The Apprentice

He also almost immediately came across disturbing information about Carter Page.

ONCE ON THE TRUMP TEAM, PAGE BEGAN GRANTING INTERVIEWS in which he presented himself as the campaign’s “Russia adviser.” He played up his business ties to Moscow and urged campaign officials to have Trump make contact with the Kremlin. His status with Trump earned him a speech invitation from the New Economic School in Moscow, a prestigious institution where Obama had once given a talk. In May, Page emailed others on the campaign to propose that Trump go in his stead “if he’d like to take my place and raise the temperature a little bit.”

In June, Page used his credentials as a member of the Trump campaign to attend an event at Blair House, a historic residence just across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House where foreign guests of the president often stay. At a gathering for Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, Page startled the assembled foreign policy experts and academics by praising Putin as a stronger leader than Obama, and vowing U.S.-Russia relations would recover when Trump was in office.

In the ensuing weeks, Page had a flurry of interactions with campaign officials about his pending trip to the Russian capital. He sent emails submitting drafts of his speech and asking for feedback from campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, spokeswoman Hope Hicks, and J. D. Gordon, a former naval officer serving as a foreign policy adviser.[5] At a dinner for members of Trump’s national security team at the Capitol Hill Club, a watering hole for Republicans, Page greeted Alabama senator Jeff Sessions and told him he was heading to Russia in a matter of days. The campaign maintained that he was going to Russia on his own, and not as a Trump representative. But organizers of the New Economic School event made clear that they were not necessarily interested in the independent opinions of Page.

“Carter was pretty explicit that he was just coming as a private citizen, but the interest in him was that he was Trump’s Russia guy,” said Yuval Weber, a Harvard professor who said he was with Page for much of his time in Moscow, and whose father, Shlomo Weber, was the rector at the New Economic School and had extended Page the invitation.

Page’s July 7 remarks in Moscow were astonishing. “Washington and other Western capitals have impeded potential progress through their often hypocritical focus on ideas such as democratization, inequality, corruption, and regime change,” he said. He cited the Occupy Wall Street movement, the Bernie Madoff scandal, and the collapse of Enron as evidence of irreparable cracks in the American system. Putin, by Page’s account, was a force for global enlightenment, fostering a system of international relations “focused on mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit and tolerance, and access to resources.”

Page kept the same campaign advisers apprised of developments on his trip in a series of emails. Relaying an apparent interaction with Russian deputy prime minister Arkady Dvorkovich—chairman of the board of the New Economic School—Page said Dvorkovich “expressed strong support for Mr. Trump and a desire to work together.” In a July 8 email to Gordon and another campaign adviser, Tera Dahl, Page said he would “send you guys a readout soon regarding some incredible insights and outreach I’ve received from a few Russian legislatures and senior members of the presidential administration.”

Manafort, meanwhile, moved to exploit his new position. Two weeks after being brought on as campaign adviser, he emailed his most trusted employee in Kiev, Konstantin Kilimnik, who, according to U.S. officials, also had long-standing ties to Russian intelligence. Citing his new connection with Trump, Manafort asked, “How do we use to get whole?”

The messages between Manafort and Kilimnik were written in deliberately cryptic fashion, but references to “OVD” made clear that one of Manafort’s top priorities was to find a way to settle accounts with Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska, the Russian billionaire who had accused Manafort in a Cayman Islands court proceeding of taking money intended for the cable television properties in Ukraine as well as other investments, then failing to account for the funds. (In the messages Manafort and Kilimnik appeared to use the Russian delicacy “black caviar” as code for sums of cash.) A Manafort spokesman would later claim that the emails reflected an “innocuous” effort to collect debts owed by assorted Eastern European business associates. If so, Manafort seemed to go to significant lengths to obscure that legitimate purpose.

Deripaska has been among the Russian leader’s closest allies for years. Leaked U.S. diplomatic cables described Deripaska in 2006 as “among the 2–3 oligarchs Putin turns to on a regular basis” and a “more-or-less permanent fixture on Putin’s trips abroad.” His ties to Manafort went back almost as far. In 2005, Manafort sent a memo to Deripaska pitching the aluminum magnate on a plan to engage in lobbying and other activities to advance Russia’s interests in the former Soviet republics, according to an Associated Press investigation. As part of this effort, Manafort offered to lobby the U.S. and other Western governments to help oligarchs in Ukraine hold on to assets looted from the state, to extend his consulting work into Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Georgia, and to help pro-Russian entities develop “long-term relationships” with Western journalists. Deripaska denied that he ever enlisted Manafort for such work, but acknowledged in a 2017 defamation lawsuit against AP that the two had business arrangements dating back to the mid-2000s.

