that the message would be delivered soon. Hours after that meeting, the President publicly criticized Sessions in an interview with the New York Times, and then issued a series of tweets making it clear that Sessions's job was in jeopardy. Lewandowski did not want to deliver the President's message personally, so he asked senior White House official Rick Dearborn to deliver it to Sessions. Dearborn was uncomfortable with the task and did not follow through.

Efforts to prevent public disclosure of evidence. In the summer of 2017, the President learned that media outlets were asking questions about the June 9, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between senior campaign officials, including Donald Trump Jr., and a Russian lawyer who was said to be offering damaging information about Hillary Clinton as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." On several occasions, the President directed aides not to publicly disclose the emails setting up the June 9 meeting, suggesting that the emails would not leak and that the number of lawyers with access to them should be limited. Before the emails became public, the President edited a press statement for Trump Jr. by deleting a line that acknowledged that the meeting was with "an individual who [Trump Jr.] was told might have information helpful to the campaign" and instead said only that the meeting was about adoptions of Russian children. When the press asked questions about the President's involvement in Trump Jr.'s statement, the President's personal lawyer repeatedly denied the President had played any role.

Further efforts to have the Attorney General take control of the investigation. In early summer 2017, the President called Sessions at home and again asked him to reverse his recusal from the Russia investigation. Sessions did not reverse his recusal. In October 20 17, the President met privately with Sessions in the Oval Office and asked him to "take [a] look" at investigating Clinton. In December 2017, shortly after Flynn pleaded guilty pursuant to a cooperation agreement, the President met with Sessions in the Oval Office and suggested, according to notes taken by a senior advisor, that if Sessions unrecused and took back supervision of the Russia investigation, he would be a "hero." The President told Sessions, "I'm not going to do anything or direct you to do anything. I just want to be treated fairly." In response, Sessions volunteered that he had never seen anything "improper" on the campaign and told the President there was a "whole new leadership team" in place. He did not unrecuse.

Efforts to have McGahn deny that the President had ordered him to have the Special Counsel removed. In early 2018, the press reported that the President had directed McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed in June 2017 and that McGahn had threatened to resign rather than carry out the order. The President reacted to the news stories by directing White House officials to tell McGahn to dispute the story and create a record stating he had not been ordered to have the Special Counsel removed. McGahn told those officials that the media reports were accurate in stating that the President had directed McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed. The President then met with McGahn in the Oval Office and again pressured him to deny the reports. Tn the same meeting, the President also asked McGahn why he had told the Special Counsel about the President's effort to remove the Special Counsel and why McGahn took notes of his conversations with the President. McGahn refused to back away from what he remembered happening and perceived the President to be testing his mettle.

Conduct towards Flynn, Manafort, [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter]. After Flynn withdrew from a joint defense agreement with the President and began cooperating with the government, the President's personal counsel left a message for Flynn's attorneys reminding them of the President's warm feelings towards Flynn, which he said "still remains," and asking for a "heads up" if Flynn knew "information that implicates the President." When Flynn's counsel reiterated that Flynn could no longer share information pursuant to a joint defense agreement, the President's personal counsel said he would make sure that the President knew that Flynn's actions reflected " hostility" towards the President. During Manafort's prosecution and when the jury in his criminal trial was deliberating, the President praised Manafort in public, said that Manafort was being treated unfairly, and declined to rule out a pardon. After Manafort was convicted, the President called Manafort “a brave man” for refusing to “break” and said that “flipping” “almost ought to be outlawed.” [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter]

Conduct involving Michael Cohen. The President's conduct towards Michael Cohen, a former Trump Organization executive, changed from praise for Cohen when he falsely minimized the President's involvement in the Trump Tower Moscow project, to castigation of Cohen when he became a cooperating witness. From September 2015 to June 2016, Cohen had pursued the Trump Tower Moscow project on behalf of the Trump Organization and had briefed candidate Trump on the project numerous times, including discussing whether Trump should travel to Russia to advance the deal. In 2017, Cohen provided false testimony to Congress about the project, including stating that he had only briefed Trump on the project three times and never discussed travel to Russia with him, in an effort to adhere to a "party line" that Cohen said was developed to minimize the President's connections to Russia. While preparing for his congressional testimony, Cohen had extensive discussions with the President's personal counsel, who, according to Cohen, said that Cohen should "stay on message" and not contradict the President. After the FBI searched Cohen's home and office in April 2018, the President publicly asserted that Cohen would not "flip," contacted him directly to tell him to "stay strong," and privately passed messages of support to him. Cohen also discussed pardons with the President's personal counsel and believed that if he stayed on message he would be taken care of. But after Cohen began cooperating with the government in the summer of 2018, the President publicly criticized him, called him a "rat," and suggested that his family members had committed crimes.

Overarching factual issues. We did not make a traditional prosecution decision about these facts, but the evidence we obtained supports several general statements about the President's conduct.

Several features of the conduct we investigated distinguish it from typical obstruction-of-justice cases. First, the investigation concerned the President, and some of his actions, such as firing the FBI director, involved facially lawful acts within his Article II authority, which raises constitutional issues discussed below. At the same time, the President's position as the head of the Executive Branch provided him with unique and powerful means of influencing official proceedings, subordinate officers, and potential witnesses—all of which is relevant to a potential obstruction-of-justice analysis. Second, unlike cases in which a subject engages in obstruction of justice to cover up a crime, the evidence we obtained did not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference. Although the obstruction statutes do not require proof of such a crime, the absence of that evidence affects the analysis of the President's intent and requires consideration of other possible motives for his conduct. Third, many of the President's acts directed at witnesses, including discouragement of cooperation with the government and suggestions of possible future pardons, took place in public view. That circumstance is unusual, but no principle of law excludes public acts from the reach of the obstruction laws. If the likely effect of public acts is to influence witnesses or alter their testimony, the harm to the justice system's integrity is the same.

