This is a timeline of major events in second half of 2018 related to the investigations into links between Trump associates and Russian officials relating to the 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, and the transition, the first and second halves of 2017, and the first half of 2018, but precedes that of 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.
January–June 2018
July–December 2018 July July: A warrant is filed targeting Broidy's office in Los Angeles, in order to obtain documents related to his dealings with foreign officials and Trump administration associates, including Gates and George Nader, regarding conspiracy, money laundering, and crimes associated with illegal lobbying on behalf of foreign officials. Mueller's team issues a secret grand jury subpoena for records from a state-owned Egyptian bank. The suboena is part of an investigation into Trump's October 29, 2016, $10 million loan to his campaign. July 2: The Washington Post reports that the SEC and the Federal Trade Commission joined the Justice Department's investigation of Facebook. Investigator's questions center around what Facebook knew in 2015 about Cambridge Analytica's use of Facebook's user data and discrepancies in recent statements about the incident. July 3: The Senate Intelligence Committee releases initial unclassified findings of its in-depth review of the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA). The committee finds the ICA to be "a sound intelligence product." Dana Rohrabacher tells Elex Michaelson in an interview for Fox 11 Los Angeles that the theft of DNC emails was an inside job and not carried out by Russian hackers. U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle dismisses a lawsuit against the Trump campaign because the plaintiffs failed to show the D.C. district court has jurisdiction over the matter. Protect Democracy filed the suit on behalf of Roy Cockrum, Eric Schoenberg, and Scott Comer. It alleges the campaign "entered into an agreement with other parties, including agents of Russia and WikiLeaks, to have information stolen from the DNC publicly disseminated in a strategic way that would benefit the campaign to elect Mr. Trump as President." The plaintiffs refile the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on July 12. Mueller's team interviews Sarah Sanders for the first of three times. July 5: The Daily Beast reports that an unknown person hired bloggers in India and Indonesia to write articles whitewashing ties between Trump, Sater, Tevfik Arif, and Bayrock Group. The campaign appears to have been designed to influence Google Search results. July 7: Mueller's team interviews Tad Devine. Further unredacted text restored by the Department of Justice and released on June 19, 2020 in response to a court order. July 10: The U.K. Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) fines Facebook £500,000 for two violations of the Data Protection Act 1998, the maximum fine the Act allows. The ICO found Facebook failed to safeguard user data and wasn't transparent about allowing third parties to harvest user information. The ICO also announces that it is going to criminally prosecute SCL Elections Ltd, the parent of Cambridge Analytica, for refusing to cooperate in the ICO's investigation. Rudolph Giuliani, one of Trump's lawyers, tells The Washington Post that he works for foreign clients while working for Trump. He insists there are no conflicts of interest because his work for Trump is pro bono, and no need to register as a foreign agent because he does not lobby the government, though some lobbying experts disagree. July 11: Brian Benczkowski is controversially confirmed as a US Assistant Attorney General and head of the Criminal Division, which is under Rosenstein's purview. Benczkowski has no prosecutorial experience. After working for the Trump transition team, he worked for Alfa-Bank in 2017, defending it against accusations of suspicious contacts with a Trump Organization server in 2016. July 12: The White House orders that all members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees be given access to classified materials related to the FBI informant who contacted Papadopoulos and Page in 2016. Previously, the materials were only made available to the Gang of Eight. Peter Strzok testifies before the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees. During heated questioning, Strzok vigorously defends himself and the integrity of the 2016 FBI investigations into Russian interference in the election and Clinton's email server.
July 13: Mueller files an indictment against 12 Russian military intelligence officers in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The indictment alleges they hacked the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic National Committee, and the Clinton campaign to steal internal documents, distribute them to the public, and influence the 2016 presidential election. The indictment also alleges three of the officers hacked into election systems and stole many voters' personal information. Leaders of the Maryland legislature reveal that ByteGrid LLC, which operates some of the state's election systems, is owned by Russian oligarch Vladimir Potanin. Potanin's American investment fund, AltPoint Capital Partners, purchased ByteGrid in 2015. Maryland state officials were not notified of the purchase at the time, and were recently informed of it by the FBI. Mueller's team interviews Henry Oknyansky (a.k.a. Henry Greenberg). The Senate Intelligence Committee interviews Lisa Page.