On July 7, while Page was in Moscow and Trump was on the verge of securing the GOP nomination, Manafort sent another email to Kilimnik, asking him to relay a message to Deripaska offering secret updates from inside the campaign. “If he needs private briefings,” Manafort wrote, “we can accommodate.”

Despite his flimsy résumé, Papadopoulos was in some ways the most resourceful in cultivating contacts with the Kremlin. More than the others, he appeared to be doing so at the direct bidding of the Trump campaign.

Ten days after Trump introduced Papadopoulos as an “excellent guy,” the newcomer took part in a disjointed meeting of the Trump foreign policy brain trust at the still-under-renovation Trump Hotel in Washington. The session—the only known gathering of the group that Trump attended—was convened by Gordon, the campaign adviser, and presided over by the future president.

Photos of the meeting show Trump seated at the head of a table in a disheveled room with stacked dishes and poster-size photos of the Trump Hotel interior positioned on easels, presumably for those overseeing the final phases of construction. Trump was surrounded by at least ten advisers, including Sessions at the far end of the table. Page was not present. Papadopoulos, sporting a fresh haircut and a blue suit, was shown leaning forward attentively, his elbow resting on the black tablecloth. There is no record or transcript of the conversation that transpired. But witnesses said that Papadopoulos astonished those assembled by announcing, upon introducing himself, that he could arrange a meeting between Trump and Putin. It was a staggering assertion for someone who never worked in government, had apparently never been in Russia, and had no recognizable diplomatic or foreign policy credentials. The assembled advisers seemed unsure how to respond, and neither endorsed the idea nor shot it down.

AFTER A BRIEF STINT AS A FOREIGN POLICY ADVISER FOR GOP CANDIDATE Ben Carson, who had also been desperate to fill his roster, Papadopoulos found his way aboard the Trump campaign after an interview with Clovis, who had also brought in Page. The campaign cochairman saw an eager volunteer and gave him a fateful bit of advice on how to ingratiate himself with the candidate. Clovis told his latest recruit on March 6 that one of the campaign’s central foreign policy goals was to improve relations with Russia. Papadopoulos had made significant if indirect contact with the Kremlin in a matter of weeks.

While traveling in Italy on March 14, Trump’s “excellent guy” met Joseph Mifsud, an academic from Malta with mysterious ties to senior officials in Russia. Mifsud took little interest in the lowly think tank researcher until he noticed Papadopoulos’s name in press coverage of Trump’s Washington Post meeting. Mifsud quickly set up a meeting in London, where he introduced the fledgling Trump aide to a woman from St. Petersburg, Olga Polonskaya, who he falsely claimed was Putin’s niece.

Papadopoulos reported to Clovis that he had made rapid progress on arranging “a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss U.S.-Russia ties under President Trump.” “Great work,” Clovis replied, though he noted that the idea would have to be discussed more widely among senior officials in the campaign.

Papadopoulos and Mifsud remained in touch frequently over the next month by email and Skype. On April 18, Mifsud connected the young Trump aide to Ivan Timofeev, the program director of the Russian International Affairs Council, a government-backed think tank. Timofeev had substantial ties to the Kremlin, serving as program director of the Valdai Club, an annual foreign policy conference in Russia attended by Putin. According to U.S. prosecutors, Timofeev also served as an undeclared proxy for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

A few days later, on April 26, Mifsud relayed tantalizing information to Papadopoulos. Having just returned from the Valdai event, Mifsud said that he had learned that Russia had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton, in the form of thousands of emails. It was three months before the first batch of DNC files would be dumped online.

FLYNN HAD MET TRUMP FOR THE FIRST TIME BACK IN AUGUST 2015, a year after his DIA ouster. The retired general said he had received a call from Trump’s team and agreed to a meeting at Trump Tower. The conversation was scheduled for thirty minutes but went for ninety.

“I was very impressed. Very serious guy. Good listener,” Flynn recalled. “I got the impression this was not a guy who was worried about Donald Trump, but a guy worried about the country.” Trump’s positions on a range of issues—support for the use of torture, suspicion of European allies—were in complete opposition to Flynn’s previous statements on those subjects. But the men shared hard-line views of Islam, an unusual affinity for Russia, and a deep resentment of the current president, both feeling he had disrespected them.

