Trump-Russia scandal

The **Trump-Russia scandal** was a major political scandal that occurred in the United States during the late 2010s, following an effort by the Russian government to benefit Donald Trump and create internal political crisis in the United States, and the Trump administration attempts to cover up its involvement. After an extensive investigation, former FBI Director Robert Mueller uncovered the 'conspiracy' via Michael Flynn, who had allegedly lied to the FBI that he did not have several private conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The President was investigated by the United States Congress. Meanwhile, Trump's administration denied any collusion with the Russian government, and argued that the President could not obstruct justice, which led to a constitutional crisis.

## Russian involvement in the 2016 United States elections

### **Mueller investigation and revelation of the Russia connection**

On May 19, 2018 evidence was discovered that there was a second meeting between members of the President's immediate family and business with Russian agents who promised to provide damaging information regarding the Clinton campaign.

### **Scandal escalates**

On December 1st, former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn entered into a plea deal and began cooperating fully with the Mueller investigation. The sudden shift by Flynn came with no warning and created mistrust and panic inside the White House, as staffers no longer could trust their colleagues to be informants or not.

#### **IRA Revelations**

On February 16th, 2018, the Justice Department released the indictment of 13 Russians who had been involved in a conspiracy to manipulate American public opinion in a disinformation campaign during the 2016 election. These indictments revealed that the Russian cyberwarfare campaign against the United States was far more extensive than many had suspected. The Russian based troll farm, "Internet Research Academy" had been funded since 2014 on the order of over a million dollars per month, initially to craft a campaign specifically against Hillary Clinton, but by 2016 was used to support Donald Trump, and to a lesser extent Bernie Sanders; pushed for voters to carry out "Protest Votes" for third party candidates or simply stay home on election day (this was heavily targeted against minority groups); crafted conspiracies and claims of voter fraud against the DNC and later against the popular vote in the general election; and generally promoted extremely divisive politics. The IRA directly targeted swing states, particularly Florida, stole the identities of Americans to create only persons that appeared legitimate, managed social media networks with well over 100,000 followers that posed as Americans or American institutions, such as the GOP's official twitter account in Tennessee; and directly organized and funded divisive rallies in the US with stolen identity information that allowed them to connect with unwitting political organizers, some who worked directly for the Trump campaign.

### **Money trail**

On December 5th, 2017, Deutsche Bank (having been served a subpoena for the relevant materials) provided Mueller with bank records of affiliates of Trump.

## Aftermath

### **Cultural impact**

The scandal became a defining event for the Millennial and Flood Generations, and a moment that heavily informed the political culture of the latter. Numerous films and series were created immediately after the scandal, with the movie *Individual 1* (2021) being the most celebrated in its depiction of the Mueller investigation, and HBO's series *Steele* (2022) receiving numerous awards for its depiction of the actual conspiracy between the Trump organization and the Kremlin. Media surrounding the scandal fell out of vogue during the early days of the Flood, with the last major film for nearly a decade, *The Donald* (2025), serving as a docudrama of Donald Trump's life, focusing heavily on his rise to the Presidency and his relationship with Russia.

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