Washington, D.C. — News that the Trump campaign shared private polling data with individuals linked to Russian intelligence during the 2016 election drove the current count of contacts between Trump campaign and transition officials and Russia-linked figures above 100 contacts for the first time. New details about the data-sharing communications, which were improperly redacted by former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s lawyers in a filing this week, are the latest example of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
The Moscow Project first began tracking the contacts between Trump associates and Russia-linked figures in March 2018, with an initial list of 70 contacts—none of which were reported to proper authorities by the participants. The report also initially noted that the House Intelligence Committee, under Devin Nunes’ chairmanship, failed to obtain complete information about 81 percent of those contacts despite possessing subpoena power and collecting testimony from many key figures.
“In nearly a year of tracking contacts between Trump associates and Russia-linked figures, our major questions still remain,” said Talia Dessel, CAP Action research analyst and co-author of the report. “Why were there so many contacts? What was discussed? And why did everyone, from top to bottom, lie about the contacts—including to federal law enforcement?”
Since the report’s initial release, the tracker has been updated as new contacts come to light, consistently noting lies and denials from the Trump team about every meeting. The newly public Manafort polling conversations, along with recently unearthed communications between former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, push the contact count to more than 100.
The updated report finds:
- There were 101 known contacts between Trump’s team and Russia-linked figures during the campaign and transition.
- Those contacts included at least 28 meetings.
- 16 members of the Trump team participated in these contacts, and 12 more are confirmed to have known about them. Those 28 people include all three Trump campaign leaders, Donald Trump Jr., and Ivanka Trump.
Read the full report here.
For more information or to speak with an expert, contact Morgan Finkelstein at [email protected] or 202-478-5311.