Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort and two others have been charged by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Manafort has pleaded not guilty to charges including "conspiracy against the US" and has been arrested.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/A. Brandon
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Paul Manafort, former campaign manager for Donald Trump's successful presidential bid, and his business associate, Rick Gates, pleaded not guilty to 12 counts of criminal action in a federal district court in the US capital on Monday, while a third campaign aide was revealed to have pleaded guilty.
"There is no evidence that Mr. Manafort colluded with the Russian government," his lawyer told reporters, adding the charges were "ridiculous."
Both men, who had earlier surrendered themselves to federal authorities, were placed under house arrest and surrendered their passports. Manafort's bond was reportedly set at $10 million (€8.6 million) and Gates' at $5 million.
The charges against both men include: conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading FARA statements, false statements and seven country of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. FARA refers to the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Allegations of collusion with the Kremlin have dogged Team Trump since the 2016 election campaign. DW takes a look at how special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation unfolded.
Image: Reuters/L. Downing
2013: Mr. Trump goes to Russia
June 18, 2013. Donald Trump tweeted: "The Miss Universe Pageant will be broadcast live from MOSCOW, RUSSIA on November 9. A big deal that will bring our countries together!" He later added: "Do you think Putin will be going - if so, will he become my new best friend?" October 17, 2013 Trump tells chat show host David Letterman he has conducted "a lot of business with the Russians."
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/V. Prokofyev
September 2015: Hacking allegations raised
An FBI agent tells a tech-support contractor at the Democratic National Committee it may have been hacked. On May 18, 2016, James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, says there were "some indications" of cyberattacks aimed at the presidential campaigns. On June 14, 2016 the DNC announces it had been the victim of an attack by Russian hackers.
Image: picture alliance/MAXPPP/R. Brunel
July 20, 2016: Kislyak enters the picture
Senator Jeff Sessions — an early Trump endorser who led his national security advisory committee — meets Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and a group of other ambassadors at a Republican National Convention event.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/B. Smialowski
July 22, 2016: Assange thickens the plot
Julian Assange's WikiLeaks publishes 20,000 emails stolen from the DNC, appearing to show a preference for Hillary Clinton over Senator Bernie Sanders.
Image: Reuters/N. Hall
July 25, 2016: Cometh the hour, Comey the man
The FBI announces it is investigating the DNC hack saying "a compromise of this nature is something we take very seriously."
Image: Getty Images/AFP/B. Smialowski
November 8, 2016: Trump elected
Donald Trump is elected president of the United States. On November 9, the Russian parliament burst into applause at the news.
Image: Reuters/K. Lamarque
November 10, 2016: Team Trump denies Russia link
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Rybakov says there "were contacts" between the Russian government and the Trump campaign during the election campaign. The Trump campaign issues a firm denial.
Image: Imago/Itar-Tass
November 18, 2016: Flynn appointed
Trump names General Michael Flynn as his national security adviser. The former Defense Intelligence Agency chief was a top foreign policy adviser in Trump's campaign. Flynn resigned in February after failing to disclose full details of his communication with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Image: Reuters/C. Barria
January 26, 2017: Yates - 'The center cannot hold'
Acting Attorney General Sally Yates tells White House counsel Don McGahn that Flynn made false statements regarding his calls with Kislyak. On January 30, Trump fires Yates for refusing to enforce his travel ban, which was later blocked by federal courts.
Image: Getty Images/P. Marovich
March 2, 2017: Sessions recuses himself
Trump says he has "total confidence" in Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Sessions announces he will recuse himself from any investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.
Image: Getty Images/S.Loeb
March 20, 2017: FBI examines Trump-Kremlin links
FBI Director James Comey confirms before the House Select Committee on Intelligence that the FBI was investigating possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/AP/J. S. Applewhite
May 9, 2017: Trump sacks Comey
In a letter announcing the termination, Trump writes: "While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau."
Image: Reuters/J. Ernst/K. Lamarque
May 17, 2017: Mueller appointed special counsel
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appoints former FBI Director Robert Mueller to look into Russia's interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/J.S. Applewhite
August 2017: FBI seizes documents from Manafort
Shortly after Mueller convenes a grand jury for the investigation, the FBI seizes documents from one of Paul Manafort's properties as part of a raid for Mueller's probe. The former Trump campaigner manager stepped down in August 2016 after allegations surfaced that he had received large payments linked to Ukraine's former pro-Russian government.
Image: Imago
September 2017: Trump Jr.'s talks to Senate committee
Donald Trump Jr. tells the Senate Judiciary Committee he has not colluded with a foreign government. The closed-door interview relates to his June 2016 meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, which was also attended by his brother-in-law, Jared Kushner, and then-campaign manager Paul Manafort. Trump Jr.’s emails, however, suggest the meeting was supposed to produce dirt on Clinton.
Image: picture alliance/AP Photo/K. Willens
October 2017: Internet giants allege Russian interference
Facebook, Twitter and Google reportedly tell US media they have evidence that Russian operatives exploited platforms to spread disinformation during the 2016 US presidential election. The three companies are appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee in November 2017.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Lei
July 2018: Trump and Putin meet in Helsinki
Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet in Helsinki for their first-ever summit. During the trip, Trump publically contradicts the findings of US intelligence agencies who concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
November 8, 2018: Sessions resigns as attorney general
Attorney General Jeff Sessions resigns from his post, under reported pressure from Trump. The president then appoints a critic of the Mueller probe as his successor, but later nominates William Barr to be the next attorney general in December 2018.
