A timeline of Mueller’s Russia investigation

2006: Manafort and Gates begin work for a pro-Russian political party

Paul Manafort and Rick Gates begin work as consultants for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine led by former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. Photo credit: Getty

February 2014: Yanukovych flees Ukraine

After violent clashes between protesters and police, Yanukovych flees Ukraine and enters exile in Russia. The U.S. government later opens an investigation into Manafort’s foreign lobbying and political work. Photo credit: Getty

September 2015: FBI warns DNC about Russian hackers

The FBI contacts the Democratic National Committee’s IT help desk, cautioning that at least one computer has been compromised by Russian hackers. A technician scans the system but fails to find evidence of the intrusion.

April 2016: Papadopoulos meets with Russian national offering ‘dirt’ on Clinton

Papadopoulos meets with a Russian national who he says offered “dirt” on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, including “thousands of emails. Papadopoulos emails other members of Trump campaign about the Russian offer of dirt on Clinton and the offer for Trump to meet with Putin. The Democratic National Committee becomes aware of the scope of the monthslong intrusion into its email systems by hackers who U.S. intelligence agencies later linked to the Russian government. Photo credit: Getty

June 2016: Meeting at Trump Tower with Russian lawyer

Manafort attends a meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan with a Russian lawyer named Natalia Veselnitskaya, who promised to provide the Trump campaign damaging information about Clinton. Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner are also in the meeting. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says his website will publish a batch of Clinton emails. Photo credit: Getty

August 2016: NYT reports that Manafort’s name is on secret list

The New York Times reports that Manafort’s name appears on a secret list of payments made by the Yanukovych regime. Manafort resigns from the Trump campaign the day after The Associated Press reports he failed to register as a foreign agent after arranging a covert lobbying campaign in the United States on behalf of the Ukrainian party.

Jan. 6, 2017: Comey briefs Trump on dossier

FBI Director James Comey, who was overseeing the ongoing investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, briefs Trump on contents of unverified dossier that contains salacious allegations about him and his campaign.

Jan. 20, 2017: Trump’s inauguration

Trump is inaugurated as 45th president of the United States. Photo credit: Getty

Jan. 27, 2017: Papadopoulos interviewed by FBI

Papadopoulos is interviewed by the FBI about his contacts with Russians.

June 2017: Manafort files paperwork with DOJ

Manafort files paperwork with the Justice Department retroactively disclosing under the Foreign Agents Registration Act that his firm received more than $17 million working for the government of Ukraine between 2012 and 2014. The Washington Post reports that Mueller is investigating Trump for obstruction of justice.

August 2017: Mueller impanels grand jury

Mueller impanels a criminal grand jury in Washington, D.C.

Oct. 30, 2017: Manafort, Gates charged

Manafort and Gates plead not guilty after their arrest on charges related to conspiracy against the United States and other felonies. The charges are the first from the special counsel investigating possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. Photo credit: Getty

Feb. 20, 2018: Prominent attorney pleads guilty

Mueller charges a prominent attorney with lying to authorities about his work with two of Trump’s former campaign aides. Alex van der Zwaan, 33, a Dutch national, pleads guilty in federal court to charges that he lied to investigators about his conversations with Gates. Photo credit: Getty

April 3, 2018: First punishment handed down

Alex van der Zwaan is sentenced to 30 days in prison in the first punishment handed down in the investigation. He was also ordered to pay a $20,000 fine. Photo credit: Getty

July 16, 2018: Trump meets with Putin

Trump meets with Putin in Helsinki, Finland. Trump says Putin made an “incredible offer” to help American investigators in their prosecution of the 12 Russian intelligence officers. Photo credit: Getty

Sept. 14, 2018: Manafort agrees to cooperate

Manafort agrees to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation as he pleads guilty to federal crimes and avoids a second trial that could have exposed him to more time in prison. Manafort pleaded guilty to two charges of conspiracy in relation to his lobbying work with pro-Russian groups in Ukraine.

