Rudolph William Louis Giuliani is an American politician and disbarred lawyer who served as the 107th mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. He previously served as the United States Associate Attorney General from 1981 to 1983 and the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1983 to 1989.
Merrick Brian Garland is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as the 86th United States attorney general. He previously served as a circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1997 to 2021. In 2016,President Barack Obama nominated Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court,but the Republican-led U.S. Senate effectively blocked Garland's appointment.
Victoria Ann Toensing is an American attorney,Republican Party operative and with her husband,Joseph diGenova,a partner in the Washington law firm diGenova &Toensing. Toensing and diGenova frequently appeared on Fox News and Fox Business channels,until diGenova used a November 2019 appearance to spread conspiracy theories about George Soros,leading to widespread calls for him to be banned from the network. In 2019,Toensing and diGenova began representing Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash in his efforts to block extradition to the United States under a federal indictment and became embroiled in the Trump–Ukraine scandal. The couple has worked with Rudy Giuliani in support of President Donald Trump beginning in 2018,and was named to join a legal team led by Giuliani to overturn the results of the 2020 United States presidential election in which Trump was defeated.
William Pelham Barr is an American attorney who served as United States attorney general in the administration of President George H. W. Bush from 1991 to 1993 and again in the administration of President Donald Trump from 2019 to 2020.
Harry Earnest Cummins,III,known as Bud Cummins,is an American attorney,businessman and politician. He served as United States Attorney with five years of service from 2001 to 2006 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas.
Steven Andrew Engel is an American lawyer. He served as the United States assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel in the Trump administration. Engel,who previously worked in the George W. Bush administration as deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel,was nominated by President Donald Trump on January 31,2017,and confirmed on November 7,2017.
Brian Allen Benczkowski is an American lawyer who served as the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the United States Department of Justice. Prior to assuming that role,he was a partner at Kirkland &Ellis.
Jeffrey Bossert Clark is an American lawyer who was Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division from 2018 to 2021. In September 2020,he was also appointed acting head of the Civil Division. In 2020 and 2021,Clark allegedly helped then-president Donald Trump attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Clark's actions in that endeavor were reviewed by the District of Columbia Bar –the entity authorized by law to pursue attorney discipline and disbarment in the District of Columbia –which recommended discipline to the DC Court of Appeals in July 2022,,and in August 2024 its Board on Professional Responsibility recommended a two year suspension of his law license. He was identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in the federal prosecution of Donald Trump over attempts to overturn the 2020 election. On August 14,2023,he was indicted along with 18 other people in the prosecution related to the 2020 election in Georgia.
John Charles Demers is an Italian-born American lawyer who served as United States Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division (NSD) from 2018 to 2021. Following the resignation of Jeffrey A. Rosen,Demers also served as acting United States Attorney General for a few hours on January 20,2021 until President Joe Biden signed an executive order naming Monty Wilkinson as acting United States Attorney General later that day.
Geoffrey Steven Berman is an American attorney who served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2018 to 2020. He is the Global Chair of the litigation department at the law firm Fried,Frank,Harris,Shriver &Jacobson.
Joseph diGenova is an American lawyer and political commentator who served as the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia from 1983 to 1988. He and his wife,Victoria Toensing,are partners in the Washington,D.C.,law firm diGenova and Toensing. He is known for promoting conspiracy theories about the Department of Justice and the FBI. He and Toensing frequently appeared on Fox News and Fox Business channels,until diGenova used a November 2019 appearance to spread conspiracy theories about George Soros,leading to widespread calls for him to be banned from the network.
The Trump–Ukraine scandal was a political scandal that arose primarily from the discovery of U.S. President Donald Trump's alleged attempts to coerce Ukraine into investigating a Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory,and thus potentially damage 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden. Trump enlisted surrogates in and outside his administration,including personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr,to pressure Ukraine and other governments to cooperate in supporting conspiracy theories concerning US politics. Trump blocked payment of a congressionally-mandated $400 million military aid package,in an attempt to obtain quid pro quo cooperation from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Contacts were established between the White House and government of Ukraine,culminating in a call between Trump and Zelenskyy on July 25,2019.
Lev Parnas is a Soviet-born American businessman and former associate of Rudy Giuliani. Parnas,Giuliani,Igor Fruman,John Solomon,Yuriy Lutsenko,Dmytro Firtash and his allies,Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova,were involved in creating the false Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory,which is part of the Trump–Ukraine scandal's efforts to damage Joe Biden. As president,Donald Trump said he did not know Parnas nor what he was involved in;Parnas insisted Trump "knew exactly what was going on".