Image: picture-alliance/AP/A. Brandon
November 29, 2018: Former Trump lawyer pleads guilty
Trump's former long-time personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleads guilty to lying to Congress about discussions in 2016 on plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. The FBI raided his home earlier that year in April. He would later be sentenced to three years in prison. In 2019, he tells Congress that Trump is a "racist" and a "con man."
Image: Reuters/J. Ernst
January 2019: Trump associate Roger Stone arrested
Roger Stone, a longtime Trump associate and Republican operative, is arrested at his home in Florida for lying to Congress about having advance knowledge of plans by WikiLeaks to release emails from the Democratic Party that US officials say were stolen by Russia.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/AP Photo/L. Sladky
March 13, 2019: Manafort sentenced to prison
Manafort is found guilty of conspiracy charges and handed an additional sentence, bringing his total prison sentence to 7.5 years. In August 2018, a court in Virginia found him guilty of eight charges, including tax and bank fraud. He also pleaded guilty to two conspiracy counts.
Image: picture-alliance/AP/D. Verkouteren
March 22, 2019: Mueller ends Russia probe
Special counsel Robert Mueller submits a confidential 448-page report on the findings of his investigation to the US Justice Department. The main conclusions of the report are made public when they are given to Congress. A redacted version of the report is released to the public on April 18, though Democrats call for the full report to be released.
Image: picture-alliance/AP/C. Dharapak
March 24, 2019: Trump declares 'exoneration'
The final report concluded that no one involved in Trump's 2016 election campaign colluded with Russia. Attorney General William Barr said the report provided no evidence that Trump obstructed justice, but stopped short of fully exonerating the president. Reacting to the findings, Trump described the probe as an "illegal take-down that failed," and said there was "complete and total exoneration."
Image: Reuters/K. Lamarque
May 1, 2019: Barr testifies
In late March, Mueller writes a letter expressing concerns over the way Barr portrayed his report. The attorney general says the special counsel's letter was "a bit snitty" while testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee in May. Barr then cancels a subsequent appearance before the House Judicial Committee, citing "unprecedented and unnecessary" hearing conditions.
Image: Getty Images/A. Wong
July 24, 2019: Mueller light
Robert Mueller's congressional testimony on the Russia probe was again inconclusive. He sometimes struggled with his answers or avoided queries. To the Democrats frustration he appeared to do little to give any encouragement to the notion that President Trump could be impeached, though he did suggest he might be prosecuted for obstruction of justice crimes after he leaves the White House.
Image: Reuters/J. Ernst
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Following the money
According to the indictment, Manafort and Gates engaged in a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign at the direction of Kremlin ally and former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. In total, they moved more than $75 million through offshore accounts, while Manafort specifically laundered more than $18 million.
A federal grand jury approved the indictment on Friday and ordered it sealed until Monday. The charges marked the first of their kind in an investigation into possible Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. The indictment did not mention Trump and the charges against Manafort date back to alleged actions before he became involved in Trump's campaign.
In July, an FBI team raided Manafort's home. The investigators have been looking into Manafort's financial and real estate dealings and prior work for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine.
Both Trump and Russian officials have denied the allegations.
Within hours of Manafort and Gates' indictments, Mueller revealed that a Trump campaign aide, George Papadopoulos, had pleaded guilty on October 5 to lying to federal agents about contacts with Russian officials shortly after Trump assumed office in January.
Papadopoulos, who was arrested on July 27, admitted that he had contacted Russian officials as early as April 2016 about "dirt" on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the form of "thousands of emails." He also admitted to trying to arrange a meeting between then-candidate Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin with those officials.
He was ordered not to contact other Trump officials and prohibited from foreign travel but his guilty plea raised that prospect that he could be cooperating with investigators for the past three months.
The White House immediately discounted Papadopoulos' importance to the campaign, saying he was a mere volunteer with little influence. Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said his role was "extremely limited" and that "no activity was ever done in an official capacity on behalf of the campaign."
Trump's Twitter outburst
Trump attempted to deflect attention from his campaign by stating the suspected crimes committed by Manafort occurred before his involvement in Trump's campaign.
He also denounced allegations of collusion between his campaign and Russia as "phony" and a "witch hunt." He has suggested that more recent developments in the probe have aimed to distract attention from the Republican Party's "big push for historic Tax Cuts and Reform."
Trump also railed against Clinton, saying that the "facts are pouring out" about links to Russia by his former presidential rival. Trump and the White House have suggested that the real story of collusion with Russia is the sale of uranium to Moscow when Clinton was secretary of state.
"DO SOMETHING!" Trump urged in one of five morning tweets.
Targets of probe
Mueller and his team of investigators have interviewed former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, former spokesman Sean Spicer and other current and former White House and Trump campaign officials.
Michael Flynn, an adviser to Trump's campaign and later his national security adviser, is also a target of Mueller's investigation. Flynn was fired from that post in February after misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the extent of his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak last year.
The indictment in the Russian meddling probe was first reported by CNN, which said the target could be taken into custody on Monday.
Special prosecutor Robert Mueller is investigating possible collusion between Russia and Trump campaignImage: picture-alliance/Consolidated News Photos/Ron Sachs - CNP/R. Sachs
