Findings
Volume 1: starts on page one of the report & focuses on Rusian interference and allegations of consprity or coordination between Trump's presidential campaign and Russia.
Russian interference
The Mueller Report found that the Russian government "interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion" and "violated U.S. criminal law". The report relayed two methods by which Russia attempted to influence the election.Social media campaign
The first method of Russian interference was done through the Internet Research Agency (IRA), waging "a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton."The IRA also sought to "provoke and amplify political and social discord in the United States".By February 2016, internal IRA documents showed an order to support the candidacies of Donald Trump and ,Bernie Sanders while IRA members were to "use any opportunity to criticize" Hillary Clinton and the rest of the candidates. From June 2016, the IRA organized election rallies in the U.S. "often promoting" Trump's campaign while "opposing" Clinton's campaign.acting as Americans, hiding their Russian background, while asking Trump campaign members for campaign buttons, flyers, and posters for the rallies. The Mueller Report detailed that the IRA spent $100,000 for over 3,500 Facebook advertisements, which included anti-Clinton and pro-Trump advertisements.
The report lists IRA-created groups on Facebook to include "purported conservative groups" (e.g. 'Tea Party News'), "purported Black social justice groups" (e.g. 'Blacktivist') "LGBTQ groups" (e.g. 'LGBT United'), "and religious groups" (e.g. 'United Muslims of America') The IRA Twitter accounts included @TEN_GOP (claiming to be related to the Tennessee Republican Party), @jenn_abrams, and @Pamela_Moore13 (both claimed to be Trump supporters and both had 70,000 followers). Several Trump campaign members (Donald J. Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Kellyanne Conway, Brad Parscale and Michael Flynn) linked or reposted material from the IRA's @TEN_GOP Twitter account listed above. Other people who responded to IRA social media accounts include Michael McFaul, Sean Hannitt, Roger Stone, and Michael G. Flynn (Michael Flynn's son).
Hacking and release of material
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Conspiracy or coordination
To establish whether a crime was committed by members of the Trump campaign with regard to Russian interference, investigators "applied the framework of conspiracy law", and not the concept of "collusion", because collusion "is not a specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in federal criminal law."They also investigated if members of the Trump campaign "coordinated" with Russia, using the definition of "coordination" as having "an agreement – tacit or express – between the Trump campaign and the Russian government on election interference." Investigators further elaborated that merely having "two parties taking actions that were informed by or responsive to the other's actions or interests" was not enough to establish coordination.The investigation found there were over 100 contacts between Trump campaign advisors and individuals affiliated with the Russian government, before and after the election, but the evidence was insufficient to show an illegal conspiracyThe New York Times estimated as many as 140 contacts between "Mr. Trump and his associates and Russian nationals and WikiLeaks or their intermediaries" in the report.
The special counsel identified two methods the Russian government tried to communicate with the Trump campaign. "The investigation identified two different forms of connections between the IRA and members of the Trump Campaign. [...] First, on multiple occasions, members and surrogates of the Trump Campaign promoted – typically by linking, retweeting, or similar methods of reposting – pro-Trump or anti-Clinton content published by the IRA through IRA-controlled social media accounts. Additionally, in a few instances, IRA employees represented themselves as U.S. persons to communicate with members of the Trump Campaign in an effort to seek assistance and coordination on IRA-organized political rallies inside the United States", the report states.
Secondly, the report details a meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016. The intent of the meeting was to exchange "dirt" on the Clinton campaign. There was speculation that Trump Jr. told his father. However, the special counsel could not find any evidence that he did The office declined to pursue charges for two reasons: the office "did not obtain admissible evidence" that would meet the burden of proof principle beyond a reasonable doubt that the campaign officials acted with general knowledge about the illegality of their conduct; secondly, the office expected difficulty in valuing the promised information that "exceeded the threshold for a criminal violation" of $2,000 for a criminal violation and $25,000 for a felony punishment.
The Report cited several impediments to investigators' ability to acquire information, including witnesses invoking their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, witnesses deleting electronic communications or using encrypted or self-destructing messaging apps, limitations of interviewing attorneys or individuals asserting they were members of the media, information obtained through subpoenas that was screened from investigators due to legal privilege, and false or incomplete testimony provided by witnesses.[6][7][96][8][97]
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