GETTY KLIMENTYEV IMAGES/MIKHAIL Conspiracy Against the United States The Story of Trump and Russia By Max Bergmann, Jeremy Venook, and the Moscow Project Team November 2018 WWW.AMERICANPROGRESSACTION.ORG Conspiracy Against the United States The Story of Trump and Russia By Max Bergmann, Jeremy Venook, and the Moscow Project Team November 2018 Contents 1 Introduction and summary 4 An adversary returns 11 Bailed out by Russia 22 Cultivating an asset 28 The election 44 Putin’s payoff 56 The investigation 71 Recommendations 82 Conclusion 83 About the authors 84 Endnotes Introduction and summary On January 6, 2017, the United States intelligence community released its unclas- sified, official assessment of Russia’s unprecedented and unprovoked attack on the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In the report, all 17 intelligence agencies unani- mously assessed that Russian President Vladimir Putin had personally “ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election” with the specific aim of electing Donald Trump. The assessment in effect concluded that there were two campaigns to elect Trump—one operating out of Trump Tower and the other out of the Kremlin.1 Since then, the Russia investigation has revealed a sprawling scandal: Members of Trump’s campaign, including those in the president’s inner circle, were in constant contact with representatives of the Russian government throughout the election and transition. The two campaigns discussed tactics and policy, including the release of “dirt” on their mutual opponent, Hillary Clinton, and rolling back American sanc- tions against Russia. And they executed their strategies timed to maximally benefit Trump’s chances of victory. Following the scandal as it unfolds can feel like standing too close to an impression- ist painting: It’s easy to see the individual brushstrokes, but much harder to see the whole picture they create. This report, which comprises materials previously pub- lished by the Moscow Project along with new research and analysis, takes a step back from the canvas and the day-to-day deluge of stories to provide a clear picture of how Trump’s long history of corruption created one of the biggest political scandals in American history. That picture traces two main narratives, detailed in this report. In Chapter 1, the report explores Putin’s vendetta against the West, which has spurred his current cam- paign of asymmetric warfare against the United States and Europe. Chapter 2 explores Trump’s decades of corrupt business practices, which made him vulnerable to compro- mise by foreign powers. Connecting the two narratives is the Russian oligarchy, a class of businesspeople with whom both players have important and mutually beneficial 1 Center for American Progress Action Fund | Conspiracy Against the United States relationships. For Putin, that relationship is the key to both his ongoing kleptocratic regime in Russia and his attempts to influence politics abroad. He has effectively co- opted his country’s wealthiest individuals to act as unofficial executors of his policy both at home and abroad. For Trump, Russian money has sustained his real estate empire through multiple bankruptcies and a financial crisis, often in ways that raise major red flags concerning money laundering and other corrupt practices. The third chapter explores the convergence of these two men’s interests—crystal- lized through Trump’s emergence into American politics as a promoter of racist conspiracy theories and his growing ties to Russian oligarchs—that led the Kremlin to throw its weight behind Trump’s bid for the presidency in 2016. The fourth chapter delves into the details of that election and the evidence of col- lusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. It not only details many of the key contacts and meetings between the two campaigns to elect Trump but also attempts to offer a straightforward explanation of how and why they worked together to ensure his victory. Though Trump and his allies have strenuously denied that collusion occurred, this report outlines the increasingly clear case that he and members of his campaign worked with the Russian government at the highest levels to swing the 2016 election in his favor. This collaboration has created an ongoing crisis within the American political system. Chapter 5 shows that collusion was not confined to the election. Trump’s team continued to have secret meetings with Kremlin-linked operatives throughout the transition period, while Trump’s behavior toward Putin since taking office has demonstrated precisely why the Kremlin hoped to ensure his election. Chapter 6 then documents the ongoing investigation into Russia’s interference efforts and the Trump campaign’s complicity, documenting how the president and his congressio- nal allies have repeatedly sought to undermine the investigation and hide the truth. In response, the U.S. government must act swiftly to respond to Russia’s unprec- edented attack and preclude the possibility of future foreign interference. Doing so will require more than simply sanctioning the Russian government; it will require a concerted effort to reduce avenues for corruption within the United States, fix our broken campaign finance system, increase the security of American elections, and hold responsible those involved in the attack at home and abroad. Above all else, it will require a thorough investigation of what happened in the 2016 election and the vulnerabilities the Kremlin—and the Trump campaign—exploited in carrying out their attack. Recommendations for how the U.S. government can achieve these goals can be found in the seventh chapter of this report. 