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The recurring scrutiny of Trump associates' ties to Russia

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You're probably here because of the Nov 2025 rerun. This is the 15th time since 2016 this story has run. The previous rerun was May 2023.

About this story

Starting with the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump associates' contacts with Russian officials and intermediaries drew repeated coverage and official investigations. Examples include Michael Flynn's calls with the Russian ambassador and the FBI's surveillance of former campaign aide Carter Page. CNBC reported that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation "did not establish collusion." It also reported that Attorney General William Barr's earlier summary of the 448-page report, which was released in April 2019, said the investigation found no conspiracy or coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. CBS News reported that a December 2019 review by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz found no evidence of political bias in the FBI's Russia probe but did find 17 "significant inaccuracies and omissions" in the applications to surveil Page. CBS also reported that Special Counsel John Durham's May 2023 report found the Justice Department and FBI "failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law." Of the three people Durham prosecuted, two were acquitted and one, a former FBI lawyer, pleaded guilty.

Sources: 1, 2

20162026

Nov 2025 – Dec 2025 Witkoff's leaked call with Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov

On Nov 25, 2025, Bloomberg published a transcript of an Oct 14, 2025 call between Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff and Putin's foreign-policy adviser Yuri Ushakov. Bloomberg did not say how it got the recording, and AP said it had not independently verified the transcript. According to the transcript, Witkoff suggested Putin call Trump, congratulate him on the Gaza deal, and say he respects him as a "man of peace." Witkoff also said a peace deal would take "Donetsk and maybe a land swap somewhere" (AP via PBS; PBS NewsHour; Meduza). Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said Witkoff "should be fired," and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) said Secretary of State Marco Rubio should be allowed to do his job (AP via PBS; PBS NewsHour). The White House did not dispute the transcript. Communications director Steven Cheung said Witkoff talks to Russian and Ukrainian officials "nearly every day to achieve peace," and Trump called the call "standard negotiation" (AP via PBS; PBS NewsHour). Ushakov did not question that the recording was authentic but said Moscow had not leaked it (AP via PBS; Meduza). The scrutiny was about what Witkoff said in a diplomatic call he made as Trump's envoy, not about a business or financial link.

  • Public Broadcasting Service article
    The White House did not dispute the veracity of the transcript, and Trump described Witkoff's reported approach to the Russians in the call as "standard" negotiating procedure.
  • Public Broadcasting Service broadcast
    Yesterday, Bloomberg published an unprecedented leaked transcript of a phone conversation between Witkoff and Putin's top foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov.
  • meduza.io article
    Someone is leaking, someone is listening in — but it's not us
  • youtube.com video

Sources: Public Broadcasting Service reliable · Public Broadcasting Service reliable · meduza.io needs a second source

May 2023 The Durham report

Special Counsel John Durham was appointed under Attorney General Bill Barr. His roughly 300-page report, released May 15, 2023, examined how the FBI opened and ran Crossfire Hurricane, its 2016 investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. The report concluded that the Justice Department and FBI "failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law." It also said that at the start of the investigation, neither law enforcement nor the intelligence community "appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion." The DOJ inspector general's 2019 review had reached a different conclusion: it found no political bias and a legitimate basis to open the investigation, though it documented 17 significant errors and omissions in the Carter Page FISA applications. Durham brought three prosecutions. Only one ended in a conviction: FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith pleaded guilty to altering an email used for the Page surveillance warrant. Michael Sussmann and Igor Danchenko were both acquitted.

  • cbsnews.com article
    Neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation,
  • csmonitor.com article
    Mr. Trump, too, sought to seize on the report, claiming anew in a post on his Truth Social platform that the Mr. Durham report had found "the crime of the century" and calling the Russia investigation the "Democrat Hoax."
  • ABC News article
    In short, it is the Office's assessment that the FBI discounted or willfully ignored material information that did not support the narrative of a collusive relationship between Trump and Russia,

Sources: cbsnews.com reliable · NBC News reliable · PolitiFact reliable · csmonitor.com needs a second source

Aug 2020 – Dec 2020 Senate Intelligence Volume 5 (Aug. 18, 2020) and Manafort's pardon (Dec. 23, 2020)

Paul Manafort was Trump's 2016 campaign chairman. On Aug. 18, 2020, the Senate Intelligence Committee's bipartisan 966-page Volume 5 called his associate Konstantin Kilimnik a "Russian intelligence officer." It found that Manafort sought, on numerous occasions, to pass sensitive internal polling data and campaign strategy to Kilimnik. The committee could not determine why he did so or what Kilimnik did with the information. On Dec. 23, 2020, Trump pardoned Manafort, who had been sentenced to more than seven years in prison for financial crimes related to his work in Ukraine. According to AP, those charges did not concern whether the campaign conspired with Russia, and Mueller never charged any Trump associate with conspiring with Russia.

  • Axios article
    The committee was unable to determine why or what Kilimnik did with that information, in part due to the pair's use of encrypted messaging apps.
  • Public Broadcasting Service article
    President Donald Trump on Wednesday pardoned former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law

Sources: Axios reliable · Public Broadcasting Service reliable · Al Jazeera reliable

Dec 2019 Inspector general report on the FBI's surveillance of Carter Page

On December 9, 2019, the Justice Department inspector general released a review of the FBI's "Crossfire Hurricane" investigation. Its scope covered the July 31, 2016 opening of the case and four individual cases on current and former members of the Trump campaign: George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn. It also examined four FBI applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to monitor Page (OIG press release). The report found 17 significant errors and omissions in those four applications (FPRI). According to Axios, Horowitz found that the FBI was justified in opening the investigation and found no evidence of political bias in the FBI's scrutiny of the four advisers. Axios also reported that the errors included leaving out information that may have helped refute allegations that Page was an agent of the Russian government. The episode fits the thread as an official review of how investigators handled the scrutiny of one Trump adviser's alleged Russia ties.

  • oig.justice.gov statement
    During this review, the OIG examined more than one million documents that were in the DOJ’s and FBI’s possession and conducted over 170 interviews involving more than 100 witnesses.
  • Axios article
    I think the activities we found here don't vindicate anybody who touched this,

Sources: oig.justice.gov needs a second source · Axios reliable · fpri.org needs a second source

Mar 2019 – Apr 2019 The Mueller report

The special counsel's 448-page report wrapped up what CNBC calls "Mueller's 22-month-long investigation of Russia's interference in the 2016 election." The report says the investigation "identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign." It describes those contacts as "business connections, offers of assistance to the Campaign, invitations for candidate Trump and Putin to meet in person." It also says the investigation "did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities." It defined coordination as "an agreement—tacit or express—between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government on election interference."

  • justice.gov statement
    the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.
  • NPR article
    In some instances, the Campaign was receptive to the offer, while in other instances the Campaign officials shied away.
  • cnbc.com article
    The attorney general's summary was made public March 24, two days after Mueller delivered the report to the Justice Department.

Sources: justice.gov needs a second source · NPR reliable · cnbc.com reliable

Nov 2018 Cohen pleads guilty over the Trump Tower Moscow timeline

Michael Cohen was a longtime lawyer and executive for Trump. The charging document says he worked at a company it calls "the Company" from about 2007 to about January 2017, and that its owner is "Individual 1." On Nov. 29, 2018, he pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to Congress, in a case brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. In an August 2017 letter to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, and in later statements to Congress, Cohen had said a Trump-branded Moscow project ended in January 2016. The charging document says that "as late as approximately June 2016" Cohen and "Individual 2" discussed getting Russian government approval for the project. It also says Cohen had contact with the office of the Kremlin's press secretary about it. Cohen said in court that he made the false statements out of loyalty to "Individual-1" and to match that person's political messaging. Trump said the project was considered and then dropped, and that nothing would have been wrong with pursuing it. The case involves a business tie and a contact with a Russian government office. The one count charged was lying to Congress about those contacts; the charging document does not charge a conspiracy with Russia.

  • justice.gov statement
    as late as approximately June 2016, COHEN and Individual 2 discussed efforts to obtain Russian governmental approval for the Moscow Project
  • CNN article
    I made these statements to be consistent with Individual-1's political messaging and out of loyalty to Individual-1
  • NBC News article
    We were thinking about building a building ... I decided ultimately not to do it. There would have been nothing wrong if I did do it.

Sources: justice.gov needs a second source · CNN reliable · NBC News reliable · cnbc.com reliable

Aug 2018 – ongoing 2018-08-21, Manafort convicted

Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chairman, was found guilty on 21 August 2018 in Alexandria, Virginia, on eight counts: five of tax fraud, two of bank fraud and one of failing to file foreign bank account reports. The judge, T.S. Ellis, declared a mistrial on the other 10 counts (CNBC). Prosecutors said that from 2010 to 2014 Manafort hid more than $15 million from the IRS, money he earned as a political consultant in Ukraine (Washington Post). The charges were connected to consulting work for a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine, not to the Trump campaign. It was the first trial to come out of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election (CNBC; TIME).

  • cnbc.com article
    The charges against Manafort and Gates were connected to their consulting work for a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine, and not to their work on the Trump campaign.
  • Time article
    It's a very sad thing that happened. This has nothing to do with Russian collusion,

Sources: cnbc.com reliable · Time reliable · The Washington Post reliable · Al Jazeera reliable

Dec 2017 – Nov 2020 Flynn plea, dismissal effort and pardon

Michael Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, was a prominent adviser to Trump's 2016 campaign and became his first national security adviser. During the presidential transition he held meetings and phone calls with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. These included a Dec. 29, 2016 call about the sanctions the Obama administration imposed on Russia that day. In February 2017, 22 days into the job, he was forced to resign. White House officials said he had misled them about whether he had discussed sanctions with Kislyak. Vice President Mike Pence had publicly said Flynn assured him the topic did not come up. On Dec. 1, 2017, Flynn pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to the FBI about those conversations, and he later pleaded guilty to that charge a second time. He cooperated with special counsel Robert Mueller's prosecutors. After he hired new lawyers, Flynn told the court he had not intended to lie, and his attorney Sidney Powell argued that he had been entrapped during his FBI interview. In May 2020, after a review ordered by Attorney General William Barr, the Justice Department moved to dismiss the case, writing that "the Government is not persuaded that the January 24, 2017 interview was conducted with a legitimate investigative basis and therefore does not believe Mr. Flynn's statements were material even if untrue." Judge Emmet G. Sullivan did not immediately grant the request. He signaled that he wanted to examine whether the department had acted properly, and the D.C. Circuit ruled that he did not have to drop the case right away. Trump pardoned Flynn on Nov. 25, 2020, which ended the pending dismissal review before Judge Sullivan.

  • Public Broadcasting Service article
    Former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty Friday to making false statements to the FBI
  • ABC News article
    the Government is not persuaded that the January 24, 2017 interview was conducted with a legitimate investigative basis
  • The Washington Post article
    It is my Great Honor to announce that General Michael T. Flynn has been granted a Full Pardon.

Sources: Public Broadcasting Service reliable · NBC News reliable · The Washington Post reliable · ABC News reliable · CNN reliable

Nov 2017 Wilbur Ross's Navigator–Sibur stake in the Paradise Papers

Wilbur Ross was Trump's Commerce Secretary. ICIJ reported on Nov 5, 2017 that he had kept a stake in Navigator Holdings through Cayman Islands partnerships. Offshore entities in which Ross and other investors held stakes controlled 31.5% of Navigator in 2016. ICIJ said Navigator had earned more than $68 million since 2014 from Sibur, a Russian company whose key owners included Putin's son-in-law Kirill Shamalov and Gennady Timchenko, who was under U.S. Treasury sanctions. Sibur itself was not under sanctions. This is a business tie, not a campaign contact. Ross was not charged with anything, and CBC/Reuters noted that he "is not accused of any illegality." Ross and the Commerce Department said he had no role in the Sibur deal, had never met Sibur's owners and had disclosed the holding. On Nov 6 Ross told Bloomberg he would "probably not" keep the stake and said this had nothing to do with the news reports. ICIJ noted that he stopped short of committing to divest. On Nov 7 an unnamed administration official told Reuters that Ross had begun divesting his Navigator interests in May and was nearing completion of that process. On Nov 14 Commerce Department spokesman James Rockas confirmed the plan to divest in response to questions from ICIJ.

  • icij.org article
    Ross joined the board only after Navigator began dealing with Sibur and “never met” Shamalov, Timchenko or Mikhelson, said James Rockas
  • cnbc.com article
    Ross told CNBC Monday that it's "totally wrong" that he did not disclose ties to a Putin-linked firm.
  • cbc.ca article
    The fact that [Sibur] happens to be called a Russian company does not mean there's any evil in it,
  • youtube.com video

Sources: icij.org needs a second source · cnbc.com reliable · cbc.ca needs a second source · cnbc.com reliable · icij.org needs a second source

Oct 2017 – Nov 2017 Papadopoulos guilty plea unsealed

Trump named George Papadopoulos a campaign foreign policy adviser in March 2016. On March 14, 2016, in Italy, he met a London-based professor who said he had ties to Russian officials (Newsweek). According to the court documents, the professor told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of "thousands of emails." The professor and a Russian woman also tried to set up a meeting between the campaign and Russian government officials (NBC). Papadopoulos was arrested in July 2017 and pleaded guilty on Oct. 5, 2017, to lying to the FBI. He had told agents the contacts happened before he joined the campaign, when they actually came after (NBC). In September 2018 he was sentenced to two weeks in jail (Washington Times).

  • NBC News article
    secretly pleading guilty three weeks ago to lying to federal agents about his contacts with Kremlin-connected Russians
  • Newsweek (pre–2013) article
    He later confirmed to The Telegraph that he is the academic mentioned in the documents, but he said he did nothing wrong.

Sources: NBC News reliable · Newsweek (pre–2013) needs a second source · The Washington Times needs a second source

Jul 2017 The June 2016 Trump Tower meeting

At a June 9, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower, Trump Jr., Paul Manafort (then the Trump campaign chairman), and Jared Kushner (Trump's son-in-law, then a senior White House adviser) met with Natalia Veselnitskaya in a session set up by music publicist Rob Goldstone. In a June 3, 2016 email, Goldstone offered "official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia", and Trump Jr. replied "if it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer." A June 7 email from Goldstone mentioned "The Russian government attorney who is flying over from Moscow". Trump Jr. posted the email chain publicly in July 2017. Veselnitskaya said she "never had damaging or sensitive information about Hillary Clinton." In April 2019, Mueller declined to prosecute Trump Jr., Kushner and Manafort for coordinating with a foreign agent (in this case the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya) or for related campaign finance law violations.

  • NBC News article
    Donald Trump Jr. on Tuesday tweeted his email chain showing him making plans to meet with a Russian attorney
  • buzzfeednews.com article
    if it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer
  • Time article
    never had damaging or sensitive information about Hillary Clinton. It was never my intention to have that.
  • youtube.com video

Sources: NBC News reliable · NBC News reliable · buzzfeednews.com needs a second source · Time reliable · rollcall.com reliable

May 2017 Kushner's proposed back channel and meeting with a Russian state banker

Jared Kushner was President Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law. The Forward, citing NBC, reported that the FBI was looking closely at his December 2016 meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and with Sergey Gorkov, head of the state-owned bank Vnesheconombank (VEB). The bank was under American sanctions imposed after Russia's invasion of Crimea. The Forward also cited the Washington Post's report that at the Kislyak meeting Kushner suggested using Russian diplomatic facilities to set up a back channel between the White House and the Kremlin. Later, in House Intelligence Committee transcripts released in May 2020, Kushner said he had suggested that Michael Flynn use secure communications at the Russian embassy to talk with Russian generals. In Kushner's account, the ambassador turned the idea down.

  • forward.com article
    Kushner suggested using Russian diplomatic facilities to create a back channel line of communication between the White House and the Kremlin
  • The Daily Beast article
    was ultimately nixed by the Russian ambassador, according to Kushner.

Sources: forward.com needs a second source · The Daily Beast needs a second source

Mar 2017 Sessions' meetings with Russian Ambassador Kislyak

Sessions was a prominent Trump campaign supporter and was attorney general when the meetings were reported. GovExec (a syndicated Atlantic article) says the Post found he had spoken with Kislyak twice during the campaign: once with about 50 other ambassadors at the Republican convention in July, and once one-on-one in September. The meetings appeared to conflict with his confirmation answers. In a written questionnaire he answered "no" to whether he had been in contact with anyone connected to the Russian government about the election. Under oath he told Sen. Al Franken that he "did not have communications with the Russians." On March 2 he recused himself "from matters with the Trump campaign." Sessions said at a press conference: "My response to Senator Franken was honest and correct as I understood it at the time." Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said of the controversy, "this all looks like a witch hunt." Roll Call reports that the 2019 Mueller report concluded "the evidence was insufficient to prove that Sessions was willfully untruthful in his answers."

  • govexec.com article
    "I believe those recommendations are right and just," he said. "Therefore I have recused myself from matters with the Trump campaign."
  • CNN article
    this all looks like a witch hunt.
  • c-span.org video Watch
    I believe those recommendations are right and just… Therefore I have recused myself from matters with the Trump campaign.

Sources: govexec.com needs a second source · CNN reliable · rollcall.com reliable

Feb 2017 Flynn resigns over his Kislyak calls

Michael Flynn was President Trump's national security adviser. Mother Jones describes him as the national security adviser Trump fired after 22 days. Mother Jones says he held five calls with Russian Ambassador Kislyak on Dec 29, 2016, the day Obama announced sanctions, and that sanctions came up at some point. According to Mother Jones, on Feb 9, 2017 a Flynn spokesman softened Flynn's earlier denial in comments to the Washington Post. Mother Jones reports that Flynn resigned on Feb 13 after reports that Sally Yates had warned the White House, and that her warning was that Flynn was vulnerable to Russian blackmail. In his Feb 13 resignation letter, Flynn wrote: "I inadvertently briefed the Vice President Elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian Ambassador."

  • Fox News article
    I inadvertently briefed the Vice President Elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian Ambassador.
  • youtube.com video

Sources: Mother Jones needs a second source · Fox News needs a second source

Dec 2016 – Jan 2017 Tillerson's nomination and Exxon's Russia business

As Exxon Mobil CEO, Rex Tillerson negotiated Arctic drilling rights with Russia in 2011. CBS reported that under that deal Russia's state oil company, Rosneft, became an investor in Exxon's global operations, and that "at Putin's behest" he was given Russia's Order of Friendship in 2013. When Trump named him for Secretary of State on December 13, 2016, CBS reported that some leading lawmakers were already raising concerns about his relationship with Vladimir Putin. Before the hearing, PBS/AP reported that Tillerson had opposed the 2014 Crimea sanctions, which halted Exxon's Kara Sea drilling and blacklisted his main Rosneft partner, Igor Sechin. In his opening address at his January 11, 2017 confirmation hearing, IBTimes reported, he said "Russia today poses a danger, but it is not unpredictable in advancing its own interests," and that NATO allies were right to be alarmed at a resurgent Russia. The Senate confirmed him 56-43 on February 1, 2017.

Sources: cbsnews.com reliable · Public Broadcasting Service reliable · International Business Times needs a second source · rollcall.com reliable

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