Countable Explains: Who's Who in the Russia Investigation

Robert S. Mueller, III

Role:

Special Counsel

Previous role:

FBI director under Presidents George W. Bush and Obama, 2001-2013

Quote:

"I’ve always loved investigations"

— Mueller in a 2008 profile

Key dates:

• May 17: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein taps Mueller to serve as special counsel to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election

• Early August 2017: Mueller impanels a grand jury, which gives him the ability to issue subpoenas, gather on-the-record witness testimonies, and, if evidence of criminality is found, seek indictments.

• August 2017: the grand jury issues subpoenas to various people involved in the Trump campaign-Russian meeting held on June 9, 2016, at Trump Tower.

The Trump Tower Meeting

After a series of reports and investigations, it’ll ultimately be revealed that there were at least eight people in the June 9, 2016, meeting.

Attending on behalf of the Trump administration were: Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort.

Also in attendance:

• Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya

• Robert Goldstone, a music publicist who worked on the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Russia

• Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-American lobbyist

• Ike Kaveladze, a senior vice president at Crocus Group, the real estate development company founded by the Azerbaijani-Russian oligarch Aras Agalarov. (Agalarov initiated the Trump Tower meeting)

• a translator

• August 11, 2017: Russian-born lobbyist and former Soviet Officer, Rinat Akhmetshin, testifies under oath for several hours as a participant in the meeting.

• August 28: Mueller uses the grand jury to issue a subpoena to Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort.

• September 15, 2017: Jason Maloni, a spokesman for Manafort, meets with the grand jury and testifies under oath for over two hours about his boss.

Current mood:

Dogged.