Although the series of events we investigated involved discrete acts, the overall pattern of the President's conduct towards the investigations can shed light on the nature of the President's acts and the inferences that can be drawn about his intent. In particular, the actions we investigated can be divided into two phases, reflecting a possible shift in the President's motives. The first phase covered the period from the President's first interactions with Comey through the President's firing of Comey. During that time, the President had been repeatedly told he was not personally under investigation. Soon after the firing of Comey and the appointment of the Special Counsel, however, the President became aware that his own conduct was being investigated in an obstruction-of-justice inquiry. At that point, the President engaged in a second phase of conduct, involving public attacks on the investigation, non-public efforts to control it, and efforts in both public and private to encourage witnesses not to cooperate with the investigation. Judgments about the nature of the President's motives during each phase would be informed by the totality of the evidence.

STATUTORY AND CONSTITUTIONAL DEFENSES

The President's counsel raised statutory and constitutional defenses to a possible obstruction-of-justice analysis of the conduct we investigated. We concluded that none of those legal defenses provided a basis for declining to investigate the facts.

Statutory defenses. Consistent with precedent and the Department of Justice's general approach to interpreting obstruction statutes, we concluded that several statutes could apply here. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 1503, 1505, 1512(b)(3), 1512(c)(2). Section 1512(c)(2) is an omnibus obstruction-of-justice provision that covers a range of obstructive acts directed at pending or contemplated official proceedings. No principle of statutory construction justifies narrowing the provision to cover only conduct that impairs the integrity or availability of evidence. Sections 1503 and 1505 also offer broad protection against obstructive acts directed at pending grand jury, judicial, administrative, and congressional proceedings, and they are supplemented by a provision

in Section 1512(b) aimed specifically at conduct intended to prevent or hinder the communication to law enforcement of information related to a federal crime.

Constitutional defenses. As for constitutional defenses arising from the President's status as the head of the Executive Branch, we recognized that the Department of Justice and the courts have not definitively resolved these issues. We therefore examined those issues through the framework established by Supreme Court precedent governing separation-of-powers issues. The Department of Justice and the President's personal counsel have recognized that the President is subject to statutes that prohibit obstruction of justice by bribing a witness or suborning perjury because that conduct does not implicate his constitutional authority. With respect to whether the President can be found to have obstructed justice by exercising his powers under Article II of the Constitution, we concluded that Congress has authority to prohibit a President's corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice.

Under applicable Supreme Court precedent, the Constitution does not categorically and permanently immunize a President for obstructing justice through the use of his Article II powers. The separation-of-powers doctrine authorizes Congress to protect official proceedings, including those of courts and grand juries, from corrupt, obstructive acts regardless of their source. We also concluded that any inroad on presidential authority that would occur from prohibiting corrupt acts does not undermine the President's ability to fulfill his constitutional mission. The term "corruptly" sets a demanding standard. It requires a concrete showing that a person acted with an intent to obtain an improper advantage for himself or someone else, inconsistent with official duty and the rights of others. A preclusion of "corrupt" official action does not diminish the President's ability to exercise Article Il powers. For example, the proper supervision of criminal law does not demand freedom for the President to act with a corrupt intention of shielding himself from criminal punishment, avoiding financial liability, or preventing personal embarrassment. To the contrary, a statute that prohibits official action undertaken for such corrupt purposes furthers, rather than hinders, the impartial and evenhanded administration of the law. It also aligns with the President's constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws. Finally, we concluded that in the rare case in which a criminal investigation of the President's conduct is justified, inquiries to determine whether the President acted for a corrupt motive should not impermissibly chill his performance of his constitutionally assigned duties. The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President's corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.

CONCLUSION

Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President's conduct. The evidence we obtained about the President's actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment. At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.

Seran's triggered :rofl:

[Methais]

Amazing how no collusion was actually coordinated releases with the Russian operatives. Amazing how Trump said Crimea was properly Russian after making the promise to Russia's desires on eastern Ukraine as a condition of their interference in our election.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY TO VOLUME I

RUSSIAN SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN

The Internet Research Agency (IRA) carried out the earliest Russian interference operations identified by the investigation—a social media campaign designed to provoke and amplify political and social discord in the United States. The IRA was based in St. Petersburg, Russia, and received funding from Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin and companies he controlled. Prigozhin is widely reported to have ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter]

In mid-2014, the IRA sent employees to the United States on an intelligence-gathering mission with instructions [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter]

The IRA later used social media accounts and interest groups to sow discord in the U.S. political system through what it termed "information warfare." The campaign evolved from a generalized program designed in 2014 and 2015 to undermine the U.S. electoral system, to a targeted operation that by early 2016 favored candidate Trump and disparaged candidate Clinton. The IRA's operation also included the purchase of political advertisements on social media in the names of U.S. persons and entities, as well as the staging of political rallies inside the United States. To organize those rallies, IRA employees posed as U.S. grassroots entities and persons and made contact with Trump supporters and Trump Campaign officials in the United States. The investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons conspired or coordinated with the IRA. Section II of this report details the Office's investigation of the Russian social media campaign.

RUSSIAN HACKING OPERATIONS

At the same time that the IRA operation began to focus on supporting candidate Trump in early 2016, the Russian government employed a second form of interference: cyber intrusions (hacking) and releases of hacked materials damaging to the Clinton Campaign. The Russian intelligence service known as the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Army (GRU) carried out these operations.