2 Center for American Progress Action Fund | Conspiracy Against the United States This seemingly complex story, in the end, is rather simple. In 2016, Russia launched an unprecedented and unprovoked attack against American democracy. That attack found willing partners in Trump and his campaign. For months, they conspired to undermine the U.S. electoral process in hopes of ensuring Trump’s victory; for more than two years since, they have collaborated to deliver some of Russia’s biggest policy goals and obscure what happened during the campaign. Overcoming that obfuscation to reveal the truth must be among the top duties of the next Congress. 3 Center for American Progress Action Fund | Conspiracy Against the United States An adversary returns Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election was not a unique nor singular event. Rather, it represents part of that country’s broader strategy toward the West, one that has been largely defined by the man in charge for most of the past two decades: Vladimir Putin. Spymaster in chief Just as President Donald Trump’s history in real estate shaped his worldview, biog- raphies of Putin, such as Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy’s Mr. Putin, Masha Gessen’s The Man Without a Face, and Karen Dawisha’s Putin’s Kleptocracy, emphasize how the Russian president’s background as a KGB officer in the waning days of the Soviet Union shaped his political philosophy.2 As a former spy, they demonstrate, Putin places a high value on espionage and intelligence as foreign policy tools, and his governments have funded those tools accordingly.3 Putin’s service in the KGB came at a pivotal moment not just in his own life—he joined in 1975, at age 22—but also for the Soviet Union. After training in Leningrad, he served in Dresden in East Germany from 1985 to 1990. In East Germany, Putin cultivated potential assets in the west and countered western agents in the east. When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Putin was leading the KGB’s office when protestors massed outside its gates. As KGB officers frantically burned government documents to ensure that they would not fall into protestors’ hands, Putin went outside and threat- ened the protestors with violence if they breached the gates. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Putin was left searching for a new career outside of the KGB. He returned to Russia, serving as an adviser and later deputy chairman in the government of St. Petersburg before becoming part of the national government in Moscow.4 As his biographers note, Putin’s trajectory through the government also inculcated in him an antipathy toward democracy and the West. Where America and the West saw the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union as democratizing moments, to Putin, it humiliated the once mighty Soviet Union, ended his career, 4 Center for American Progress Action Fund | Conspiracy Against the United States and introduced chaos into a previously stable system. The 1990s, during which he sought to reestablish his foothold in the Russian government, were marked by coup attempts, economic crises, and a weak state. Many in Russia—Putin by most accounts included—blamed this on the unbridled capitalism and corrupt privatization of indus- try that was backed by America and the West. As a result, it is no surprise that since Putin assumed the presidency in 1999, his responses to major world events reflect a worldview that sees Western-style democracy and liberalism as a geopolitical threat.5 Putin’s presidency Putin’s tenures as president, as well as the interregnum when he was prime minis- ter from 2008 to 2012, have seen popular uprisings undermine Russia’s influence abroad, followed by responses from Putin that reaffirm his antipathy toward popular protests and liberal democracy. These include not only the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia, the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, and the 2005 Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan, which deposed or endangered pro-Kremlin leaders, but also the Arab Spring protests in the Middle East that began in 2010.6 Putin, ascribing these uprisings to the CIA and U.S.-backed nongovernmental organizations, responded by expelling the Peace Corps and restricting foreign funding of NGOs in Russia.7 Putin reportedly became further convinced that the United States was trying to undermine his authority in 2011.