Nov. 6, 2018: Democrats retake the House

Democrats retake the House of Representatives in midterm elections, gaining control of key investigatory committes. Photo credit: Getty

Nov. 16, 2018: Trump cooperates with the investigation

Trump says he has finished his answers to questions posed by Mueller. He says four days later that he has provided them to the special counsel, the first time he has directly cooperated.

Nov. 26, 2018: Mueller accuses Manafort of violating plea agreement

Mueller accuses Manafort of violating his plea agreement by repeatedly lying to federal investigators, an extraordinary allegation that could expose him to a lengthier prison sentence and potentially more criminal charges. Papadopoulos begins serving his 2-week prison sentence after a judge rejects his last-minute bid to remain free.Corsi tells The Associated Press that he is rejecting a plea offer in Mueller’s investigation.

Dec. 3, 2018: Trump weighs in on Cohen

Trump calls for a “full and complete” sentence for Cohen. Photo credit: Twitter

Dec. 7, 2018: Court filings reveal contact between Trump associates, Russian intermediaries

Federal prosecutors urge a “substantial” prison term for Cohen. Court filings from New York prosecutors and Mueller’s office reveal for the first time contacts between Trump associates and Russian intermediaries, with Cohen described as being in touch with a Russian offering “political synergy” as far back as 2015. In describing how Manafort breached a plea agreement, Mueller says Manafort told “multiple discernible lies” to prosecutors about his contacts with the Trump administration and an associate with alleged ties to Russian intelligence. Papadopolous is released from jail after serving a two-week sentence.

Dec. 18, 2018: Flynn’s sentencing delayed

A federal judge sharply rebukes Flynn and unexpectedly delays sentencing him after warning he could go to prison for lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador. Prosecutors from Mueller’s team had recommended leniency.

Jan. 4, 2019: Grand jury’s term extended

The chief federal judge in Washington extends the term of the grand jury used by Mueller, a sign that the probe will continue for at least several months.

Jan. 9, 2019: Rosenstein expected to leave, AP reports

A person familiar with the plans tells The Associated Press that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is expected to leave his position soon after William Barr, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, is confirmed. Photo credit: Getty

Jan. 11, 2019: NYT reports FBI began investigating Trump

The New York Times reports that FBI officials began investigating whether Trump “had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests” after he fired Comey. Mueller took over the investigation, and it is unclear whether Mueller is still investigating that, The Times reported.

Jan. 15, 2019: Barr’s confirmation hearing

Barr appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing. He says he doesn’t believe Mueller “would be involved in a witch hunt.” Photo credit: Getty

Jan. 23, 2019: Cohen postpones testimony to Congress

Michael Cohen postpones his testimony to Congress,”due to ongoing threats against his family from President Trump and Giuliani,” Cohen’s spokesman says.

Jan. 28, 2019: The investigation is ‘close to being completed’

Whitaker says of Mueller’s probe, “The investigation is, I think, close to being completed,” at an unrelated news conference. He says he has been “fully briefed,” but does not elaborate or give any timetable. Photo credit: Getty

Feb. 8, 2019: National Enquirer secretly assisted Trump’s campaign 

Two people tell The Associated Press that federal prosecutors are looking into the National Enquirer’s handling of a story about Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ extramarital affair to see if the tabloid’s publisher violated a cooperation agreement with prosecutors. The tabloid acknowledged secretly assisting Trump’s White House campaign by paying $150,000 to Playboy centerfold Karen McDougal for the rights to her story about an alleged affair with Trump. The company then buried the story until after the 2016 election. Cohen pleaded guilty to charges that included helping to broker that transaction. Photo credit: Getty

Feb. 13, 2019: Judge rules Manafort intentionally lied

A district judge rules that Manafort intentionally lied to investigators and a federal grand jury in the Mueller investigation. The four-page ruling hurts Manafort’s chance of receiving a reduced sentence. The ruling was largely a rejection of Manafort’s attorneys’ argument that he hadn’t intentionally misled investigators about his interactions with Kilimnik but rather forgot some details until his memory was refreshed.