In March 2016, the GRU began hacking the email accounts of Clinton Campaign volunteers and employees, including campaign chairman John Podesta. In April 2016, the GRU hacked into the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The GRU stole hundreds of thousands of documents from the compromised email accounts and networks. Around the time that the DNC announced in mid-June 2016 the Russian government's role in hacking its network, the GRU began disseminating stolen materials through the fictitious online personas "DCLeaks" and "Guccifer 2.0." The GRU later released additional materials through the organization WikiLeaks.

The presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump ("Trump Campaign" or "Campaign") showed interest in WikiLeaks's releases of documents and welcomed their potential to damage candidate Clinton. Beginning in June 2016, [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter] forecast to senior Campaign officials that WikiLeaks would release information damaging to candidate Clinton. WikiLeaks's first release came in July 2016. Around the same time, candidate Trump announced that he hoped Russia would recover emails described as missing from a private server used by Clinton when she was Secretary of State (he later said that he was speaking sarcastically). [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter] WikiLeaks began releasing Podesta’s stolen emails on October 7, 2016, less than one hour after a U.S. media outlet released video considered damaging to candidate Trump. Section III of this Report details the Office's investigation into the Russian hacking operations, as well as other efforts by Trump Campaign supporters to obtain Clinton-related emails.

RUSSIAN CONTACTS WITH THE CAMPAIGN

The social media campaign and the GRU hacking operations coincided with a series of contacts between Trump Campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government. The Office investigated whether those contacts reflected or resulted in the Campaign conspiring or coordinating with Russia in its election-interference activities. Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

The Russian contacts consisted of business connections, offers of assistance to the Campaign, invitations for candidate Trump and Putin to meet in person, invitations for Campaign officials and representatives of the Russian government to meet, and policy positions seeking improved U.S.-Russian relations. Section IV of this Report details the contacts between Russia and the Trump Campaign during the campaign and transition periods, the most salient of which are summarized below in chronological order.

2015. Some of the earliest contacts were made in connection with a Trump Organization real-estate project in Russia known as Trump Tower Moscow. Candidate Trump signed a Letter of Intent for Trump Tower Moscow by November 2015, and in January 2016 Trump Organization executive Michael Cohen emailed and spoke about the project with the office of Russian government press secretary Dmitry Peskov. The Trump Organization pursued the project through at least June 2016, including by considering travel to Russia by Cohen and candidate Trump.

Spring 2016. Campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos made early contact with Joseph Mifsud, a London-based professor who had connections to Russia and traveled to Moscow in April 2016. Immediately upon his return to London from that trip, Mifsud told Papadopoulos that the Russian government had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. One week later, in the first week of May 2016, Papadopoulos suggested to a representative of a foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to candidate Clinton. Throughout that period of time and for several months thereafter, Papadopoulos worked with Mifsud and two Russian nationals to arrange a meeting between the Campaign and the Russian government. No meeting took place.

Summer 2016. Russian outreach to the Trump Campaign continued into the summer of 2016, as candidate Trump was becoming the presumptive Republican nominee for President. On June 9, 2016, for example, a Russian lawyer met with senior Trump Campaign officials Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and campaign chairman Paul Manafort to deliver what the email proposing the meeting had described as "official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary." The materials were offered to Trump Jr. as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." The written communications setting up the meeting showed that the Campaign anticipated receiving information from Russia that could assist candidate Trump's electoral prospects, but the Russian lawyer's presentation did not provide such information.

Days after the June 9 meeting, on June 14, 2016, a cybersecurity firm and the DNC announced that Russian government hackers had infiltrated the DNC and obtained access to opposition research on candidate Trump, among other documents.

In July 2016, Campaign foreign policy advisor Carter Page traveled in his personal capacity to Moscow and gave the keynote address at the New Economic School. Page had lived and worked in Russia between 2003 and 2007. After returning to the United States, Page became acquainted with at least two Russian intelligence officers, one of whom was later charged in 2015 with conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of Russia. Page's July 2016 trip to Moscow and his advocacy for pro-Russian foreign policy drew media attention. The Campaign then distanced itself from Page and, by late September 2016, removed him from the Campaign.

July 2016 was also the month WikiLeaks first released emails stolen by the GRU from the DNC. On July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks posted thousands of internal DNC documents revealing information about the Clinton Campaign. Within days, there was public reporting that U.S. intelligence agencies had "high confidence" that the Russian government was behind the theft of emails and documents from the DNC. And within a week of the release, a foreign government informed the FBI about its May 2016 interaction with Papadopoulos and his statement that the Russian government could assist the Trump Campaign. On July 31, 2016, based on the foreign government reporting, the FBI opened an investigation into potential coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign.

Separately, on August 2, 2016, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort met in New York City with his long-time business associate Konstantin Kilimnik, who the FBI assesses to have ties to Russian intelligence. Kilimnik requested the meeting to deliver in person a peace plan for Ukraine that Manafort acknowledged to the Special Counsel's Office was a "backdoor" way for Russia to control part of eastern Ukraine; both men believed the plan would require candidate Trump's assent to succeed (were he to be elected President). They also discussed the status of the Trump Campaign and Manafort's strategy for winning Democratic votes in Midwestern states. Months before that meeting, Manafort had caused internal polling data to be shared with Kilimnik, and the sharing continued for some period of time after their August meeting.

Fall 2016. On October 7, 2016, the media released video of candidate Trump speaking in graphic terms about women years earlier, which was considered damaging to his candidacy. Less than an hour later, WikiLeaks made its second release: thousands of John Podesta's emails that had been stolen by the GRU in late March 2016. The FBI and other U.S. government institutions were at the time continuing their investigation of suspected Russian government efforts to interfere in the presidential election. That same day, October 7, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint public statement "that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations." Those "thefts" and the "disclosures" of the hacked materials through online platforms such as WikiLeaks, the statement continued, "are intended to interfere with the US election process."

