Mueller interviewed Steele: Dossier on Trump comes into focus
Special counsel Robert Mueller's investigative team interviewed the veteran British spy who compiled the explosive  Trump-Russia  dossier over the summer.
The timeline of major  game-changing events that unfolded in the final months of the election coincided with several of  the dossier 's allegations of conspiracy and misconduct between several  Trump  associates and  Russia .
Special counsel Robert Mueller has interviewed the veteran British spy who wrote a collection of explosive memos alleging ties between  President Donald Trump 's campaign team and  Russia   CNN reported on Thursday.
The revelation came one day after the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee  Richard Burr  told reporters that the committee had been working "backwards" to examine the memos as part of its separate but parallel investigation into  Russia 's election meddling.
The memos were compiled into a dossier by veteran British spy Christopher Steele  who was hired by a Washington  DC-based opposition research firm in June 2016 to investigate the  Trump  campaign's ties to  Russia . The firm  Fusion GPS  was first hired by unspecified anti-Trump Republicans in late 2015. Democrats took over funding for the firm's work after  Trump  won the GOP nomination.
Steele produced memos from June through December  at which point Fusion  with his permission  gave the dossier to Republican Sen. John McCain. McCain then gave it to the FBI director at the time  James Comey. Comey  along with the former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan  briefed both President Barack Obama and then-President elect Trump on the dossier's allegations in January.
The document includes allegations of a quid-pro-quo in which Russia agreed to leak the hacked Democratic National Committee emails to WikiLeaks in exchange for  the Trump campaign sidelining Russian aggression in Ukraine as a campaign issue . It also alleges that  Trump 's former campaign chairman  Paul Manafort  managed the communication between Russia and the campaign.
We now know that  while he was campaign chairman  Manafort offered to give "private briefings" about  the Trump campaign  to a Russian oligarch and ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin  according to emails reviewed last month by The Washington Post and The Atlantic. Manafort also asked a longtime Russian-Ukrainian employee in early April how he could use his media coverage and high-level campaign role to collect past debts.
At least five other  Trump  associates â Attorney General Jeff Sessions  former national security adviser Michael Flynn  longtime confidant Roger Stone  former campaign adviser Carter Page  and campaign national security adviser JD Gordon â reportedly met with Russia's ambassador to the US  Sergey Kislyak  in the latter half of 2016. The FBI reportedly obtained a FISA warrant to monitor Page's communications after he returned from a trip to Moscow last July. He and Flynn are named in the dossier as being complicit in the alleged collusion.
Carter Page  an early foreign policy adviser to  Trump   visits Moscow  the GOP platform is changed  top  Trump  surrogate then-Sen. Jeff Sessions meets Russia's US ambassador Sergey Kislyak  WikiLeaks publishes hacked DNC emails  and the FBI opens its investigation into Russia's interference.
June 20  2016: The dossier alleges that  Trump  had been cultivated by Russian officials "for at least five years " that the Kremlin had compromising material related to "sexually perverted acts"  Trump  performed at a Moscow Ritz Carlton  and that  Trump 's inner circle was accepting a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin on Hillary Clinton.
The flow of intelligence is being facilitated by Paul Manafort  then  Trump 's campaign manager  who is using Carter Page as a "liaison" between the campaign and the Kremlin  the dossier says.
June 9  2016: Donald Trump Jr. hosts Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and Russian-American lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin at Trump Tower after being promised compromising information about Hillary Clinton. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort attend the meeting. Manafort takes notes that reportedly reference donations and the Republican National Committee.
July 19  2016: A Russian source close to Igor Sechin  the president of Russia's state-owned oil company Rosneft  "confided the details of a recent secret meeting" between Sechin and Trump campaign adviser Carter Page while Page was in Moscow in early July.
 The Trump campaign  "agreed to sideline Russian intervention in Ukraine as a campaign issue" in return for Russia leaking the DNC emails to WikiLeaks. The reason for using WikiLeaks was "plausible deniability  and the operation had been done with the full knowledge and support of  Trump  and senior members of his campaign team."
July 20  2016: Then-Sen. Jeff Sessions  along with two  Trump  campaign advisers JD Gordon and Carter Page  meet Russia's ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak at the Global Partners in Diplomacy event staged by the Heritage Foundation. âMuch of the discussion focused on Russia's incursions into Ukraine and Georgia â according to delegate Victor Ashe.