Feb. 17, 2019: A ‘crime may have been committed,’ ex-FBI official says 

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe says in an interview that a “crime may have been committed” when Trump fired Comey and tried to publicly undermine an investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia. McCabe also says in the interview with “60 Minutes” that the FBI had good reason to open a counterintelligence investigation into whether Trump was in league with Russia, and therefore a possible national security threat, following the May 2017 firing of Comey. Photo credit: Getty

Feb. 23, 2019: Mueller’s office weighs in on Manafort crimes

In a sentencing memo, Mueller’s office says Manafort committed crimes that cut to “the heart of the criminal justice system” and over the years deceived everyone from bookkeepers and banks to federal prosecutors and his own lawyers. Prosecutors do not yet take a position on how much prison time he should serve or whether to stack the punishment on top of a separate sentence he will soon receive in a Virginia prosecution. “For over a decade, Manafort repeatedly and brazenly violated the law,” prosecutors wrote. “His crimes continued up through the time he was first indicted in October 2017 and remarkably went unabated even after indictment.”

March 13, 2019: Manafort sentenced in separate case

Manafort is sentenced to an additional 3 1/2 years in prison on conspiracy charges related to his foreign lobbying work and witness tampering. He is also indicted on mortgage fraud, conspiracy and other state charges in New York that could put him outside the president’s power to pardon. Photo credit: Getty

March 22, 2019: Mueller delivers report to attorney general

Mueller turned over his long-awaited final report on the Russia investigation to Attorney General William Barr, and officially concluded his probe of Russian election interference and possible coordination with Trump associates, according to the Justice Department. The still confidential report will now be reviewed by Barr, who has said he will write his own account communicating Mueller’s findings to Congress and the American public. Barr said he could release his account to Congress as soon as this weekend.

March 25, 2019: Democrats demand release

House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan) and other top Democrats set a deadline of April 2 for the release of the full Mueller report. The deadline is later missed, and the committee approves giving Nadler permission to issue subpoenas for the report on April 3.

April 10, 2019: Dispute deepens

Barr tells Congress he thinks “spying did occur” against Trump’s presidential campaign, suggesting the origins of the Russia investigation may have been mishandled in remarks that aligned him with the president. In an interview with The Associated Press, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) says, “I don’t trust Barr, I trust Mueller.”

April 12, 2019: Ex-Obama counsel indicted

Former Obama White House counsel Greg Craig is indicted on charges of making false statements and concealing information in a federal foreign lobbying investigation that intersected with the Mueller probe.

April 18, 2019: Mueller’s report released

Mueller’s report is released, revealing Trump’s efforts to seize control of the Russia probe and force the special counsel’s removal. The 10 episodes scrutinized by Mueller include Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, the president’s directive to subordinates to have Mueller fired and efforts to encourage witnesses not to cooperate. The report is two volumes and 448 pages long including attachments. At a news conference before the report’s release, Barr says “no material has been redacted based on executive privilege” and “I have no objection to Bob Mueller personally testifying” to Congress. Barr says he and Rosenstein disagreed with some of Mueller’s “legal theories” pertaining to obstruction of justice, but that didn’t influence their decision that Trump didn’t commit a crime. Nadler writes to Mueller that he wants the former special counsel to testify by May 23. Trump says, “This should never happen to another president again, this hoax.” Photo credit: Getty

April 30, 2019: Mueller expressed frustration, Justice says

A Justice Department official says Mueller expressed frustration to Barr in March about how the findings of the Russia investigation were being portrayed. Mueller reportedly said he worried that a letter summarizing the main conclusions of the probe lacked the necessary context and was creating public confusion about his team’s work. Mueller communicated his agitation in a letter to the Justice Department just days after Barr issued the four-page document that summarized the special counsel’s conclusions, showing tensions between them, particularly on the key question of obstruction. Mueller and Barr then had a phone call about the same concerns.