Post-2016 Election. Immediately after the November 8 election, Russian government officials and prominent Russian businessmen began trying to make inroads into the new administration. The most senior levels of the Russian government encouraged these efforts. The Russian Embassy made contact hours after the election to congratulate the President-Elect and to arrange a call with President Putin. Several Russian businessmen picked up the effort from there.

Kirill Dmitriev, the chief executive officer of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, was among the Russians who tried to make contact with the incoming administration. In early December, a business associate steered Dmitriev to Erik Prince, a supporter of the Trump Campaign and an associate of senior Trump advisor Steve Bannon. Dmitriev and Prince later met face-to-face in January 2017 in the Seychelles and discussed U.S.-Russia relations. During the same period, another business associate introduced Dmitriev to a friend of Jared Kushner who had not served on the Campaign or the Transition Team. Dmitriev and Kushner's friend collaborated on a short written reconciliation plan for the United States and Russia, which Dmitriev implied had been cleared through Putin. The friend gave that proposal to Kushner before the inauguration, and Kushner later gave copies to Bannon and incoming Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

On December 29, 2016, then-President Obama imposed sanctions on Russia for having interfered in the election. Incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn called Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and asked Russia not to escalate the situation in response to the sanctions. The following day, Putin announced that Russia would not take retaliatory measures in response to the sanctions at that time. Hours later, President-Elect Trump tweeted, "Great move on delay (by V. Putin)." The next day, on December 31, 2016, Kislyak called Flynn and told him the request had been received at the highest levels and Russia had chosen not to retaliate as a result of Flynn's request.

***

On January 6, 2017, members of the intelligence community briefed President-Elect Trump on a joint assessment—drafted and coordinated among the Central Intelligence Agency, FBI, and National Security Agency—that concluded with high confidence that Russia had intervened in the election through a variety of means to assist Trump's candidacy and harm Clinton's. A declassified version of the assessment was publicly released that same day.

Between mid-January 2017 and early February 2017, three congressional committees—the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), and the Senate Judiciary Committee (SJC)—announced that they would conduct inquiries, or had already been conducting inquiries, into Russian interference in the election. Then-FBI Director James Comey later confirmed to Congress the existence of the FBI's investigation into Russian interference that had begun before the election. On March 20, 2017, in open-session testimony before HPSCI, Comey stated:

I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia's efforts. . . . As with any counterintelligence investigation, this will also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed.

The investigation continued under then-Director Comey for the next seven weeks until May 9, 2017, when President Trump fired Comey as FBI Director—an action which is analyzed in Volume II of the report.

On May 17, 2017, Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed the Special Counsel and authorized him to conduct the investigation that Comey had confirmed in his congressional testimony, as well as matters arising directly from the investigation, and any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a), which generally covers efforts to interfere with or obstruct the investigation.

President Trump reacted negatively to the Special Counsel's appointment. He told advisors that it was the end of his presidency, sought to have Attorney General Jefferson (Jeff) Sessions unrecuse from the Russia investigation and to have the Special Counsel removed, and engaged in efforts to curtail the Special Counsel's investigation and prevent the disclosure of evidence to it, including through public and private contacts with potential witnesses. Those and related actions are described and analyzed in Volume II of the report.

***

THE SPECIAL COUNSEL'S CHARGING DECISIONS

In reaching the charging decisions described in Volume I of the report, the Office determined whether the conduct it found amounted to a violation of federal criminal law chargeable under the Principles of Federal Prosecution. See Justice Manual § 9-27.000 et seq. (2018). The standard set forth in the Justice Manual is whether the conduct constitutes a crime; if so, whether admissible evidence would probably be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction; and whether prosecution would serve a substantial federal interest that could not be adequately served by prosecution elsewhere or through non-criminal alternatives. See Justice Manual § 9-27.220.

Section V of the report provides detailed explanations of the Office's charging decisions, which contain three main components.

First, the Office determined that Russia's two principal interference operations in the 2016 U.S. presidential election—the social media campaign and the hacking-and-dumping operations—violated U.S. criminal law. Many of the individuals and entities involved in the social media campaign have been charged with participating in a conspiracy to defraud the United States by undermining through deceptive acts the work of federal agencies charged with regulating foreign influence in U.S. elections, as well as related counts of identity theft. See United States v. Internet Research Agency, et al., No. 18-cr-32 (D.D.C.). Separately, Russian intelligence officers who carried out the hacking into Democratic Party computers and the personal email accounts of individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign conspired to violate, among other federal laws, the federal computer-intrusion statute, and they have been so charged. See United States v. Netyksho, et al., No. 18-cr-215 (D.D.C.). [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter, Personal Privacy]

Second, while the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges. Among other things, the evidence was not sufficient to charge any Campaign official as an unregistered agent of the Russian government or other Russian principal. And our evidence about the June 9, 2016 meeting and WikiLeaks's releases of hacked materials was not sufficient to charge a criminal campaign-finance violation. Further, the evidence was not sufficient to charge that any member of the Trump Campaign conspired with representatives of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election.

Third, 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. The Office charged some of those lies as violations of the federal false statements statute. Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying about his interactions with Russian Ambassador Kislyak during the transition period. George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy advisor during the campaign period, pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about, inter alia, the nature and timing of his interactions with Joseph Mifsud, the professor who told Papadopoulos that the Russians had dirt on candidate Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. Former Trump Organization attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to making false statements to Congress about the Trump Moscow project. [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter] And in February 2019, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found that Manafort lied to the Office and the grand jury concerning his interactions and communications with Konstantin Kilimnik about Trump Campaign polling data and a peace plan for Ukraine.