“I found him to be in line with what I believed,” Flynn said.

Flynn had interactions with several GOP candidates, and for a time served as an informal adviser to Carly Fiorina. But as he moved more visibly into the Trump camp, Flynn got a remarkable offer from RT: an invitation to a gala in Moscow celebrating the network’s tenth anniversary. Flynn would be paid $45,000—money he would later fail to disclose on federal forms—and would be seated at a VIP table next to Putin, though he would later say he didn’t know about that arrangement in advance.

Before the trip, Flynn had stopped by his former agency, the DIA, for a courtesy classified briefing on Russia. Agency officials said Flynn did not disclose the nature and purpose of his Moscow visit, and that when photos surfaced of Flynn wearing a black tie and seated next to Putin, his successor at DIA, Lieutenant General Vincent Stewart, was so furious that he imposed new restrictions on sharing information with former agency executives. On the morning of the December 10 event, Flynn sat for an extended interview with Sophie Shevardnadze, a prominent correspondent for RT and the granddaughter of the former Soviet foreign minister. Flynn seemed uncomfortable in that setting, onstage before a Russian audience, asking at one point, “Why am I here? I’m sort of in the lair.”

In many of his media appearances, Flynn had a tendency to fault U.S. leaders for lacking an adequate understanding of global problems without being able to articulate a coherent position or prescription himself. Even so, his words to Shevardnadze must have sounded encouraging to the Kremlin. “The U.S. can’t sit there and say, ‘Russia, you’re bad,’” Flynn declared. The two countries need to “stop being like two bullies in a playground. Quit acting immature with each other.” Later, he added, “My wish is that we figure out a way strategically to work together.”

While in Moscow, Flynn also sought meetings with U.S. officials, including the CIA’s station chief, the highest-ranking intelligence officer in the country. Out of courtesy, the station chief agreed, only to find himself being lectured by Flynn on how the United States was mishandling its relationship with Russia and needed to “ease back,” according to a U.S. official briefed on the exchange. When Flynn pressed for a follow-up meeting the next day, the CIA officer became concerned that Flynn had met with Russian officials and had more unwanted advice to impart or, worse, information he wanted to collect. The station chief said no.

THOUGH THE CAMPAIGN WAS GAINING A PRO-RUSSIA ELEMENT, NO one seemed more enamored of Moscow than the candidate himself. At a Trump rally in San Jose on June 2, 2016, he bristled at mounting criticism of his affection for Russia, mocking those, including many in his own party, who had begun calling on him to disavow his praise for Putin.

“Then Putin said, ‘Donald Trump is a genius, he’s going to be the next great leader of the United States,’” Trump said. (Putin, when asked about Trump in December, had actually called him “colorful” and “talented” while saying “it’s not our affair to determine his worthiness.”) “No, no, think of it,” Trump continued. “They wanted me to disavow what he said. How dare you call me a genius. How dare you call me a genius, Vladimir. Wouldn’t it be nice if we actually got along with Russia? Wouldn’t that be good?”

One day after Trump’s San Jose appearance, his son Donald Trump Jr. received an email offering “some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.” The message came from Rob Goldstone, a music publicist with ties to the Trump family as well as to a Russian pop star, Emin Agalarov, whose father, Aras, had made billions in construction contracts under Putin. The elder Agalarov had partnered with Trump to bring the Miss Universe pageant to Moscow in 2013.

Goldstone’s email had some garbled information. He claimed that the older Agalarov had gotten the information on Clinton after meeting “the crown prosecutor of Russia,” although there is no such position in Russia. He added that “this is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”

Trump Jr. neither tripped over the odd reference to the crown prosecutor nor the remarkably explicit offer of campaign assistance from the Kremlin. “Thanks Rob I appreciate that,” he replied. “I am on the road at the moment but perhaps I just speak to Emin first.”

America’s main adversary for nearly a century was offering damaging information, almost certainly obtained through illicit means, to subvert the U.S. process for selecting a president. There are many ways that Trump Jr. might have responded. He could have ignored the email, directed it to the campaign’s lawyers, or placed a call to the FBI. But he did none of those things. Instead, he wrote back with unambiguous enthusiasm. “If it’s what you say I love it,” he said, “especially later in the summer.”

PART

TWO

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