Special counsel Robert Mueller's investigative team interviewed the veteran British spy who compiled the explosive  Trump-Russia  dossier over the summer.
The timeline of major  game-changing events that unfolded in the final months of the election coincided with several of  the dossier 's allegations of conspiracy and misconduct between several  Trump  associates and  Russia .
Special counsel Robert Mueller has interviewed the veteran British spy who wrote a collection of explosive memos alleging ties between  President Donald Trump 's campaign team and  Russia   CNN reported on Thursday.
The revelation came one day after the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee  Richard Burr  told reporters that the committee had been working "backwards" to examine the memos as part of its separate but parallel investigation into  Russia 's election meddling.
The memos were compiled into a dossier by veteran British spy Christopher Steele  who was hired by a Washington  DC-based opposition research firm in June 2016 to investigate the   [TGT] campaign's ties to  Russia . The firm  Fusion GPS  was first hired by unspecified anti-Trump Republicans in late 2015. Democrats took over funding for the firm's work after   [TGT] won the GOP nomination.
Steele produced memos from June through December  at which point Fusion  with his permission  gave the dossier to Republican Sen. John McCain. McCain then gave it to the FBI director at the time  James Comey. Comey  along with the former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan  briefed both President Barack Obama and then-President elect Trump on the dossier's allegations in January.
The document includes allegations of a quid-pro-quo in which Russia agreed to leak the hacked Democratic National Committee emails to WikiLeaks in exchange for  the  [TGT]  campaign sidelining Russian aggression in Ukraine as a campaign issue . It also alleges that  Trump 's former campaign chairman  Paul Manafort  managed the communication between Russia and the campaign.
We now know that  while he was campaign chairman  Manafort offered to give "private briefings" about  the  [TGT]  campaign  to a Russian oligarch and ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin  according to emails reviewed last month by The Washington Post and The Atlantic. Manafort also asked a longtime Russian-Ukrainian employee in early April how he could use his media coverage and high-level campaign role to collect past debts.
At least five other   [TGT] associates â Attorney General Jeff Sessions  former national security adviser Michael Flynn  longtime confidant Roger Stone  former campaign adviser Carter Page  and campaign national security adviser JD Gordon â reportedly met with Russia's ambassador to the US  Sergey Kislyak  in the latter half of 2016. The FBI reportedly obtained a FISA warrant to monitor Page's communications after he returned from a trip to Moscow last July. He and Flynn are named in the dossier as being complicit in the alleged collusion.
Carter Page  an early foreign policy adviser to   [TGT] visits Moscow  the GOP platform is changed  top   [TGT]   surrogate then-Sen. Jeff Sessions meets Russia's US ambassador Sergey Kislyak  WikiLeaks publishes hacked DNC emails  and the FBI opens its investigation into Russia's interference.
June 20  2016: The dossier alleges that   [TGT] had been cultivated by Russian officials "for at least five years " that the Kremlin had compromising material related to "sexually perverted acts"   [TGT]   performed at a Moscow Ritz Carlton  and that   [TGT]  's inner circle was accepting a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin on Hillary Clinton.
The flow of intelligence is being facilitated by Paul Manafort  then   [TGT]  's campaign manager  who is using Carter Page as a "liaison" between the campaign and the Kremlin  the dossier says.
June 9  2016: Donald Trump Jr. hosts Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and Russian-American lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin at Trump Tower after being promised compromising information about Hillary Clinton. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort attend the meeting. Manafort takes notes that reportedly reference donations and the Republican National Committee.
July 19  2016: A Russian source close to Igor Sechin  the president of Russia's state-owned oil company Rosneft  "confided the details of a recent secret meeting" between Sechin and  [TGT]  campaign adviser Carter Page while Page was in Moscow in early July.
 The  [TGT]  campaign  "agreed to sideline Russian intervention in Ukraine as a campaign issue" in return for Russia leaking the DNC emails to WikiLeaks. The reason for using WikiLeaks was "plausible deniability  and the operation had been done with the full knowledge and support of  Trump  and senior members of his campaign team."
July 20  2016: Then-Sen. Jeff Sessions  along with two   [TGT]   campaign advisers JD Gordon and Carter Page  meet Russia's ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak at the Global Partners in Diplomacy event staged by the Heritage Foundation. âMuch of the discussion focused on Russia's incursions into Ukraine and Georgia â according to delegate Victor Ashe.