Mueller Report Results: What Donald Trump Really Did in 2016

In the midst of the long chronicle of the Mueller report on Trump's associates' contacts with Russia or other zany characters during the 2016 campaign, fascinating new insights into what Donald Trump was personally involved with.

The report details how Trump allowed and remains very interested in Michael Cohen's efforts to build a Trump tower in Moscow. It also reveals that Trump repeatedly told his campaign associates to find Hillary Clinton's emails – and that Michael Flynn had tried to send it to him.

In addition, tempting excerpts from the report seem to describe Trump getting information about WikiLeaks' plan to publish more damaging information about Clinton – although the accuracy of this information or Mueller's strength of evidence remain unclear.

In summary, the report reveals that Trump's ambition was to achieve a lucrative commercial contract with Russia. He was eager to "find" his opponent's emails and he apparently heard about WikiLeaks.

However, Mueller reveals no evidence of Trump's personal involvement regarding the Russian contacts of George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Carter Page or Jeff Sessions. He found "no documentary evidence" indicating that Trump was aware of his son's prior meeting with a Russian lawyer.

And, of course, Mueller did not find any conspiracy between Trump and Russian government officials to interfere in the elections – and his report does not give the impression that he was on the point of bringing such an accusation.

Rather than any conspiracy of super-spies involving the highest levels of the Trump campaign, the Mueller report therefore seems to tell the story of a series of disorganized, missed opportunities – and, sometimes, pure bullshit.

In what Trump was personally involved

The first volume of the Mueller report, on Russia's interference in elections, covers a host of events, but only gives details of Donald Trump's personal role in three of them.

1) Trump Tower Moscow: Michael Cohen told Mueller that even though Trump ran for president in 2015 and 2016, he endorsed Cohen's efforts to build a Trump tower in Moscow. Cohen said that "on several occasions" Trump was talking about the project and asking for updates. At one point, Cohen went to the office of Vladimir Putin's press attaché to try to move the project forward. He then informed Trump of the conversation that followed, he said.

In May 2016 – while Trump was the Republican candidate on standby – Cohen said Trump had told him that he would be willing to travel to Russia if it could mean an agreement. That summer, after Trump had publicly denied having anything to do with Russia, he inquired of Cohen about the status of the Moscow project, Cohen said. In the end, Cohen failed to move the project forward and failed this summer.

None of this was criminal, but the details of Trump's long-standing interest in this potentially "very lucrative" deal with Moscow shed new light on what could have motivated his unusually warm words for Putin during the campaign. .

2) Wikileaks and Roger Stone: Did Donald Trump have any kind of inside information about WikiLeaks' plans to release pirated Democrat emails?

We still do not know because this is one of the most edited sections of the report – although we can see it, it is clear that this section describes the conversations that Trump had with his advisers.

The redactions apparently hide references to Roger Stone so as not to compromise his next trial. Prosecutors claimed that Stone had attempted to contact Julian Assange in the summer of 2016 in order to appropriate future versions of WikiLeaks related to Clinton. However, although the indictment against Stone provided evidence that he had learned that the group had leaks related to the coming of John Podesta, he did not attempt to tell the whole story of what he knew.

This whole story – at least as far as Mueller can tell – seems to be on pages 51 to 59 of the first volume of the report. And the unredacted passages in this document make several allusions to Trump, Cohen, Rick Gates, and Paul Manafort discussing WikiLeaks, apparently with or about Stone.

For example, at one point, Trump is described as having a phone call with a person expelled, then telling Rick Gates that more damaging information is coming.

Later in the report, Mueller writes that one of the potential motivations for Trump to obstruct the investigation of Russia would be "the potential uncertainty about whether certain events – such as the notification prior to the disclosure by WikiLeaks of pirated information "- could be criminal on the part of Trump, his campaign, or his family.

So, did Stone and Trump finally get solid information about WikiLeaks projects? Or is it a more troubled situation? We will probably have to wait for a leak or the end of Stone's trial in November to find out.

3) Try to find the deleted emails for Hillary Clinton: Whatever happened to WikiLeaks, Mueller's report makes it clear that Trump wanted access to Hillary Clinton's emails.

On July 27, 2016, Trump publicly made his now infamous comment: "Russia, if you listen, I hope you'll be able to find the 30,000 missing emails" – referring to the mails that Clinton removed instead of returning them. to the investigators, because she said they were personal and not work-related. (These e-mails have become an obsession for some conservatives, who said they would reveal Clinton's corruption.)

The report reveals that Trump privately asked his advisers to get Clinton's emails: Michael Flynn, who then advised Trump's campaign, "recalled that Trump had made this request several times".