Since 2016,then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and his allies have promoted several conspiracy theories related to the Trump–Ukraine scandal. One such theory seeks to blame Ukraine,instead of Russia,for interference in the 2016 United States presidential election. Also among the conspiracy theories are accusations against Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden,and several elements of the right-wing Russia investigation origins counter-narrative. American intelligence believes that Russia engaged in a years long campaign to frame Ukraine for the 2016 election interference,that the Kremlin is the prime mover behind promotion of the fictitious alternative narratives,and that these are harmful to the United States. FBI director Christopher A. Wray stated to ABC News that "We have no information that indicates that Ukraine interfered with the 2016 presidential election" and that "as far as the [2020] election itself goes,we think Russia represents the most significant threat."
The Russia investigation origins counter-narrative,or Russia counter-narrative,is a narrative embraced by Donald Trump,Republican Party leaders,and right-wing conservatives attacking the legitimacy and conclusions of investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 elections,and the links between Russian intelligence and Trump associates. The counter-narrative includes conspiracy theories such as Spygate,accusations of a secretive,elite "deep state" network,and other false and debunked claims. Trump in particular has attacked not only the origins but the conclusions of the investigation,and ordered a review of the Mueller report,which was conducted by attorney general William Barr –alleging there was a "deep state plot" to undermine him. He has claimed the investigations were an "illegal hoax",and that the "real collusion" was between Hillary Clinton,Democrats,and Russia –and later,Ukraine.
This is a timeline of events from 2020 to 2022 related to investigations into the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies relating to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections,both before and after July 2016,until November 8,2016,election day,the transition,the first and second halves of 2017,the first and second halves of 2018,and the first and second halves of 2019.
Michael Rafi Sherwin is an attorney who served as the acting United States Attorney for the District of Columbia from 2020 to 2021. He was appointed by Attorney General William Barr during the Trump administration. He is partner at the law firm Kobre &Kim where he handles international government investigations.
The Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory is a series of false allegations that Joe Biden,while he was vice president of the United States,improperly withheld a loan guarantee and took a bribe to pressure Ukraine into firing prosecutor general Viktor Shokin to prevent a corruption investigation of Ukrainian gas company Burisma and to protect his son,Hunter Biden,who was on the Burisma board. As part of efforts by Donald Trump and his campaign in the Trump–Ukraine scandal,which led to Trump's first impeachment,these falsehoods were spread in an attempt to damage Joe Biden's reputation and chances during the 2020 presidential campaign,and later in an effort to impeach him.
The United States Department of Justice under the Trump administration acquired by a February 2018 subpoena the Apple iCloud metadata of two Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee,several others associated with the committee,and some of their family members. The subpoena covered 73 phone numbers and 36 email addresses since the inception of the accounts. Seizing communications information of members of Congress is extraordinarily rare. The department also subpoenaed and obtained 2017 and 2018 phone log and email metadata from news reporters for CNN,The Washington Post and The New York Times. Apple also received and complied with February 2018 subpoenas for the iCloud accounts of White House counsel Don McGahn and his wife. Microsoft received a subpoena relating to a personal email account of a congressional staff member in 2017.
The Trump fake electors plot was a significant part of attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election made by Donald Trump and his associates. After the results of the 2020 United States presidential election determined U.S. president Donald Trump had lost,a scheme was devised by him,his associates,and Republican Party officials in seven states to subvert the election by creating and submitting fraudulent certificates of ascertainment to falsely claim Trump had won the electoral college vote in those states. The intent of the scheme was to pass the fraudulent certificates to then-vice president Mike Pence in the hope he would count them,rather than the authentic certificates,and thus overturn Joe Biden's victory. This scheme was defended by a fringe legal theory developed by Trump attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and John Eastman,detailed in the Eastman memos,which claimed a vice president has the constitutional discretion to swap official electors with an alternate slate during the certification process,thus changing the outcome of the electoral college vote and the overall winner of the presidential race. The scheme came to be known as the Pence Card. By June 2024,dozens of Republican state officials and Trump associates had been indicted in four states for their alleged involvement. The federal Smith special counsel investigation is investigating Trump's role in the events. Testimony has revealed that Trump was fully aware of the fake electors scheme,and knew that Eastman's plan for Pence to obstruct the certification of electoral votes was a violation of the Electoral Count Act.
