Trump’s Russian roulette
Questions over links between Russia and Donald Trump, his aides and the members of his cabinet keep surfacing with alarming regularity. HT takes a look at some of the events that have caused embarrassment to the US president
2016
June 14: Reports emerge of Russian hackers stealing emails from Democratic National Committee July 22: WikiLeaks publishes leaked emails Aug 19: Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort resigns due to his prior work for pro-Kremlin Ukrainian ex-president Sep 26: Trump foreign policy advisor Carter Page leaves campaign due to accusations he met sanctioned Russians Oct 7: US officials accuse Russian government of cyber attacks to interfere in election, including leaking hacked emails Dec 13: Trump names ExxonMobil chief Rex Tillerson as his pick for secretary of state. Tillerson worked with Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft on several major projects and has publically denounced sanctions on Russia by US and EU over its annexation of Crimea
2017
Jan 6: US intelligence community publishes declassified report claiming Russia tried to help Trump win Jan 10: Buzzfeed publishes unverified dossier by ex-spy alleging Russia has compromising material on Trump Feb 13: Trump’s national security advisor Michael Flynn resigns for misleading colleagues about his conversations with Russian envoy Sergey Kislyak Feb 14: US media reports that US intelligence intercepted repeated contacts between Trump campaign and senior Russian intelligence officials Mar 1: Reports state Jeff Sessions met twice with Russian ambassador during Trump’s campaign. The attorney general is accused of lying under oath Mar 2: Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner under the scanner for a 20-minute meeting with the Russian envoy