This is a chronology of significant events in 2016 and 2017 related to links between Trump associates and Russian officials during the Trump presidential transition and the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Following the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016, this article begins on November 8 (election day) and ends with Donald Trump and Mike Pence being sworn into office on January 20, 2017. The investigations continued in the first and second halves of 2017, the first and second halves of 2018, the first and second halves of 2019, 2020, and 2021.
Pre-election
Post-election transition
November 2016 November–December: Michael Flynn serves as an advisor to SCL Group, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica. was broken shortly after the election. November: Mangiante quits the London Centre of International Law Practice after complaining to Mifsud about not being paid her salary. Paul Manafort and Rick Gates falsely assert in writing to the Justice Department that their work for the Ukrainian government did not require registering as foreign agents in the United States. In September 2018, Manafort pleads guilty to lying to the Justice Department about the extent of his work for Ukraine. The GRU targets over 120 Florida election officials' email accounts with spearphishing attacks. They receive emails purportedly from VR Systems, the state's voter registration and election results service provider, asking them to open a purported Word document containing a trojan. At least some emails contain British spellings and come from Gmail accounts, which VR Systems doesn't use. Many of the emails are flagged by spam filters. They also receive an email from VR's chief operating officer warning them about the malicious emails. Later, the FBI believes one county government's network was compromised in a way that would have given security hackers the ability to alter voter registration data, but this is disputed by state election officials. The Trump Organization seeks to close out deals before the inauguration, including the Trump Tower Moscow project. Admiral Rogers interviews with the Trump transition team in New York City to be the next Director National of Intelligence. November 8: Trump is elected President of the United States. Hours after the polls close, the hashtag #Calexit is retweeted by thousands of IRA accounts. Rospatent, the Russian government agency responsible for intellectual property, grants 10-year extensions on four of Trump's trademarks. November 8–December: After the election, a Russian hacker breaks into Election Assistance Commission servers and steals the login credentials for over 100 users. The hack is discovered by chance when Recorded Future, a security firm, comes across the credentials being offered for sale on the dark web to a Middle Eastern government. November 8–January: During the transition period, the FBI warns Trump aide Hope Hicks at least twice that she might be approached by Russian government operatives using fake identities. The British Foreign Office holds a series of meetings with Cambridge Analytica executives in London, Washington, and New York to "better understand" how Trump won and acquire insights into the "political environment" following his win. November 9: Dimitriev receives a text message stating "Putin has won" after news reports announce that Clinton called Trump to concede the election result. Further unredacted text restored by the Department of Justice and released on June 19, 2020, in response to a court order. Later that morning, Dmitriev reaches out to Nader expressing the desire to build closer relationships with the U.S. and the Trump team. He tells Nader that he will ask Putin for permission to travel to the U.S. so that he can speak to media outlets about the positive impact of the Trump election on U.S.-Russia relations. He flies to New York to join Peskov at a chess tournament and asks Nader to invite Kushner to join them. Nader does not pass the invitation along, and Mueller's team is unable to establish that anyone from the Trump campaign or transition team attended the tournament. Papadopoulos and Sergei Millian make arrangements to meet in Chicago to discuss business opportunities, including with Russian "billionaires who are not under sanctions." November 10: Kislyak states that Russia was not involved with U.S. election hacking. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov tells the Interfax news agency "there were contacts" with the Trump team during the campaign. He says, "I don't say that all of them, but a whole array of them supported contacts with Russian representatives." Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova tells Bloomberg News that it was "normal practice" for Russian Embassy staffers to meet with members of the Trump campaign. She says the Clinton campaign declined requests for meetings. In a private Oval Office meeting, Obama warns Trump against hiring Flynn. Mark Zuckerberg calls the idea that "fake news" on Facebook could have influenced the election "crazy." November 11: Hicks denies claims by the Kremlin that Trump officials met with its staff. In December 2017, Hicks tells Mueller's team that after making the statement she consulted with Kellyanne Conway, Stephen Miller, Jason Miller, Kushner, and Bannon to ensure that it was true. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes is named to the executive committee of the Trump transition team. Mike Pence replaces Chris Christie as chairman of the Trump transition team. Christie later claims he was fired for opposing Michael Flynn becoming the National Security Advisor. Steve Bannon and Flynn celebrate Christie's firing by ceremonially throwing binders full of administration candidates into the trash. A large banner is hung from the Arlington Memorial Bridge in Washington, D.C., showing a photo of Obama with the words "Goodbye Murderer" at the bottom. The IRA Twitter account @LeroyLovesUSA takes credit and is an early promoter of the banner. Calk calls Trump transition team member Dennis Raico about a possible role in the Trump administration. November 12: Butina holds a birthday party at Cafe Deluxe in Washington, D.C., attended by Erickson and Trump campaign aides. She claims to be part of Russian communications with the Trump campaign, something she has bragged about for months. A Trump protest called "Trump is NOT my President" attracts 5,000–10,000 protestors in Manhattan who march from Union Square to Trump Tower. The protest is organized by the IRA using their BlackMattersUS Facebook account. Banks, Farage and Wigmore visit Trump Tower unannounced and are invited inside by Bannon. They have a long meeting with Trump. Wigmore asks Trump's receptionist for the Trump transition team's contact information. November 13: Zakharova jokingly comments on the Rossiya 1 show Sunday Evening with Vladimir Solovyov that "our people in Brighton Beach won the election for Donald Trump." November 14: Papadopoulos and Millian meet at the Chicago Trump International Hotel and Tower bar. Millian appears nervous to Papadopoulos as he offers a job working for a Russian billionaire not under sanctions. The job requires that he continue working for Trump and join the new administration. Papadopoulos declines the offer, saying he is only interested in private sector jobs. Later, Papadopoulos says he declined the offer because he knew it was unethical and possibly illegal, and feared it might have been an FBI setup. Page submits an application to the Trump transition team for a position in the new administration. The team never responds. Google searches for election results return as the top search result an alleged news story based upon tweets that claims Trump won the popular vote, contradicting the results displayed above it on the results page. In 2019, the Senate Intelligence Committee mentions the incident in its report on Russian interference in U.S. elections as an example of how Google search results can be manipulated. November 15: Devin Nunes replaces former Representative Mike Rogers as a Trump transition team national security advisor. Banks and Wigmore meet with Yakovenko in London; they discuss their November 12 meeting with Trump, and Sessions's role in the new administration. At Yakovenko's request, Banks provides Yakovenko with contact information for the Trump transition team. "What's wrong with that? We gave them a telephone number," Banks said. The committee heard Wigmore had obtained the number after he supplied one for No 10 to a receptionist for Donald Trump. According to Wigmore, she said: "You're British, do you have the telephone number for No 10 Downing Street? We do not have [a] relationship with the British or any of these governments." November 16: Calk's bank approves a $9.5 million loan for Manafort. November 16–17: Kislyak arranges a December 1 meeting with Kushner. Kushner asks his executive assistant Catherine Vargas to confirm with Simes that Kislyak is the right person to talk to. She checks and responds that Kislyak is good for routine matters, but Russian foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov is the contact for "more direct/substantial matters." November 17: The Senate Intelligence Committee holds a closed hearing on Russian active measures. November 18: Trump announces he will nominate Sessions as Attorney General and Flynn as National Security Adviser. Elijah Cummings, ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, sends Pence a letter warning that Flynn's connections to Russia and Turkey might create conflicts of interest. He asks the Trump administration's transition team for documents related to Flynn. Receipt of the letter is acknowledged on November 28. November 19: The IRA organizes the "Charlotte Against Trump" rally in Charlotte, North Carolina. Obama privately meets Mark Zuckerberg at a gathering of world leaders in Lima, Peru. Obama urges Zuckerberg to take the threats of political disinformation and "fake news" seriously, and warns him that doing nothing will cause problems in the next election. Zuckerberg responds that there were only a few messages, and doing something about the problem would be difficult. November 21: Trump calls for Nigel Farage to be made the U.K. Ambassador to the United States. The British government responds, "There is no vacancy." Peter W. Smith, who launched a search for copies of Clinton's deleted emails in September, asserts WikiLeaks has had the emails for nine months but has not released them. In July 2017, WikiLeaks denies the assertion in response to a question by Politico. Late November: Senior members of Trump's transition team warn Flynn about the dangers of contacting Kislyak, including that Kislyak's conversations are probably being monitored by the FBI and the NSA. Flynn is recorded a month later discussing sanctions with Kislyak. November 23–28: Kaveladze and Rob Goldstone attempt to set up a meeting between Natalia Veselnitskaya and the Trump transition team during Veselnitskaya's trip to the U.S. November 25: Trump announces K. T. McFarland will be the deputy national security advisor for his new administration after Paul Erickson lobbies former campaign officials and Trump donors to get her the position. November 28: The IRA "Being Patriotic" Facebook account posts "Romney was one of the first men who started the NeverTrump movement. It will be a terrible mistake if Trump sets him as the next secretary of state." The posting appears in the news feeds of 216,000 followers. November 30: On a recommendation from the GSA, Trump transition team members discuss installing Signal, an encrypted messaging app, on Flynn's phone to encrypt his communications.