Flynn then took action at Trump's request, contacting "several people in order to get the emails," including Republican donor Peter Smith, who suggested he was talking to Russian hackers about it. But Mueller's report suggests that Smith (who has since died) made jokes about it, and Clinton's own emails were never revealed.

Trump's request to retrieve Clinton's e-mails was not necessarily an illegal activity – some conservatives thought e-mails were already on the "dark Web" somewhere, waiting to be found. But this certainly shows a willingness to solicit shady and questionable behavior, and makes it even more curious to learn what really happened with WikiLeaks.

Mueller found "no documentary evidence" Trump was aware of Don Jr.'s meeting

Nearly two years ago, the world learned that in June 2016, Donald Trump Jr. enthusiastically accepted a meeting to dirty Hillary Clinton, which would come from the Russian government. It seemed to be close to the "collusion" that Trump had long denied.

So almost immediately, the question arose as to whether Don Jr. had informed his father of this undertaking. Steve Bannon told journalist Michael Wolff that there was "no" chance that Trump would not be involved. And Michael Cohen has publicly testified this year that he remembered that Don Jr. had spoken to his father about a prior meeting – without however explicitly mentioning anything about Russia.

Mueller's report describes Cohen's claims, but admits that they could not be proven. The special advocate writes that he has found no "documentary evidence showing that he [Trump] was made aware of the meeting – or its connection with Russia – before it would happen

It is important to note that the Special Council also seems to accept the longstanding claims of the Trump team that the meeting was a failure, producing no useful dirt or significant consequences. For example, Mueller writes that Kushner wrote to Manafort "the waste of time" during the meeting and that "the presentation of the Russian lawyer did not provide" the information provided. The special advocate also wrote that "the investigation did not reveal any evidence linking the events of 9 June to the GRU piracy operation", that is, leaks from Democratic mail.

So in the end, as shady as the Trump Tower meeting appeared, it was not important and there was no hard evidence that Trump knew about it.

Mueller presents no evidence of Trump's personal involvement in the other incidents described by Mueller

Finally, although Mueller describes a fairly mind-blowing assortment of contacts between members of the Trump campaign and people with ties to Russia, he provides no evidence that Trump himself was involved in most of them. Here are seven of the main ones:

1) The "dirt" of George Papadopoulos: In April 2016, Trump's foreign policy advisor, George Papadopoulos, learned that Russia had accused Hillary Clinton of dirtying Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of e-mails. (The suggestion comes from a London-based professor, Joseph Mifsud, who said he had links with the Russian government and that he had just returned from a visit to that country. .)

In the weeks that followed, Papadopoulos shared this news about Russian dirt in Clinton with the Greek foreign minister and an Australian diplomat. Papadopoulos also He spoke with Trump campaigners about Russian government messages and a possible trip to Moscow. He even wrote in a newspaper at one point: "They talk to us. It's a lot of risk. Putin's office. "

Of course, one might think that Papadopoulos also told people about the Trump campaign of Russian "dirt" on Clinton – that's great news! The Mueller investigation did not however establish that this had occurred.

Papadopoulos himself said "that he could not remember clearly" after informing him of the campaign, and Mueller's team questioned by campaign officials "said, with more or less certainty, that he had not told them. " There is no apparent evidence of this information his way to Trump himself.

2) Sharing survey data by Manafort: Mueller's report revealed that Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had sent internal poll data to a Russian partner, with the deal allegedly being leaked to several Ukrainian oligarchs and a Russian oligarch. Manafort also met with Kilimnik and discussed the campaign's strategy, including targeting the Midwestern states.

But nothing says in the report that Trump was aware of what Manafort was doing or was involved in what he was doing. And Mueller's report suggests the possibility that Manafort is content to create new activities.

"The Office has found no evidence of a link between Manafort's polling data sharing and Russia's interference in the elections," Mueller writes. He added: "The investigation has not established that Manafort would otherwise have coordinated his efforts with the Russian government as part of his efforts to electoral interference."

3) Carter Page's visit to Moscow: The July 2016 trip by Trump's foreign policy advisor to Moscow, Carter Page, has fueled conspiracy theories since its publication – and this has been widely reported in the Steele case. (Steele claimed that Page had plotted with the Russian authorities about the DNC's e-mail leak and had anticipated a significant financial gain, but Page had always claimed that it had gone from nothing to wrong.)

The only new evidence presented by Mueller on this subject in the report seems exculpatory for Page. He reveals an email from Putin's press officer who was discussing Page's trip, in which he wrote: [Page]. Specialists say that it is far from the main thing. I'd better not hold a meeting in the Kremlin. That is to say, at least one Russian official was in office. careful to meet Page.

