TIMELINE: That Russian Trump blackmail dossier has been making the rounds for months - here is how it finally came to light
It has been making the rounds in Washington DC for eight months. The document alleges that Trump declined various business deals in Russia, but that the Russian government fed Trump intel throughout the election. It also alleges that Russian spies concealed cameras in Trump's Moscow hotel room where they filmed him with prostitutes who urinated on a bed he believed President Obama had slept in.
Trump has denied the allegations as "fake news."
Here is a brief timeline showing when, and how, it surfaced:
June 2016: "It started off as a fairly general inquiry"
A "former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence" allegedly begins researching Trump's links with Russia for "an opposition research project originally financed by a Republican client critical of the celebrity mogul," according to an article published in October by Mother Jones' Washington Bureau Chief David Corn:
"In June, the former Western intelligence officer-who spent almost two decades on Russian intelligence matters and who now works with a US firm that gathers information on Russia for corporate clients-was assigned the task of researching Trump's dealings in Russia and elsewhere, according to the former spy and his associates in this American firm. This was for an opposition research project originally financed by a Republican client critical of the celebrity mogul. (Before the former spy was retained, the project's financing switched to a client allied with Democrats.) '"It started off as a fairly general inquiry,' says the former spook, who asks not to be identified. But when he dug into Trump, he notes, he came across troubling information indicating connections between Trump and the Russian government. According to his sources, he says, 'there was an established exchange of information between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin of mutual benefit.'"
June 20, 2016: The dossier is first written and sent to the FBI
The document is first dated June 20, 2016. It consists of several unverifiable periodic reports made throughout the summer. The last date in the document is December 13, 2016, more than a month after the election. The author is reported to be British. The document is sent, in dated sections, to the FBI.
Its contents are inflammatory:
The document alleges that Russia has enough to blackmail Trump:
August 27, 2016: Harry Reid writes to the FBI
Senator Harry Reid sends a letter to FBI director James Comey saying "The evidence of a direct connection between the Russian government and Donald Trump's presidential campaign continues to mount and has led Michael Morrell, the former Acting Central Intelligence Director, to call Trump an 'unwitting agent' of Russia and the Kremlin." He calls for a full investigation and public disclosure.
September 23, 2016: US intelligence agents begin an investigation
Yahoo News reports that US intelligence officials are investigating links between Trump advisor Carter Page and the Russian government. Page has extensive business links in Russia. He is a former Merrill Lynch investment banker in Moscow. His consulting firm, Global Energy Capital, is headquartered near Trump Tower in New York City. It specialises in energy deals in Russia, Yahoo reports.
October 2016: FBI allegedly gets a warrant
The FBI gets a FISA court warrant to investigate Trump's ties to Russia, according to Louise Mensch of Heat Street. She cites two separate unnamed sources for her story. Her story also cites Alfa Bank as one of the companies the FBI is seeking information about. Alfa is referred to in the dossier wrongly as "Alpha Bank." Mensch names the bank three months before the dossier is made public. Trump speechwriter Richard Burt has advised Alfa, according to the Financial Times, and one of Trump's computer servers has a connection with an Alfa server, although experts largely regarded the link between the servers as routine and innocuous, according to Fortune.
October 30, 2016: Reid demands the FBI look into "explosive information"
Sen. Reid writes again to FBI director Comey, demanding Trump's links to Russia be investigating. This time he appears to cite the existence of "explosive information" in possession of the FBI:
"In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government - a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity ... I wrote to you months ago calling for this information to be released to the public ... and yet, you continue to resist calls to inform the public of this critical information."
October 31, 2016: "an extraordinary situation"
Mother Jones' David Corn publishes his article describing the result of the former British intelligence staffer's research:
This was, the former spy remarks, "an extraordinary situation." He regularly consults with US government agencies on Russian matters, and near the start of July on his own initiative-without the permission of the US company that hired him-he sent a report he had written for that firm to a contact at the FBI, according to the former intelligence officer and his American associates, who asked not to be identified. (He declines to identify the FBI contact.) The former spy says he concluded that the information he had collected on Trump was "sufficiently serious" to share with the FBI.
December 13, 2016: The memos to the FBI come to an end
This is the last date of the memos from the British source.
January 10, 2017: Obama and Trump are told of the dossier
CNN reports that both Obama and Trump had been given a two-page briefing in early January that summarises the dossier. BuzzFeed then reports on, and publishes in full, the dossier itself.