May 2, 2019: Barr skips House hearing

Barr does not attend a House hearing on Mueller’s report, escalating an already acrimonious battle between Democrats and Trump’s Justice Department. The department misses a committee deadline to provide it with a full, unredacted version of Mueller’s report and its underlying evidence. The moves are likely to prompt a vote on holding Barr in contempt and possibly the issuance of subpoenas.

May 6, 2019: Ex-prosecutors sign letter

Hundreds of former federal prosecutors sign onto a letter, released by an advocacy group that is critical of the administration, saying Trump would have been charged with obstruction of justice if he were anyone other than the president.

May 8, 2019: Panel holds Barr in contempt

House Judiciary Committee Democrats vote to hold Barr in contempt of Congress after Trump made his first assertion of executive privilege for the entire Mueller report and underlying evidence. Following more than five hours of contentious debate, the committee votes along party lines, 24-16, to approve a motion to the House to cite Barr for contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over special counsel Mueller’s complete, unredacted report and evidence. “We are now in a constitutional crisis,” Nadler says. Pelosi echoes that wording the next day. Photo credit: Getty

May 14, 2019: Panel reaches deal with Trump Jr.

The Senate Intelligence Committee strikes a deal with Trump Jr. to appear for a closed-door interview in June, pulling the two sides back from a confrontation over a subpoena as part of the panel’s Russia investigation. The deal comes after the panel subpoenaed the president’s eldest son to discuss answers he gave the panel’s staff in a 2017 interview. Trump Jr. had backed out of interviews twice, prompting the subpoena, people familiar with Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr’s remarks tell The Associated Press.

May 16, 2019: Flynn described efforts to interfere with cooperation

Flynn told the special counsel’s office that people connected to the Trump administration and Congress sought to influence his cooperation with the Russia investigation, and he provided a voicemail recording of one such communication, prosecutors say in a court filing made public. Meanwhile, the judge in the case orders that portions of Mueller’s report that relate to Flynn be unredacted and made public by the end of the month, the first time a judge is known to have directed the Justice Department to make public any portion of the report that the agency had kept secret.

May 20, 2019: Judge sides with Congress

A federal judge rules against Trump in a financial records dispute with Congress and says lawmakers should get the documents they have subpoenaed. Trump calls it a “crazy” decision that his lawyers would appeal. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta comes amid a widespread effort by the White House and Trump’s attorneys to refuse to cooperate with congressional requests for information and records. Earlier, Trump directed McGahn to defy a congressional subpoena that had compelled McGahn to testify before the House Judiciary Committee the next day.

May 29, 2019: Mueller says his probe did not exonerate Trump

Mueller, while announcing he’s closing his office and returning to private life, says that his report found that a legal opinion barred him from charging a sitting president and that his probe did not exonerate President Trump.

In his first public statement in two years, Mueller defendsed his most controversial decision — to not make a prosecutorial judgment on whether Trump criminally obstructed the investigation — and suggestsed that that determination is now up to Congress. Photo credit: Getty

June 4, 2019: White House tells former aides not to cooperate

The White House again directs former employees not to cooperate with a congressional investigation, this time instructing former aides Hope Hicks and Annie Donaldson not to provide documents to the House Judiciary Committee. Nadler issued subpoenas for Hicks and Donaldson, who are mentioned frequently in Mueller’s report. Hicks had agreed to turn over documents related to her time on President Trump’s presidential campaign, which are not covered by executive privilege.

Separately, lawyers for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign asked a judge to penalize the Democratic National Committee for alleging in a lawsuit a conspiracy between the campaign and Russia, saying Mueller’s findings revealed the “doomed effort to prove a falsehood.” But lawyers for the Democratic Party responded by saying Mueller’s report confirms and bolsters their claims by detailing the campaign’s repeated suspicious interactions with Russian agents, proving the campaign participated in Russia’s election interference.