***

The Office investigated several other events that have been publicly reported to involve potential Russia-related contacts. For example, the investigation established that interaction between Russian Ambassador Kislyak and Trump Campaign officials both at the candidate's April 2016 foreign policy speech in Washington, D.C., and during the week of the Republican National Convention were brief, public, and non-substantive. And the investigation did not establish that one Campaign official's efforts to dilute a portion of the Republican Party platform on providing assistance to Ukraine were undertaken at the behest of candidate Trump or Russia. The investigation also did not establish that a meeting between Kislyak and Sessions in September 2016 at Sessions's Senate office included any more than a passing mention of the presidential campaign.

The investigation did not always yield admissible information or testimony, or a complete picture of the activities undertaken by subjects of the investigation. Some individuals invoked their Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination and were not, in the Office's judgment, appropriate candidates for grants of immunity. The Office limited its pursuit of other witnesses and information—such as information known to attorneys or individuals claiming to be members of the media—in light of internal Department of Justice policies. See, e.g., Justice Manual §§ 9-13.400, 13.410. Some of the information obtained via court process, moreover, was presumptively covered by legal privilege and was screened from investigators by a filter (or "taint") team. Even when individuals testified or agreed to be interviewed, they sometimes provided information that was false or incomplete, leading to some of the false-statements charges described above. And the Office faced practical limits on its ability to access relevant evidence as well-numerous witnesses and subjects lived abroad, and documents were held outside the United States.

Further, the Office learned that some of the individuals we interviewed or whose conduct we investigated—including some associated with the Trump Campaign—deleted relevant communications or communicated during the relevant period using applications that feature encryption or that do not provide for long-term retention of data or communications records. In such cases, the Office was not able to corroborate witness statements through comparison to contemporaneous communications or fully question witnesses about statements that appeared inconsistent with other known facts.

Accordingly, while this report embodies factual and legal determinations that the Office believes to be accurate and complete to the greatest extent possible, given these identified gaps, the Office cannot rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed additional light on (or cast in a new light) the events described in the report.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY TO VOLUME II

Our obstruction-of-justice inquiry focused on a series of actions by the President that related to the Russian-interference investigations, including the President's conduct towards the law enforcement officials overseeing the investigations and the witnesses to relevant events.

FACTUAL RESULTS OF THE OBSTRUCTION INVESTIGATION

The key issues and events we examined include the following:

The Campaign's response to reports about Russian support for Trump. During the 2016 presidential campaign, questions arose about the Russian government's apparent support for candidate Trump. After WikiLeaks released politically damaging Democratic Party emails that were reported to have been hacked by Russia, Trump publicly expressed skepticism that Russia was responsible for the hacks at the same time that he and other Campaign officials privately sought information [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter] about any further planned WikiLeaks releases. Trump also denied having any business in or connections to Russia, even though as late as June 2016 the Trump Organization had been pursuing a licensing deal for a skyscraper to be built in Russia called Trump Tower Moscow. After the election, the President expressed concerns to advisors that reports of Russia's election interference might lead the public to question the legitimacy of his election.

Conduct involving FBI Director Comey and Michael Flynn. In mid-January 2017, incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn falsely denied to the Vice President, other administration officials, and FBI agents that he had talked to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about Russia's response to U.S. sanctions on Russia for its election interference. On January 27, the day after the President was told that Flynn had lied to the Vice President and had made similar statements to the FBI, the President invited FBI Director Comey to a private dinner at the White House and told Comey that he needed loyalty. On February 14, the day after the President requested Flynn's resignation, the President told an outside advisor, "Now that we fired Flynn, the Russia thing is over." The advisor disagreed and said the investigations would continue.

Later that afternoon, the President cleared the Oval Office to have a one-on-one meeting with Comey. Referring to the FBI's investigation of Flynn, the President said, "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go." Shortly after requesting Flynn's resignation and speaking privately to Comey, the President sought to have Deputy National Security Advisor K.T. McFarland draft an internal letter stating that the President had not directed Flynn to discuss sanctions with Kislyak. McFarland declined because she did not know whether that was true, and a White House Counsel's Office attorney thought that the request would look like a quid pro quo for an ambassadorship she had been offered.

The President's reaction to the continuing Russia investigation. In February 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions began to assess whether he had to recuse himself from campaign-related investigations because of his role in the Trump Campaign. In early March, the President told White House Counsel Donald McGahn to stop Sessions from recusing. And after Sessions announced his recusal on March 2, the President expressed anger at the decision and told advisors that he should have an Attorney General who would protect him. That weekend, the President took Sessions aside at an event and urged him to "unrecuse." Later in March, Comey publicly disclosed at a congressional hearing that the FBI was investigating "the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election," including any links or coordination between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign. In the following days, the President reached out to the Director of National Intelligence and the leaders of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) to ask them what they could do to publicly dispel the suggestion that the President had any connection to the Russian election-interference effort. The President also twice called Comey directly, notwithstanding guidance from McGahn to avoid direct contacts with the Department of Justice. Comey had previously assured the President that the FBI was not investigating him personally, and the President asked Comey to "lift the cloud" of the Russia investigation by saying that publicly.

The President's termination of Comey. On May 3, 2017, Comey testified in a congressional hearing, but declined to answer questions about whether the President was personally under investigation. Within days, the President decided to terminate Comey. The President insisted that the termination letter, which was written for public release, state that Comey had informed the President that he was not under investigation. The day of the firing, the White House maintained that Comey's termination resulted from independent recommendations from the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General that Comey should be discharged for mishandling the Hillary Clinton email investigation. But the President had decided to fire Comey before hearing from the Department of Justice. The day after firing Comey, the President told Russian officials that he had "faced great pressure because of Russia," which had been "taken off' by Comey's firing. The next day, the President acknowledged in a television interview that he was going to fire Comey regardless of the Department of Justice's recommendation and that when he "decided to just do it," he was thinking that "this thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story." In response to a question about whether he was angry with Comey about the Russia investigation, the President said, "As far as I'm concerned, I want that thing to be absolutely done properly," adding that firing Comey "might even lengthen out the investigation."

