In United States jurisdictions, obstruction of justice refers to a number of offenses that involve unduly influencing, impeding, or otherwise interfering with the justice system, especially the legal and procedural tasks of prosecutors, investigators, or other government officials. Common law jurisdictions other than the United States tend to use the wider offense of perverting the course of justice.
Robert Swan Mueller III is an American lawyer who served as the sixth director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 2001 to 2013.
Alan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer and law professor known for his work in U.S. constitutional law and American criminal law. From 1964 to 2013, he taught at Harvard Law School, where he was appointed as the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law in 1993. Dershowitz is a regular media contributor, political commentator, and legal analyst.
Michael Wolff is an American journalist, as well as a columnist and contributor to USA Today, The Hollywood Reporter, and the UK edition of GQ. He has received two National Magazine Awards, a Mirror Award, and has authored seven books, including Burn Rate (1998) about his own dot-com company, and The Man Who Owns the News (2008), a biography of Rupert Murdoch. He co-founded the news aggregation website Newser and is a former editor of Adweek.
Ari Naftali Melber is an American attorney and Emmy-winning journalist who is the Chief Legal Correspondent for MSNBC and host of The Beat with Ari Melber.
Stephen Kevin Bannon is an American media executive, political strategist, and former investment banker. He served as the White House's chief strategist for the first seven months of U.S. president Donald Trump's first administration, before Trump discharged him. He is a former executive chairman of Breitbart News and previously served on the board of the now-defunct data-analytics firm Cambridge Analytica.
James Comey, the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), was fired by U.S. President Donald Trump on May 9, 2017. Comey had been criticized in 2016 for his handling of the FBI's investigation of the Hillary Clinton email controversy and in 2017 for the FBI's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections as it related to alleged collusion with Trump's presidential campaign.
Since Donald Trump was a 2016 candidate for the office of President of the United States, multiple suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials were discovered by the FBI, a special counsel investigation, and several United States congressional committees, as part of their investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Following intelligence reports about the Russian interference, Trump and some of his campaign members, business partners, administration nominees, and family members were subjected to intense scrutiny to determine whether they had improper dealings during their contacts with Russian officials. Several people connected to the Trump campaign made false statements about those links and obstructed investigations. These investigations resulted in many criminal charges and indictments.
The Robert Mueller special counsel investigation was an investigation into 45th U.S. president Donald Trump regarding Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections and was conducted by special prosecutor Robert Mueller from May 2017 to March 2019. It was also called the Russia investigation, Mueller probe, and Mueller investigation. The investigation focused on three points:
- Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections
- Trump associates and their connection to Russian officials and espionage
- Possible obstruction of justice by Trump and his associates
Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency is a 2017 book by Bloomberg Businessweek journalist Joshua Green about the partnership between Donald Trump and Steve Bannon that led to their 2016 political victory and the putative rise of the alt-right. Prior to writing the book, Green had worked as a journalist for The Atlantic and Bloomberg, where he garnered experience reporting on conservatives. He had previously written a profile on Bannon in 2015, and interviewed Bannon for the book.
Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House is a 2018 book by journalist Michael Wolff which according to Wolff, details the behavior of U.S. President Donald Trump, the staff of his 2016 presidential campaign, and the White House staff. The title refers to a quote by Trump about the conflict with North Korea. The book became a New York Times number one bestseller. Reviewers generally accepted Wolff's portrait of a dysfunctional Trump administration, but were skeptical of many of Wolff's particular claims.
This is a timeline of major events in the first half of 2017 related to the investigations into links between associates of Donald Trump and Russian officials and spies that are suspected of being inappropriate, relating to 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 up until election day November 8 and the post-election transition, this article begins with Donald Trump and Mike Pence being sworn into office on January 20, 2017, and is followed by the second half of 2017. The investigations continued in the first and second halves of 2018, the first and second halves of 2019, 2020, and 2021.
This is a timeline of major events in first half of 2018 related to the investigations into links between associates of Donald Trump and Russian officials and spies that are suspected of being inappropriate, relating to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016 up until election day November 8, the transition, and the first and second halves of 2017, but precedes the second half of 2018, the first and second halves of 2019, 2020, and 2021. These events are related to, but distinct from, Russian interference in the 2018 United States elections.
This is a timeline of events in the first half of 2019 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, the transition, the first and second halves of 2017, the first and second halves of 2018, and followed by the second half of 2019, 2020, and 2021.
The Special Counsel investigation was a United States law enforcement and counterintelligence investigation of the Russian government's efforts to interfere in United States politics and any possible involvement by members of the 2016 Trump presidential campaign. It was primarily focused on the 2016 presidential election.
The Barr letter is a four-page letter sent on March 24, 2019, from Attorney General William Barr to leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees purportedly detailing the "principal conclusions" of the Mueller report of the Special Counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller into Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 United States presidential election, allegations of conspiracy or coordination between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russia, and allegations of obstruction of justice.
The Mueller report, officially titled Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election, is the official report documenting the findings and conclusions of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 United States presidential election, allegations of conspiracy or coordination between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russia, and allegations of obstruction of justice. The report was submitted to Attorney General William Barr on March 22, 2019, and a redacted version of the 448-page report was publicly released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on April 18, 2019. It is divided into two volumes. The redactions from the report and its supporting material were placed under a temporary "protective assertion" of executive privilege by then-President Trump on May 8, 2019, preventing the material from being passed to Congress, despite earlier reassurance by Barr that Trump would not exert privilege.
Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation is a best-selling non-fiction book written by Andrew Weissmann, a former Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA), and later a General Counsel of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 2011 to 2013. Released by Random House on September 29, 2020, the widely read book gives an insider's view into Department of Justice special counsel Robert Mueller's highly controversial investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election of Donald Trump.
Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency is a nonfiction book by Michael Wolff. It was published by Henry Holt and Company in 2021. This book is the third in a nonfiction trilogy by Wolff updating information on the presidency of Donald Trump and focuses on the final days and the ending of Trump's presidency. The title come from the typical claim parroted by Trump himself, that he won ''in a landslide'' in the 2020 election.
The Mueller special counsel investigation was started by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who was serving as Acting Attorney General due to the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. He authorized Robert Mueller to investigate and prosecute "any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump", as well as "any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation" and any other matters within the scope of 28 CFR 600.4 – Jurisdiction.