It is curious that Mr. Page sent an email to the Trump campaign advisers on this trip, boasting "incredible knowledge and considerable reach" that he had received from Russian officials. But Mueller writes: "The Office has not been able to obtain additional evidence or testimony about the people that Mr Page might have met or communicated in Moscow; thus, Page's activities in Russia – described in its e-mails with the campaign – have not been fully explained. "

In any event, Mueller has not been charged with any crime; he writes: "The investigation has not established that Page was cooperating with the Russian government in its efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election." And there has no sign of implication from Donald Trump (who Page declares never to have spoken) to any of that.

4) The Russian contacts of Roger Stone: While many details about Trump's long-time adviser Roger Stone's contact with WikiLeaks are spelled out in the report, Mueller describes two of Stone's contacts during the campaign – contacts that seem to have gone nowhere.

First, in May 2016, Stone met a Russian, a Florida-based lawyer, Henry Oknyansky, and a Ukrainian partner, Alexei Rasin, who tried to sell Stone "derogatory information about Clinton". But no agreement seems to have been reached. Mueller writes that his investigation could not "determine the content and the origin of the information" proposed and "did not identify any evidence" establishing any connection with the attempts of interference from Russia.

Second, in August 2016, Stone traded Twitter SMs with "Guccifer 2.0", an online character created by Russian intelligence agents involved in the hacking and flight operation. These messages have long been public and seem trivial. And Mueller writes, "The investigation did not highlight other communications between Stone and Guccifer 2.0."

5) The amendment to the Republican platform on Ukraine: At the 2016 Republican Convention, a delegate proposed an amendment that would arm Ukraine. The efforts of the Trump campaign to weaken this amendment have soured, many wondering if the campaign carried water for Moscow.

Trump campaigner, J.D. Gordon, led this effort – and, according to the delegate with whom he had bitten his head, Gordon had stated that he had been on the phone with Trump about it. But the delegate herself was skeptical as to whether this was true, and Gordon's phone records suggest that he may have been engaged in a cooking pot. It does not include calls to a number associated with Trump, Mueller writes.

Ultimately, Mueller concludes: "The investigation did not establish that Gordon had spoken or had been instructed by the candidate to make this proposal."

6) Jeff Sessions and Sergey Kislyak: In 2017, a media frenzy erupted when it became known that Trump's Attorney General Jeff Sessions had met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the election campaign – although he told a Senate committee that This was not the case. (At the time, Sessions was a Trump campaign foreign policy advisor.)

Mueller writes that his office considered charging the sessions with false statements, but decided not to do so. He is of the opinion that it is "plausible" that the sessions really did not think about the meeting when it was questioned hot at the time of the Senate testimony.

Meanwhile, Mueller presents nothing that contradicts Session's story, that his meeting with Kislyak barely alludes to the presidential campaign and that their other interactions were brief and at public events. Overall, the Sessions story seems to have held up.

7) Michael Flynn, Sergey Kislyak and the sanctions: In December 2016, after Trump won the elections but before he was sworn in, President Obama announced new sanctions against Russia. Michael Flynn and Kislyak then spoke on the phone and Flynn urged Kislyak that Russia react with restraint. Putin quickly announced that he would and Kislyak told Flynn that his words made the difference.

Flynn lied about these contacts with the FBI, denying having talked about sanctions with Kislyak. After Flynn made an advocacy agreement with the Mueller team in December 2017, many wondered if Flynn would reveal that Trump had actually ordered him to send this message to Kislyak – perhaps in exchange for his electoral help.

But Mueller has explored this case – by reviewing the communication records, the accounts of Flynn and other Trump transition officials involved – and concludes: "The investigation did not reveal any evidence that the president-elect had asked Flynn to make a request to Kislyak. "

According to the report in Mueller's report, it was a plan developed by the Transition Advisers – including Bannon and K.T. McFarland – but not personally Trump. Even a week later, "Flynn had no clear recollection of informing the president-elect of the contents of his calls with Kislyak," Mueller wrote (and he seems to believe that Flynn's testimony is credible).

As to why Flynn lied about it afterward, according to his account, it's because Trump was angry when news of Kislyak's appeals was leaked into the Washington Post. "Flynn recalled that he was feeling a lot of pressure because Priebus had been talking to the" boss "and had said that Flynn had to" kill history, "" Mueller writes. So, Flynn began to falsely deny that it was about sanctions with Kislyak – first with the other Trump advisers, then with the FBI.

It did not go well for Flynn, but, at least, according to Robert Mueller, this does not seem to be part of a massive plot between Trump and Russia either.