On GRU beginning it’s hacking operation at the apparent public direction of Donald J. Trump
Mueller directly states that Trump himself appears to be catalyst:
Candidate Trump made public statements that included the following: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing”… Within approximately five hours of Trump’s statement , GRU officers targeted for the first time Clinton’s personal office. After candidate Trump’s remarks, Unit 26165 created and sent malicious links targeting 15 email accounts…The investigation did not find evidence of earlier GRU attempts to compromise accounts hosted on this domain. It is unclear how the GRU was able to identify these email accounts , which were not public.,
On Manafort Sharing Internal Polling Data with Russia
Beginning page 136, in a section with significant redactions marked “Grand Jury” (the flavor most open to abuse by Barr), Manafort/Gates knew they were sharing internal campaign polling data with one of the most infamous Russian oligarchs (Oleg Deripaska) via former GRU Intelligence Officer (Kilimnik):
Gates also reported that Manafort instructed him in April 2016 or early May 2016 to send Kilimnik Campaign internal polling data and other updates so that Kilimnik, in turn, could share it with Ukrainian oligarchs. Gates understood that the information would also be shared with Deripaska,.
And it was an ongoing, continual flow of campaign data to Russia:
Gates stated that, in accordance with Manafort’s instruction, he periodically sent Kilimnik polling data via WhatsApp; Gates then deleted the communications on a daily basis.
This is the most egregious redaction in this section, in a briefing about the internal polling data from Manafort to Gates:
According to Gates, it also included a discussion of “battleground” states , which Manafort identified as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota. Manafort did not refer explicitly to “battleground” states in his telling of the August 2 discussion.