The appointment of a Special Counsel and efforts to remove him. On May 17, 2017, the Acting Attorney General for the Russia investigation appointed a Special Counsel to conduct the investigation and related matters. The President reacted to news that a Special Counsel had been appointed by telling advisors that it was "the end of his presidency" and demanding that Sessions resign. Sessions submitted his resignation, but the President ultimately did not accept it. The President told aides that the Special Counsel had conflicts of interest and suggested that the Special Counsel therefore could not serve. The President's advisors told him the asserted conflicts were meritless and had already been considered by the Department of Justice.

On June 14, 2017, the media reported that the Special Counsel's Office was investigating whether the President had obstructed justice. Press reports called this "a major turning point" in the investigation: while Comey had told the President he was not under investigation, following Comey's firing, the President now was under investigation. The President reacted to this news with a series of tweets criticizing the Department of Justice and the Special Counsel's investigation. On June 17, 2017, the President called McGahn at home and directed him to call the Acting Attorney General and say that the Special Counsel had conflicts of interest and must be removed. McGahn did not carry out the direction, however, deciding that he would resign rather than trigger what he regarded as a potential Saturday Night Massacre.

Efforts to curtail the Special Counsel's investigation. Two days after directing McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed, the President made another attempt to affect the course of the Russia investigation. On June 19, 2017, the President met one-on-one in the Oval Office with his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, a trusted advisor outside the government, and dictated a message for Lewandowski to deliver to Sessions. The message said that Sessions should publicly announce that, notwithstanding his recusal from the Russia investigation, the investigation was "very unfair" to the President, the President had done nothing wrong, and Sessions planned to meet with the Special Counsel and "let [him] move forward with investigating election meddling for future elections." Lewandowski said he understood what the President wanted Sessions to do.

One month later, in another private meeting with Lewandowski on July 19, 2017, the President asked about the status of his message for Sessions to limit the Special Counsel investigation to future election interference. Lewandowski told the President that the message would be delivered soon. Hours after that meeting, the President publicly criticized Sessions in an interview with the New York Times, and then issued a series of tweets making it clear that Sessions's job was in jeopardy. Lewandowski did not want to deliver the President's message personally, so he asked senior White House official Rick Dearborn to deliver it to Sessions. Dearborn was uncomfortable with the task and did not follow through.

Efforts to prevent public disclosure of evidence. In the summer of 2017, the President learned that media outlets were asking questions about the June 9, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between senior campaign officials, including Donald Trump Jr., and a Russian lawyer who was said to be offering damaging information about Hillary Clinton as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." On several occasions, the President directed aides not to publicly disclose the emails setting up the June 9 meeting, suggesting that the emails would not leak and that the number of lawyers with access to them should be limited. Before the emails became public, the President edited a press statement for Trump Jr. by deleting a line that acknowledged that the meeting was with "an individual who [Trump Jr.] was told might have information helpful to the campaign" and instead said only that the meeting was about adoptions of Russian children. When the press asked questions about the President's involvement in Trump Jr.'s statement, the President's personal lawyer repeatedly denied the President had played any role.

Further efforts to have the Attorney General take control of the investigation. In early summer 2017, the President called Sessions at home and again asked him to reverse his recusal from the Russia investigation. Sessions did not reverse his recusal. In October 20 17, the President met privately with Sessions in the Oval Office and asked him to "take [a] look" at investigating Clinton. In December 2017, shortly after Flynn pleaded guilty pursuant to a cooperation agreement, the President met with Sessions in the Oval Office and suggested, according to notes taken by a senior advisor, that if Sessions unrecused and took back supervision of the Russia investigation, he would be a "hero." The President told Sessions, "I'm not going to do anything or direct you to do anything. I just want to be treated fairly." In response, Sessions volunteered that he had never seen anything "improper" on the campaign and told the President there was a "whole new leadership team" in place. He did not unrecuse.

Efforts to have McGahn deny that the President had ordered him to have the Special Counsel removed. In early 2018, the press reported that the President had directed McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed in June 2017 and that McGahn had threatened to resign rather than carry out the order. The President reacted to the news stories by directing White House officials to tell McGahn to dispute the story and create a record stating he had not been ordered to have the Special Counsel removed. McGahn told those officials that the media reports were accurate in stating that the President had directed McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed. The President then met with McGahn in the Oval Office and again pressured him to deny the reports. Tn the same meeting, the President also asked McGahn why he had told the Special Counsel about the President's effort to remove the Special Counsel and why McGahn took notes of his conversations with the President. McGahn refused to back away from what he remembered happening and perceived the President to be testing his mettle.

