Special counsel Robert Mueller’s report found no evidence President Trump conspired with Russia in 2016, but says investigators were unable to “fully” investigate Trump campaign foreign policy advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page.
The report released Thursday says Page’s activities during a July 2016 trip to Moscow were “not fully explained” and that investigators were “not fully able to explore” Papadopoulos’s communications with a Russia-linked associate.
Although Mueller’s 400-plus-page report says mysteries remain about the two men, Trump aides for years have downplayed their roles, calling them peripheral players brought aboard to bolster a lagging foreign policy team.
Page, a businessman who worked in Russia, visited Moscow in July 2016, as Trump prepared to become the official Republican nominee for president — weeks before the release of emails allegedly hacked by Russia from the Democratic National Committee.
Page wrote in an email to Trump campaign co-chair Sam Clovis that he had a private talk with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, who expressed support for Trump, and claimed contact with “a diverse array” of “other sources close to” Putin.
The Mueller report says investigators were “unable to obtain additional evidence or testimony about who Page may have met or communicated with in Moscow; thus, Page’s activities in Russia — as described in his emails with the Campaign — were not fully explained.”
A paragraph about Page’s visit was mostly redacted but appears to question the accuracy of Page’s boasts.
“Despite these representations to the Campaign,” the paragraph begins, before a lengthy redaction on grounds of grand jury content.
In an email quoted by Mueller, however, a key Putin surrogate expressed disinterest in working with Page during the trip. Russian Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov wrote: “I have read about [Page]. Specialists say that he is far from being the main one. So I better not initiate a meeting in the Kremlin.”
Papadopolos, meanwhile, was not fully investigated because of noncompliance of a witness, Mueller wrote.
The report says the special counsel’s office “was not fully able to explore” Papadopoulos’s “Russia-related contact” with Sergei Millian, a Belarus-born U.S. citizen, because Millian refused to cooperate. Millian had held himself out as president of the New York-based Russian American Chamber of Commerce and had extensive contacts with Papadopoulos.
“Millian remained out of the country since the inception of our investigation and declined to meet with members of the [o]ffice despite our repeated efforts to obtain an interview,” the report says.
According to the report, Papadopoulos contacted Millian via LinkedIn in July 2016. After meeting in person, Millian in August wrote Page a Facebook message promising to “share with you a disruptive technology that might be instrumental in your political work for the campaign.” The men reportedly met at Trump Tower in Chicago in November 2016, after Trump’s election, and arranged to meet at a Washington, D.C., bar during Trump’s inauguration in January 2017.
Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his Russia-related efforts, told investigators he did not recall the context of the “disruptive technology” message and that he and Millian only discussed private business matters after Trump’s election.