June 10, 2019: Justice Department agrees to hand over evidence

House Democrats reach an agreement with the Justice Department to view underlying documents behind the redacted Mueller report, partially defusing an impasse between Congress and the Trump administration.

June 12, 2019: Donald Trump Jr. testifies to Senate

Donald Trump Jr. testifies to the Senate intelligence committee for around three hours, following up on a 2017 interview with the same panel as part of its two-year-long Russia investigation. Trump Jr. said after the interview that he was happy to clarify answers from the earlier interview with the panel’s staff, but told reporters, “I don’t think I changed any of what I said because there was nothing to change.”

Hope Hicks, the former White House communications director who also worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign, agrees to a closed-door interview with the House Judiciary Committee in its investigation of President Trump. Photo credit: Getty

June 18, 2019: Trump kicks off re-election bid

President Trump kicks off his re-election campaign. If he wins a second term, Trump would retain the legal protections of the Office of the Presidency. Mueller cited much-discussed 1973 Justice Department guidelines that state that “the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting president would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions” in his final report when explaining his reasons for not suggesting criminal charges against Trump on obstruction of justice.

June 20, 2019: Hicks defends use of hacked emails

A transcript from Hicks’ closed-door testimony shows she defended the Trump campaign’s use of hacked emails released by Russians during the 2016 presidential race, calling them “publicly available information.”

Meanwhile, prosecutors in the Roger Stone case say President Trump’s longtime ally violated the terms of his release with posts on social media in recent days targeting Mueller’s investigation. Stone was indicted for lying to Congress and obstructing lawmakers’ probe into the Russian meddling, including its hack into the Democratic National Committee’s servers.

June 26, 2019: Trump comments on Mueller’s upcoming testimony

President Trump describes former special counsel Mueller’s upcoming testimony before two Democratic-led House panels as merely part of a phony probe that “never ends.” “We had no obstruction … no collusion,” he told Fox Business. “It’s hard to have obstruction when you have no crime.”

July 8, 2019: Barr says Mueller’s testimony will be ‘public spectacle’

Barr accuses Democrats of trying to create a “public spectacle” by subpoenaing Mueller to testify before Congress about the Russia investigation.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Barr said the Justice Department would support Mueller if he decides he “doesn’t want to subject himself” to congressional testimony. Barr also said the Justice Department would seek to block any attempt by Congress to subpoena members of the special counsel’s team.

Rep. Peter King, in a morning radio interview, says he believes “there was no legal basis” for the FBI to open an investigation into then-candidate Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and its purported ties to Russia.

July 11, 2019: Committee votes on subpoenas

The House Judiciary Committee votes to authorize subpoenas for 12 people mentioned in Mueller’s report, including President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler will make the final decision about issuing the subpoenas and has said they can be avoided if witnesses and the administration cooperate voluntarily. President Trump says the witnesses “have already spent hours with Robert Mueller, and spent a fortune on lawyers in so doing.”

Meanwhile, Flynn’s lawyers say he is still cooperating with investigations by the government and deserves to be treated with leniency when it comes time for his sentencing.

July 22, 2019: Justice Department to Mueller: Don’t go beyond report

The Justice Department tells former special counsel Robert Mueller not to stray beyond his report on Russian election interference when he testifies to Congress. In a letter sent to Mueller two days before his scheduled testimony, Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer said he should not speak about redacted material from his report — including material pertaining to pending criminal prosecutions, “uncharged third-parties” and “executive privilege,” such as “presidential communications privileges.”

The letter is entirely in line with what Mueller has already said — that he doesn’t intend to speak beyond his report’s findings during the hearings before the House Judiciary and intelligence committees. But it gives Mueller a formal directive to point to if he faces questions he does not want to answer.