Conduct towards Flynn, Manafort, [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter]. After Flynn withdrew from a joint defense agreement with the President and began cooperating with the government, the President's personal counsel left a message for Flynn's attorneys reminding them of the President's warm feelings towards Flynn, which he said "still remains," and asking for a "heads up" if Flynn knew "information that implicates the President." When Flynn's counsel reiterated that Flynn could no longer share information pursuant to a joint defense agreement, the President's personal counsel said he would make sure that the President knew that Flynn's actions reflected " hostility" towards the President. During Manafort's prosecution and when the jury in his criminal trial was deliberating, the President praised Manafort in public, said that Manafort was being treated unfairly, and declined to rule out a pardon. After Manafort was convicted, the President called Manafort “a brave man” for refusing to “break” and said that “flipping” “almost ought to be outlawed.” [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter]

Conduct involving Michael Cohen. The President's conduct towards Michael Cohen, a former Trump Organization executive, changed from praise for Cohen when he falsely minimized the President's involvement in the Trump Tower Moscow project, to castigation of Cohen when he became a cooperating witness. From September 2015 to June 2016, Cohen had pursued the Trump Tower Moscow project on behalf of the Trump Organization and had briefed candidate Trump on the project numerous times, including discussing whether Trump should travel to Russia to advance the deal. In 2017, Cohen provided false testimony to Congress about the project, including stating that he had only briefed Trump on the project three times and never discussed travel to Russia with him, in an effort to adhere to a "party line" that Cohen said was developed to minimize the President's connections to Russia. While preparing for his congressional testimony, Cohen had extensive discussions with the President's personal counsel, who, according to Cohen, said that Cohen should "stay on message" and not contradict the President. After the FBI searched Cohen's home and office in April 2018, the President publicly asserted that Cohen would not "flip," contacted him directly to tell him to "stay strong," and privately passed messages of support to him. Cohen also discussed pardons with the President's personal counsel and believed that if he stayed on message he would be taken care of. But after Cohen began cooperating with the government in the summer of 2018, the President publicly criticized him, called him a "rat," and suggested that his family members had committed crimes.

Overarching factual issues. We did not make a traditional prosecution decision about these facts, but the evidence we obtained supports several general statements about the President's conduct.

Several features of the conduct we investigated distinguish it from typical obstruction-of-justice cases. First, the investigation concerned the President, and some of his actions, such as firing the FBI director, involved facially lawful acts within his Article II authority, which raises constitutional issues discussed below. At the same time, the President's position as the head of the Executive Branch provided him with unique and powerful means of influencing official proceedings, subordinate officers, and potential witnesses—all of which is relevant to a potential obstruction-of-justice analysis. Second, unlike cases in which a subject engages in obstruction of justice to cover up a crime, the evidence we obtained did not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference. Although the obstruction statutes do not require proof of such a crime, the absence of that evidence affects the analysis of the President's intent and requires consideration of other possible motives for his conduct. Third, many of the President's acts directed at witnesses, including discouragement of cooperation with the government and suggestions of possible future pardons, took place in public view. That circumstance is unusual, but no principle of law excludes public acts from the reach of the obstruction laws. If the likely effect of public acts is to influence witnesses or alter their testimony, the harm to the justice system's integrity is the same.

Although the series of events we investigated involved discrete acts, the overall pattern of the President's conduct towards the investigations can shed light on the nature of the President's acts and the inferences that can be drawn about his intent. In particular, the actions we investigated can be divided into two phases, reflecting a possible shift in the President's motives. The first phase covered the period from the President's first interactions with Comey through the President's firing of Comey. During that time, the President had been repeatedly told he was not personally under investigation. Soon after the firing of Comey and the appointment of the Special Counsel, however, the President became aware that his own conduct was being investigated in an obstruction-of-justice inquiry. At that point, the President engaged in a second phase of conduct, involving public attacks on the investigation, non-public efforts to control it, and efforts in both public and private to encourage witnesses not to cooperate with the investigation. Judgments about the nature of the President's motives during each phase would be informed by the totality of the evidence.

STATUTORY AND CONSTITUTIONAL DEFENSES

The President's counsel raised statutory and constitutional defenses to a possible obstruction-of-justice analysis of the conduct we investigated. We concluded that none of those legal defenses provided a basis for declining to investigate the facts.

Statutory defenses. Consistent with precedent and the Department of Justice's general approach to interpreting obstruction statutes, we concluded that several statutes could apply here. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 1503, 1505, 1512(b)(3), 1512(c)(2). Section 1512(c)(2) is an omnibus obstruction-of-justice provision that covers a range of obstructive acts directed at pending or contemplated official proceedings. No principle of statutory construction justifies narrowing the provision to cover only conduct that impairs the integrity or availability of evidence. Sections 1503 and 1505 also offer broad protection against obstructive acts directed at pending grand jury, judicial, administrative, and congressional proceedings, and they are supplemented by a provision

in Section 1512(b) aimed specifically at conduct intended to prevent or hinder the communication to law enforcement of information related to a federal crime.

Constitutional defenses. As for constitutional defenses arising from the President's status as the head of the Executive Branch, we recognized that the Department of Justice and the courts have not definitively resolved these issues. We therefore examined those issues through the framework established by Supreme Court precedent governing separation-of-powers issues. The Department of Justice and the President's personal counsel have recognized that the President is subject to statutes that prohibit obstruction of justice by bribing a witness or suborning perjury because that conduct does not implicate his constitutional authority. With respect to whether the President can be found to have obstructed justice by exercising his powers under Article II of the Constitution, we concluded that Congress has authority to prohibit a President's corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice.

Under applicable Supreme Court precedent, the Constitution does not categorically and permanently immunize a President for obstructing justice through the use of his Article II powers. The separation-of-powers doctrine authorizes Congress to protect official proceedings, including those of courts and grand juries, from corrupt, obstructive acts regardless of their source. We also concluded that any inroad on presidential authority that would occur from prohibiting corrupt acts does not undermine the President's ability to fulfill his constitutional mission. The term "corruptly" sets a demanding standard. It requires a concrete showing that a person acted with an intent to obtain an improper advantage for himself or someone else, inconsistent with official duty and the rights of others. A preclusion of "corrupt" official action does not diminish the President's ability to exercise Article Il powers. For example, the proper supervision of criminal law does not demand freedom for the President to act with a corrupt intention of shielding himself from criminal punishment, avoiding financial liability, or preventing personal embarrassment. To the contrary, a statute that prohibits official action undertaken for such corrupt purposes furthers, rather than hinders, the impartial and evenhanded administration of the law. It also aligns with the President's constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws. Finally, we concluded that in the rare case in which a criminal investigation of the President's conduct is justified, inquiries to determine whether the President acted for a corrupt motive should not impermissibly chill his performance of his constitutionally assigned duties. The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President's corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.

