As ever, I am not an attorney, an expert on Russia, Boris, Natasha, Moose, or Squirrel. I was trying to get some timing straight in my head, and I started compiling this. These are all things you have to ignore if you're going to play like THE MEMO is a genuine scandal. Since I found this timeline useful, I thought I'd post it. It's neither comprehensive nor exhaustive; I don't have enough paid subscriptions for that!
The formatting is out of control. I can't tame it. It has a will of its own.
1) January 2015. "A court filing by the US government contains a transcript of a recorded conversation [from 2013] between two members of a Russian SVR spy ring, Victor Podobnyy and Igor Sporyshev. Their conversation concerns efforts to recruit 'Male-1,' later confirmed as Carter Page."
Podobnyy, per the transcript: "[Page] wrote that he is sorry, he went to Moscow and forgot to check his inbox, but he wants to meet when he gets back. I think he is an idiot and forgot who I am. Plus he writes to me in Russian [to] practice the language. He flies to Moscow more often than I do. . . . For now his enthusiasm works for me." (Page was not only providing Podobnyy with enthusiasm, but also documents.) Source
2) September or October of 2015. Fusion GPS got word that the conservative news site Washington Free Beacon wanted some research done on Donald Trump. Source
3) Unknown date, fall of 2015: "[Fusion GPS] gave Chris[topher Steele] a sort of assignment that would be typical for us which was pretty open ended. We said see if you can find out what Donald Trump's been doing on these trips to Russia." Source
4) December 2015. "[Carter] Page reached out to New York’s Republican Party chair, Ed Cox, in late December 2015, asking to be put in touch with Trump’s team. Cox put Page in contact with then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who sent him over to [Sam] Clovis, who is said to have put him on Trump’s list of advisers." Source
5) March 21, 2016. "In an interview with the Washington Post, Donald Trump personally names the then-obscure Page as part of his foreign policy team. News coverage at the time focused on how strange a choice this was given Page’s lack of experience. (In the same interview, Trump also listed George Papadopoulos, who graduated from college in 2009.)" Source
6) April 2016. "April 2016, [Russian hacking group] Fancy Bear accessed the Washington servers of the Democrats; Cozy Bear had done so as early as the summer of 2015. Once more, the group was caught red-handed by the Dutch, who again alerted their U.S. counterparts." Source
7) May 2016. A drunk George Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat that Russia had dirt on Hillary.
8) June 9, 2016. Don Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort met with Russians in Trump Tower to get dirt on Hillary.
9) June 12, 2016. Julian Assange (Wikileaks) said in an interview that he had obtained Clinton's emails, which would be forthcoming. Source
10) June 15, 2016. Guccifer 2.0 published the first leaked DNC email. Source
11) Late June / early July of 2016. Glenn Simpson agreed with Christopher Steele that Steele should approach the FBI. Source
12) July 2016. " Then–Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski approve[d] Page’s trip to Moscow on condition that he not act as an official representative of the campaign while there. Page initially ask[ed] J.D. Gordon, his supervisor on the national security team, who strongly advise[d] against taking the trip. Then, Page email[ed] Lewandowski and Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks for official approval, and Lewandowski approve[d]." Source
13) July 7, 2016. Carter Page delivered a speech in Russia, which the Katehon Think Tank posted on You Tube. This is how they described Page: "Carter Page is one of the youngest advisors of Donald Trump. He is an energy and economic development expert, particularly regarding the countries of the former Soviet Union and the socialist bloc in Eastern Europe. . . .Page lived in Moscow for three years, where he was advising Gazprom. After the reunification of Crimea with Russia and the beginning of operations in Ukraine, he was one of the few American experts who called for understanding the actions of Russia. Page came out openly against the interventionist policy of NATO, which, in his opinion, provoked Russia."
Please notice the language here: "reunification of Crimea with Russia." That's not exactly the word the rest of the world would use. Indeed, even though Carter Page called for "understanding," the US government didn't see it that way. We sanctioned Russia over the annexation of Crimea. If you have a fuzzy memory of all of this, see this article.
14) July 19, 2016, during the Republican National Convention, Trump became the Republican nominee. Although I cannot say this is the exact date when the Washington Beacon stopped paying Fusion GPS, it was logically the latest date at which the Beacon would have even considered paying. Hillary and the DNC picked up the tab only after this point.
15) July 22, 2016. Wikileaks published more hacked DNC emails, directly ahead of the Democratic Convention, which ran from July 25-28.
16) July 27 (I think) 2016. Donald Trump: “I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” Source
17) Also July 27 2016. "On Wednesday, Trump made a drastic break from bipartisan foreign policy consensus, saying he would consider recognizing Crimea - the strategic Ukranian peninsula Putin annexed in 2014 - as Russian territory, and might also lift US sanctions imposed on Rusian in response. ('We'll be lookingat that. Yeah, we'll be looking,' Trump said in response to a question.)" Source
18) "After a briefing in August, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid wrote a letter to the FBI saying 'questions have been raised' about whether Page met with 'high-ranking sanctioned individuals' during his trip [to Russia]." Source
19) September 2016. Steele met with the FBI in Italy. Source
20) "Late summer 2016. The FBI obtain[ed] another secret court order from a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge to monitor Page’s communications, after convincing the judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power. The FBI waited until the Trump campaign had parted ways with Page to begin surveilling him." You caught that last sentence right? The surveillance started AFTER HE LEFT THE CAMPAIGN. Source
21) November 7, 2016. Lewandowski insisted Page was a "low-level volunteer."
22) January 10, 2017. Buzzfeed published "the dossier" - i.e. a collection of memos Christopher Steele sent to Fusion GPS. Source
25) February 3, 2018. THE MEMO was released. It regaled us with details of the tremendous scandal of the FBI rigging up facts to justify surveillance of Donald Trump's campaign (read: Carter Page.) It claimed that everything was based on Steele's dossier. The FBI, understandably (if not verbatim), called it a pile of shit.
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