In my introductory post, 'Where the Russian Rabbit Hole Leads', I gave a quick overview of where this story began and how it ultimately played out through the election cycle.
After a few hours of research, I realized this is enough to be a series. But as my research continued, a realization dawned on me that has all but settled my opinion on this narrative.
The primary purpose of this is to lay out the main players in the story as well as a detailed timeline of significant events surrounding the story.
NOTE: There have been a number of further developments in the time it took me to compile this list of names and events. I will add more as appropriate. If anyone has further sourcing data to add, please comment below!
The Players
DNC / Democrat Party
- Hillary Clinton: Democratic presidential candidate with a batch of emails published through WikiLeaks
- John Podesta: Chairman for Hillary Clinton's campaign
- Robert Mook: Campaign Manager for Hillary Clinton's campaign
- Bernie Sanders: Democratic presidential candidate; beat by Hillary Clinton in primaries
- Debbie Wasserman-Schultz: Democratic National Committee Chair; resigned after DNC emails leaked revealing bias towards Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders; supposed to remain impartial
- Yared Tamene: Director of Information Technologies for DNC; received initial phone call from FBI about DNC servers being compromised
- Amy Dacey: CEO of the DNC; resigned after DNC emails leaked
Trump Campaign
- Donald Trump: Republican nominee for president; current US President
- Roger Stone: Former campaign adivser for Candidate Trump; accused of having foreknowledge of Wikileaks releases through communications with Julian Assange; also accused of collusion with Russia via Guccifer 2.0; will testify in front of Congress
- Paul Manafort: Former campaign manager for Candidate Trump; former business partners with Roger Stone;
- Michael Flynn: Former Army General and National Security Advisor for President Trump; resigned after not providing complete disclosure of the complete details of a telephone conversation with a Russian ambassador while in the position of the acting National Security Advisor.
CrowdStrike
- Shawn Henry: CEO of CrowdStrike; former FBI Executive Assistant Director with responsibility for all criminal and cyber programs.
- Dmitri Alperovitch: Co-Founder and CTO of CrowdStrike; Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank
WikiLeaks
- Julian Assange: founder of WikiLeaks; currently beseiged in the Ecuadorian embassy in the United Kingdom
- Shawn Lucas: Process server of the DNC Fraud lawsuit related to Clinton Bias on the 28th of June; found dead on 2nd of August in his apartment; death ruled an accident due to adverse effects of "fentanyl, cyclobenzaprine, and mitragynine"
- John Jones: former lawyer of Julian Assange; died after being hit by train on 19th of April 2016; initial reports were suicide; later inquisition cast doubt on this
New York Times
- Eric Lipton: New York Times journalist; main reporter behind the 'Russian Narrative' articles coming out of the New York Times
Extras
- Seth Rich: former DNC staffer; DNC’s Voter Expansion Data Director since 2014; murdered 10th July 2016 in DC; police reffered to as a 'botched robbery'; no personal items were reported stolen; Julian Assange mentioned later by name and WikiLeaks offered $20k bounty for information leading to arrest of his murderer(s)
- Special Agent Adrian Hawkins: reportedly the first FBI representative to contact the DNC in regards to DNC malware/hacks from Russia
- Craig Murray: claims to have been the intermediary between DNC leaks source and WikiLeaks
TImeline
- ? Sep 2015
FBI Agent Hawkins calls DNC help desk to report "Russian hack" from "The Dukes"; no action taken - 18 DEC 15
DNC accuses Sanders campaign of improper access of Clinton Campaign - ? JAN 2016
FBI Agent Hawkins meets DNC in person to discuss hack; no further action taken - 16 MAR 16
WikiLeaks launches Hillary Clinton email archive from 30 JUN 10 through 12 AUG 14 - 19 MAR 16
Podesta phishing email - 21 MAR 16
Last available email from Podesta within WikiLeaks - ? APR 16
Tamane installs "robust set of monitoring tools" via memo; no source docs available or released - 19 APR 16
DCLEAKS.com registered - 29 APR 16
Email from Tamane sent to DNC; Dacey, Schultz, Brown, Sussmann "secret committee" forms to determine break-in damage - 6 MAY 16
First email to Alperovitch that DNC was breached - 10 JUN 16
All DNC employees instructed to leave laptops in office; CrowdStrike cleans up DNC systems and installs new images on all devices - 14 JUN 16
CrowdStrike Blog Post attributing hacks to Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear - 16 JUN 16
WikiLeaks tweets Guccifer 2.0 internal Trump report - 17 JUN 16
ThreatConnect research article piggybacking CrowdStrike research - 20 JUN 16
First tweets from Guccifer 2.0 - 28 JUN 16
Secretary of State Kerry confronts Putin over complaints by staff at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow - 10 JUL 16
Seth Rich murdered - 24 JUL 16
Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigns DNC Chair post - 25 JUL 16
DNC Convention begins - 26 JUL 16
Reporter from The Hill shares metadata from email exchange with ThreatConnect; analysis reveals use of Russian VPN[2}(https://archive.is/a5utJ) - 27 JUL 16
Obama publishes new policy in response to cyberattacks; NYT claims created by happenstance, not as a result of DNC hacks - 04 AUG 16
Seth Rich's parents ask for help to find sons killer(s) - 09 AUG 16
WikiLeaks offers $20k bounty for information leading to conviction of Seth Rich's murderer(s) - 10 AUG 16
Julian Assange mentions Seth Rich's by name, implying he was a WikiLeaks source - 19 AUG 16
John Jones (Julian Assange's lawyer) died after "jumping in front of train" - 21 AUG 16
Inquest rules John Jones death was not suicide - 07 OCT 16
Trump Access Hollywood Tape; "Grab em by the pussy" - 07 OCT 16
WikiLeaks publishes Podesta emails one hour after Trump Access Hollywood tape released - 07 OCT 16
DHS and DNI press release "Confident that Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions" - 17 NOV 16
DNI James Clapper tells House Intelligence Committee that the Intelligence Community lacks strong evidence connecting Russia to the WikiLeaks disclosures - 4 DEC 16
Comet Ping Pong gunner incident; Eric Lipton (NYT Reporter) claimed to be at Politics and Prose at the time - 10 DEC 16
Graham, McCain, Schumer, Reed agree to bipartisan investigation into Russian Hacking - 14 DEC 16
Craig Murray claims to be the intermediary for the DNC WikiLeaks source - 14 DEC 16
House Intelligence Panel cancelled a briefing because CIA declined to provide a briefer - 16 DEC 16
Clinton tells donors that "personal beef" with Putin one reason for targetted hacks; blames DNC hacks, her email hacks, and Comey Letter for loss - 10 JAN 17
BuzzFeed publishes the "Dirty Dossier" - 08 FEB 17
John Podesta publicly blames FBI for allowing the hacks to occur - 26 JUN 17
Three CNN journalists resign over false story tying President Trump associate to Russia - 30 JUN 17
New York Times issues retraction of '17 Intelligence agencies supporting the entirety of the Russian Hack Narrative
Part three will consist of a hypothesis and supporting evidence based on the timeline source articles above
image via: politico