Trump and Russia: An Introduction to What We Know (and What We Don't)
Channel: vlogbrothers
Date: 2017-09-26

In which John discusses the Russian government's interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, allegations of collusion against members of Donald Trump's campaign, what is known about various Trump campaign officials' relationship to Vladimir Putin's regime, and also what we don't know. SOURCES BELOW:

CORRECTION: Nixon resigned before he was impeached.

Vladimir Putin personally oversaw efforts by the Russian government to affect the U.S. Presidential election outcome in favor of Donald Trump, according to both the Department of Homeland Security and the Officer of the Director of National Intelligence: 
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/07/joint-statement-department-homeland-security-and-office-director-national

Trump campaign removed language from the Republican Party platform supporting Ukraine in their ongoing conflict with Russia:

http://www.npr.org/2016/08/06/488876597/how-the-trump-campaign-weakened-the-republican-platform-on-aid-to-ukraine

The Putin regime engaged in a disinformation campaign, attempted to access several states' election data, and oversaw the hacking of the DNC and sent the DNC and John Podesta emails to wikileaks:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/06/us/politics/russia-hack-report.html

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-13/russian-breach-of-39-states-threatens-future-u-s-elections

http://time.com/4625301/cia-russia-wikileaks-dnc-hacking/ and https://www.cnet.com/news/how-experts-decided-russia-hacked-dnc-election/ 

Congressional Republicans agree with the conclusion that Putin's regime was behind the DNC hack and other meddling: http://www.weeklystandard.com/congressional-republicans-break-with-trump-on-russia-hacking-julian-assange/article/2006181 and https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/07/12/paul-ryan-russian-meddling-election-absolutely-unacceptable/471428001/ 

The U.S. election law saying that no American can accept or receive a contribution or "thing of value" from any foreign national in connection with a political campaign: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/11/110.20

One-time Trump campaign manager Paul Manfort was paid $10,000,000 a year for 3 years by Oleg Deripaska: http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-manafort-putin-oleg-deripaska-trump-russia-2017-9

Michael Caputo worked on a campaign to improve Putin's image among Americans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates_and_Russian_officials#Michael_R._Caputo

Michael Flynn accepted money from the Russian government without disclosing it: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/25/michael-flynn-russia-payment-house-panel-investigation and discussed sanctions on a call with Kislyak in December 2016, which he initially denied: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/14/michael-flynn-talks-russia-illegal-did-donald-trump-know-everything/

Trump asked FBI Director James Comey for 'loyalty" and to drop the Flynn investigation: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/us/politics/james-comey-trump-flynn-russia-investigation.html?mcubz=1 

Special counsel Robert Mueller has convened (at least) two grand juries as part of his investigation: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mueller-using-grand-juries-va-d-c-trump-russia-probe-n789646

Trump acknowledged firing Comey in large part because of the collusion investigation: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/james-comey-donald-trump-russia-investigation-timeline-events-n769496 

Info about Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer, which was also attended by Manafort and Jared Kushner: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/11/us/politics/donald-trump-jr-email-text.html?mcubz=1 and https://www.newyorker.com/news/ryan-lizza/donald-trump-jr-attempts-to-explain-that-russia-meeting

As President, Donald Trump had a private meeting with Vladimir Putin at which no U.S. translator was present, which is extremely unusual: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/18/world/europe/trump-putin-undisclosed-meeting.html

If you have any other source questions, feel free to ask in comments.


OVERALL HELPFUL THINGS:

A very helpful overall timeline of events related to the Russian collusion investigation: http://billmoyers.com/story/trump-russia-timeline/

The wikipedia article on the topic is very good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections

Huge thanks to Rosianna Halse Rojas for fact-checking and research assistance: http://youtube.com/rosianna