July 15: Butina is arrested in Washington, D.C., on charges of being an unregistered foreign agent of the Russian Federation working to infiltrate politically influential organizations in the U.S. and influence U.S. officials. Press release number 18-933. Mueller's team interviews Sarah Sanders for the second of three times. July 16: The Justice Department announces Butina's arrest and the criminal charges that led to it. NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch clarifies her May 8 denial of the December 2015 NRA trip to Moscow, telling Mark Follman of Mother Jones that she meant it wasn't an official trip. Trump meets with Putin in Helsinki for two hours with only translators present. At a joint press conference afterward, Trump says in his opening statement, “During today's meeting, I addressed directly with President Putin the issue of Russian interference in our elections.” Putin says in his statement, "...the Russian state has never interfered and is not going to interfere into internal American affairs, including the election process." Jeff Mason from Reuters asks Putin why Americans should believe him. Trump jumps in and talks about his electoral college win and denies collusion with Russia. Putin responds, "As to who is to be believed and to who is not to be believed, you can trust no one, if you take this." Jonathan Lemire from AP asks Trump if he believes Putin or his own intelligence officials on whether Russia interfered in the election. Trump responds by asking about a Pakistani working for the DNC and Clinton's emails, and calls into question the FBI's investigation of hacked DNC servers. He concludes, "So I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today." Mason also asked Putin, "President Putin, did you want President Trump to win the election and did you direct any of your officials to help him do that?" and Putin responded, "Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Because he talked about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal". This exchange is missing from the official transcripts and video of the summit for ten days before being added. The Senate Intelligence Committee interviews Lisa Page for a second time. July 17: Prosecutors file an indictment of Butina in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Rohrabacher tells Politico he is unsure whether he is the U.S. congressman mentioned in the Butina indictment, though he admits to being in Russia in August 2015 and dining with Butina and another congressman. He calls the charges against Butina "bogus" and a function of the "deep state." The Senate Intelligence Committee holds a closed hearing on the White House awareness of and response to Russian active measures. July 18: Butina pleads not guilty at a preliminary hearing. The judge orders Butina be held without bail pending trial. The New York Times reports that Trump was shown evidence that Putin personally ordered the 2016 hacking of DNC servers in a January 6, 2017, intelligence briefing. CNN reports that the Secret Service has been blocking the DNC's attempts to serve Jared Kushner with the lawsuit it filed against him in April. Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee interview Simona Mangiante Papadopoulos, George Papadopolous's wife, for four hours. Afterward, she says she was asked about her husband's role in the Trump campaign and her relationship with Joseph Mifsud. July 19: The Russian Foreign Ministry calls on people to show their support for Butina by changing their social media avatars to a photo of her, in ‘Free Maria Butina’ campaign. At the Aspen Security Forum, Microsoft's Tom Burt reports that Russians attempted to infiltrate three 2018 midterm congressional candidate campaigns. The Commerce Department grants Rusal America Corporation an exemption from the aluminum tariffs imposed March 8 to import 3,000 metric tons of aluminum billets tariff-free. Rusal America Corporation is a subsidiary of Rusal, which is under sanctions for its financial ties to Deripaska. July 20: TMZ reports Kristin Davis is expecting a subpoena from Mueller's team. Alfa-Bank sends a second unsolicited letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee stating that they found no evidence of substantive communications between the bank and the Trump Organization. July 23: Senators Ron Wyden, Robert Menendez, and Sheldon Whitehouse send Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin a letter demanding the "production of any documents relevant to financial links between the NRA, its associated entities and Ms. Butina and any entities or individuals related to her." The letter is a follow-up to a similar letter Wyden sent Mnuchin in February. After initial denials, a spokesperson for Russian billionaire Konstantin Nikolaev confirms that Nikolaev funded "Right to Bear Arms" from 2012 to 2014. Mueller's team interviews Sarah Sanders for the third of three times. July 24: Jury selection in the first Manafort trial begins. July 25: Articles of impeachment against Rod Rosenstein are introduced in the House of Representatives by Freedom Caucus members Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan, and nine other cosponsors. The articles say Rosenstein should have recused himself from overseeing the Mueller investigation because he signed the FISA warrant applications for surveilling Carter Page, and accuse Rosenstein of withholding documents from Congress. House speaker Paul Ryan opposes the articles and convinces Meadows and Jordan not to try to force a floor vote. Senator Chuck Grassley asks Gubarev's lawyers in a letter to provide a copy of the Steele deposition to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Steele was deposed in London on June 18 as part of Gubarev's libel suit against BuzzFeed. July 26: