President Trump and the Kremlin have denied allegations that Russia and the Trump campaign colluded in the 2016 presidential election â but the probe into suspicions of Russian meddling is forging ahead.
A special counsel was appointed to investigate potential wrongdoing one year ago, and the team has already brought multiple charges against people associated with the presidential campaign.
Read on for a breakdown of what has happened in the Russia investigation thus far and what it means for the administration.
What exactly is being investigated?
Multiple investigators are looking into just how wide the scope of Russiaâs involvement in the 2016 presidential election is and if the foreign nation had any interaction with the Trump campaign.
Investigators are also looking at the financial ties between some Trump associates and the Kremlin.
Who is in charge of the investigations?
Multiple congressional committees have launched probes into Russiaâs attempts to influence the election.
The Department of Justice appointed Robert Mueller as its special counsel overseeing its investigation in May 2017.
Mueller was appointed after Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was the first Republican senator to endorse Trump, recused himself from the investigation. His appointment also followed a growing Democratic outcry for someone outside the Justice Department to handle the probe.
The House Intelligence Committee released its heavily redacted final report of its investigation in April 2018. It said there was “no evidence” of collusion.
Has anyone been charged yet?
Muellerâs investigation has led to multiple charges â although none are directly related to misconduct from the campaign.
In his leading role, Mueller took over an ongoing investigation into Paul Manafort’s financial dealings in Ukraine.
Manafort, Trumpâs former campaign chairman, and Richard Gates were indicted in October 2017 on multiple counts, including: conspiracy against the U.S., conspiracy to launder money, false statements and failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Manafort and Gates initially pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Nearly four months later, in February, the pair was hit with additional tax evasion and bank fraud charges, similar to the original ones.
Gates pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy and false-statements charges on Feb. 23. After the plea, Mueller moved to drop the 22 bank and tax fraud charges against Gates, possibly suggesting that the former Trump campaign official is cooperating and providing good information to Mueller’s team.
Mueller also accused Manafort of secretly paying former European politicians to lobby on behalf of Ukraine. Manafort has continued to maintain his innocence, most recently pleading not guilty to charges including tax evasion and bank fraud in federal court on March 8.
Manafort joined Trumpâs campaign ahead of the Republican National Convention to help wrangle delegates before becoming the campaign chairman. He resigned in August 2016.
Trumpâs former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, has also been charged in connection with Muellerâs probe. Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017 to one charge of lying to the FBI â reportedly about his talks with a Russian ambassador.
Flynn was Trumpâs national security adviser for a short time, but his connection to the White House was rife with controversy that still bedevils the administration. Flynn resigned after less than a month in the position.
At issue was his contact with Moscow’s ambassador to Washington. Flynn and the Russian appear to have discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia late in 2016, raising questions about whether he was freelancing on foreign policy while former President Barack Obama was still in office and whether he misled Trump officials about the communications.
Additionally, George Papadopoulos, a former foreign policy adviser to Trumpâs campaign, pleaded guilty in 2017 to making false statements to the FBI about his connections with Russian officials.
During his time on the campaign, Papadopoulos attempted to set up meetings between campaign officials and Russians on numerous occasions. He also interacted with a professor âunderstood to have substantial connections to Russian government officialsâ who told Papadopoulos that the Russians had âdirtâ on Hillary Clinton, according to court documents.
Alex van der Zwaan, an attorney, pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about Gates in the Russia inquiry. In April 2018, he was sentenced to 30 days in prison, making him the first to be sentenced in the investigation.
Richard Pinedo, a California man who sold bank accounts to Russians meddling in the election, pleaded guilty in February 2018 to using stolen identities to set up the accounts. The U.S. government said Pinedo was not aware he was dealing with Russians when he sold the accounts, however.
Additionally, 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities were indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly interfering in the election. Muellerâs case alleges those involved had a sophisticated plot to wage âinformation warfareâ on the U.S.
The Justice Department did not say if the actions had an impact on the outcome of the election.
Does anyone else on Trumpâs team have connections to Russians or the investigation?
Donald Jr., the presidentâs oldest son, got the administration into some hot water when it was revealed that he took a meeting with a Russian lawyer during the campaign who was supposed to have damning information about Clinton.
âThis is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its governmentâs support for Mr. Trump,â an email about the meeting said in part.
Trump Jr. maintained that the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, did not have any information to share and instead wanted to discuss the Magnitsky Act and other sanctions.
Manafort and Jared Kushner, the presidentâs son-in-law, were also at the meeting.
Kushner, too, has been under FBI scrutiny. Married to Ivanka, the presidentâs daughter, Kushner may possess substantial information relevant to the investigation, officials have said.
Although he has denied colluding with Russians or knowing of anyone who did, Kushner has had private meetings with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to discuss the controversial encounter with Veselnitskya, which occurred in the summer of 2016. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have accused him of not being forthcoming in the information divulged.
Steve Bannon, Trumpâs former White House chief strategist, agreed to meet with Mueller as part of his investigation, potentially avoiding appearing under subpoena in front of a grand jury. Sessions and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have already met with Mueller, becoming the highest-ranking administration officials known thus far to have submitted to questioning.
An attorney for the Trump Organization, made up of hundreds of companies owned by Trump through a trust and managed by his two sons, told The Associated Press that itâs been âfully cooperativeâ with Muellerâs probe. The company has turned over documents to investigators.
What about Trump?
Trump has said he is âlooking forwardâ to being questioned by Mueller under oath regarding the investigation. Aside from his associatesâ connections to Russians, the president has also found himself under scrutiny for certain interactions in office.
Trump sacked FBI Director James Comey on May 9, 2017 â less than two months after Comey publicly proclaimed the agency was investigating ties between Russia and Trumpâs campaign.
James Comey will be replaced by someone who will do a far better job, bringing back the spirit and prestige of the FBI.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 10, 2017
The White House maintained Comey was let go due to his handling of an investigation into Clintonâs private email server used during her tenure as secretary of state. But Trump has suggested that he considered the Russian investigation when he fired Comey.
Comey told a Senate intelligence committee Trump had asked for the FBI to drop its investigation into Flynn; the White House said Trump was not attempting to influence his FBI director.
Comey said he offered Trump repeated reassurances that he was not under an FBI investigation.
After Comeyâs dismissal, Trump met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador at the time, where he shared classified information regarding ISIS threats, the Washington Post reported.
Trump told those officials that firing Comey â who he allegedly called a ânut jobâ â took âgreat pressureâ off of him, The New York Times later reported.
The Trump administration sanctioned 19 Russian individuals and five Russian entities on March 15 for allegedly interfering in the 2016 election and engaging in cyber-attacks. The Treasury Department announced the sanctions, which included the 13 Russians who were already indicted in Muellerâs probe.
Whatâs so controversial about the investigation?
Trump has been critical of Mueller, calling his friendship with Comey âvery bothersome.â Multiple investigators on Muellerâs team face questions about their potential biases â and two were reassigned from the probe.
House Republicans released a memo in early February 2018 that detailed alleged surveillance abuses used in the Russia probe.
The memo, put together by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., did âraise concerns with the legitimacy and legality of certain DOJ and FBI interactions with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and represent a troubling breakdown of legal processes established to protect the American people from abuses related to the FISA process,â it said.
Trump said the memo âvindicatesâ him in the Russia investigation.
But Democrats have dismissed the memo as “misleading,” saying it was released by Republicans in order to push the narrative that the probe is biased against the president. Weeks later, they released their own rebuttal memo, which defends the FBI and Justice Department.
How did the Russian meddling allegations even begin?
Before Trump took office, tens of thousands of emails from the Democratic National Committee and officials connected to Clinton were leaked.
Those emails â released in July 2016 â purportedly showed the party favoring Clinton over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and led to the resignation of party chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
But more than just ousting Wasserman Schultz, intelligence officials concluded those responsible for leaking the emails were connected to the Russian government. In its assessment of the hack, the CIA concluded that Russia intervened in the election in order to help Trump secure the presidency.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source: Fox News