30 Oct 2017 8:28 pm
Timeline: Campaign knew Russia had Clinton emails months before Trump 'joke'
Months before candidate Donald Trump asked Russia to "find" Hillary Clinton's missing private server emails - a statement the campaign later called a joke - a Russian operative told a campaign aide "the Russians had emails of Clinton," according to a plea agreement released Monday.
In the first guilty plea of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, George Papadopoulos admitted lying to the FBI about contact with Russian agents that offered the campaign "thousands" of damaging emails about Clinton.
Papadopoulos claims he would eventually be told by a campaign supervisor to travel to Russia to meet with government officials "if feasible," a trip that never happened.
In the context of the timeline of events, Papadopoulos was told of Russian hacking before the rest of the country, and weeks before the Trump campaign made its first denial of Russian involvement in the election.
March 24: A professor introduced Papadopoulos to an alleged niece of Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to the court documents, Papadopoulos told his campaign supervisor the subject of the meeting was "to arrange a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss U.S.-Russia ties under President Trump." "Great work," replied the supervisor, who said he would work the offer through the campaign. The supervisor is not named.
Papadopoulos would later find out the so-called niece was not, in fact, related to Putin.
April: Papadopoulos maintained contact with both the woman and professor to set up a meeting throughout April, keeping the campaign apprised of his contact.
April 29: The professor told Papadopoulos the Russians had "thousands" of Clinton's emails containing dirt. The next day, Papadopoulos thanked the professor for his help setting up a possible meeting between Russians and Trump.
"It's history making if it happens," said the campaign aide.
June 14: The Washington Post revealed that the DNC had been breached by those thought to be Russian hackers.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... -trump?amp