CONCLUSION

Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President's conduct. The evidence we obtained about the President's actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment. At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.

Seran's triggered :rofl:

[Suppa Hobbit Mage]

Yeah, wall of text, no link to it's source... Nothing suspicious there.

[Neveragain]

this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime

I'm glad we have that all straightened out.

[Methais]

I'm glad we have that all straightened out.

In Seran's world, you're guilty until proven innocent unless he agrees with you politically and/or are a pedo like him.

[Seran]

Glad we're all on the same page about Jared and Don Jr's meetings with Russian operatives to coordinate the release of anti-Hillary propaganda and stolen DNC emails as they testified happened. As I stated, the Mueller report spelled out the cooperation, decided it didn't have enough to charge a criminal conspiracy for Trump specifically while not exonerating him. The fact 8 others were charged seems to have been lost to the far right.

Durham meanwhile took longer, cost far more money and returned - zero - convictions for criminal wrongdoing. Talking about fraudulent abuse of DOJ resources.

[Methais]

Glad we're all on the same page about Jared and Don Jr's meetings with Russian operatives to coordinate the release of anti-Hillary propaganda and stolen DNC emails as they testified happened. As I stated, the Mueller report spelled out the cooperation, decided it didn't have enough to charge a criminal conspiracy for Trump specifically while not exonerating him. The fact 8 others were charged seems to have been lost to the far right.

Durham meanwhile took longer, cost far more money and returned - zero - convictions for criminal wrongdoing. Talking about fraudulent abuse of DOJ resources.

On a scale of 1-10, how butthurt are you over this?

https://media4.giphy.com/media/lgkIEmOUL5PVu/200w.gif?cid=6c09b952j1iqc9q5149mozg03y9d5t3a2afq9 kpzm5gvm4vu&ep=v1_gifs_search&rid=200w.gif&ct=g

[Parkbandit]

Glad we're all on the same page about Jared and Don Jr's meetings with Russian operatives to coordinate the release of anti-Hillary propaganda and stolen DNC emails as they testified happened. As I stated, the Mueller report spelled out the cooperation, decided it didn't have enough to charge a criminal conspiracy for Trump specifically while not exonerating him. The fact 8 others were charged seems to have been lost to the far right.

Durham meanwhile took longer, cost far more money and returned - zero - convictions for criminal wrongdoing. Talking about fraudulent abuse of DOJ resources.

1) I would love to see the math on your claim that the Durham "cost far more money" than the Mueller report.

2) The Durham report uncovered widespread corruption of our government that misused the FISA "Court" hundreds of thousands times against US citizens, spied on a Presidential campaign and literally colluded with one party in an attempt to defraud the citizens of the country.

[Neveragain]

Glad we're all on the same page about Jared and Don Jr's meetings with Russian operatives to coordinate the release of anti-Hillary propaganda and stolen DNC emails as they testified happened. As I stated, the Mueller report spelled out the cooperation, decided it didn't have enough to charge a criminal conspiracy for Trump specifically while not exonerating him. The fact 8 others were charged seems to have been lost to the far right.

Durham meanwhile took longer, cost far more money and returned - zero - convictions for criminal wrongdoing. Talking about fraudulent abuse of DOJ resources.

you going to be ok?

[Solkern]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-citizen-detained-russia-appearing-021732041.html

US citizen detained on drug charges in Moscow identified as rock band manager Travis Leake

I know this guy, very well! He was very anti drugs, such bullshit charges!

[Bhaalizmo]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-citizen-detained-russia-appearing-021732041.html

US citizen detained on drug charges in Moscow identified as rock band manager Travis Leake

I know this guy, very well! He was very anti drugs, such bullshit charges!

Oh the good old sprinkle some crack on em trick. They love that one.

[Methais]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-citizen-detained-russia-appearing-021732041.html

US citizen detained on drug charges in Moscow identified as rock band manager Travis Leake

I know this guy, very well! He was very anti drugs, such bullshit charges!


This story will be buried by Monday because it's a white guy.

[Suppa Hobbit Mage]

This story will be buried by Monday because it's a white guy.

That and we already traded the merchant of death for a wnba "star".

[Gelston]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-citizen-detained-russia-appearing-021732041.html

US citizen detained on drug charges in Moscow identified as rock band manager Travis Leake

I know this guy, very well! He was very anti drugs, such bullshit charges!

Not a very smart guy then. The State Department has said 4563456345 times "Don't go to Russia, they are grabbing up US Citizens with bogus charges". yet he was still there.

[Solkern]

Not a very smart guy then. The State Department has said 4563456345 times "Don't go to Russia, they are grabbing up US Citizens with bogus charges". yet he was still there.

Wife and child are there, hard to leave them.

[~Rocktar~]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-citizen-detained-russia-appearing-021732041.html

US citizen detained on drug charges in Moscow identified as rock band manager Travis Leake

I know this guy, very well! He was very anti drugs, such bullshit charges!

Too bad he isn't a stupid lesbian WNBA player and we are fresh out of worlds most dangerous arms dealers to trade for him.

[~Rocktar~]

And the truth shall set you free. Even more evidence of Obama and crew censoring people.


https://youtu.be/JLBbkTmOG7k?si=3_Lwz1hrfknKajLf