

That July, the bureau opened an investigation into whether Russia and the Trump campaign were working together to sway the election in Trump’s favor, a probe eventually taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller. officials were agreeing with a private cybersecurity firm’s findings that Russia was responsible, collecting evidence over the next several months that tied individual Russian military intelligence officers to the hack.Īdding to the FBI’s concern was the revelation that a Trump campaign official had been told Russia had damaging information about Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, OK?”Īll the while, U.S. That skepticism was adopted by Trump himself, who memorably said during a presidential debate that “it could also be China. intelligence wouldn’t be able to figure out who had done it, Gates recalled. Trump aide Michael Flynn, who later became Trump’s first national security adviser, was also adamant within the campaign that Russia couldn’t have carried out the attack and that U.S.

authorities have assessed has ties to Russian intelligence - an accusation Kilimnik has denied. The idea parroted that of Konstantin Kilimnik, a Manafort business associate who U.S. Manafort, now serving more than seven years in prison for tax fraud and other crimes, suggested then that the attack was probably executed by Ukrainians, according to FBI notes from an April 2018 interview with Rick Gates, Manafort’s former deputy.

authorities collected evidence in 2016 that Russia had hacked and stolen years of internal emails from the Democratic National Committee, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who had cultivated extensive business contacts in Ukraine and worked for pro-Russia politicians there, was privately pointing to another culprit. “The ultimate victim is democracy, is the stability of our nation,” said Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation expert at the nonpartisan Wilson Center, a Washington, D.C. Finally, some of America’s own elected leaders made it their truth. A review by The Associated Press shows that the Ukraine conspiracy theory traces back to Trump’s 2016 campaign, was spread online and later advanced by Russian President Vladimir Putin weeks after his own country was blamed for election interference.
