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."

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.

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.

Julian Assange's WikiLeaks publishes 20,000 emails stolen from the DNC, appearing to show a preference for Hillary Clinton over Senator Bernie Sanders.

The FBI announces it is investigating the DNC hack saying "a compromise of this nature is something we take very seriously."

Donald Trump is elected president of the United States. On November 9, the Russian parliament burst into applause at the news.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

The seventh in a lineage of FBI directors with law degrees, James Comey has shaped politics in the US as the head of the law enforcement agency. But who is the man behind the headlines? From prosecuting an American celebrity to refusing to sanction the NSA's mass surveillance program, DW explores the contentious life of James Comey.

Serving as Manhattan's chief federal prosecutor, Comey rose to notoriety in 2002, when he led the prosecution of US celebrity Martha Stewart for securities fraud and obstruction of justice. Stewart, widely known in the US for her cooking and lifestyle shows, served a 5-month jail sentence following the highly-publicized case.

In late 2003, Comey was confirmed as the US deputy attorney general, making him the second-highest-ranking official in the Justice Department. Serving under former President George W. Bush, Comey endorsed a memorandum approving the use of 13 enhanced interrogation techniques during the War on Terror, including waterboarding. He later said he lobbied to have the policy toned down.

Comey has warned of the consequences of domestic mass surveillance, saying in March: "There is no such thing as absolute privacy in America." While serving as acting attorney general during the hospitalization of John Ashcroft in 2004, he refused to endorse the legality of the NSA's domestic surveillance program, even when pressured by the Bush administration.

In 2013, then-President Barack Obama nominated Comey to serve as the seventh director of the FBI. He received the nomination despite being a registered member of the Republican party. Later that year, he received congressional approval to takeover the office. In his installation speech, he said the bureau's work is founded on integrity. "Without integrity, all is lost," he said.

In 2015, Comey penned an op-ed on why he required new FBI special agents and intelligence analysts to visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington. He said the reason was to have them understand the consequences of abusing power and to be confronted by the atrocities humans are capable of. "I believe that the Holocaust is the most significant event in human history," he said.

In July 2016, Comey announced that the FBI had found no evidence of criminal intention in Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server as state secretary. But days before the presidential election, he issued a letter to lawmakers informing them of new emails deemed "pertinent to the investigation." He later said no evidence was uncovered. Clinton has since blamed Comey for losing the election.

On May 9, Trump sent Comey an unusual letter firing the FBI director, cutting short his 10-year mandate to lead the bureau. Given the ongoing FBI-led investigation into election-meddling by Russia, critics have warned that the move may amount to obstruction of justice for undermining the probe. Trump later appeared to threaten Comey over the existence of "tapes" of their conversations.

Comey reportedly kept memos of interactions between him and President Donald Trump, which appear to implicate the head of state in attempts to obstruct a federal probe into Russia's alleged involvement in influencing the 2016 election. The day after US media reported on the existence of the memos, the Justice Department named a special counsel to lead the probe amid fears of White House influence.

In June 2017, shortly after being fired, Comey testified in Congress that he believed Trump fired him over the Russia probe. "I was fired in some way to change, or the endeavor was to change, the way the Russia investigation was being conducted," he told lawmakers. He has since released a book, in which he described Trump as a "mafia boss" who is "untethered to the truth."