Late 2015
Conservative
publication
hires Fusion GPS
spring 2016
Contract switches to
law firm paid by DNC,
Clinton campaign
June 2016
Fusion GPS hires
Christopher
Steele
Steele
compiles
reports on
Trump and
Russia
July and
OCT. 2016
Steele briefs
FBI agents
Nov. 2016
Trump wins
election
JAN. 10, 2017
BuzzFeed
publishes dossier
of Steele reports
Nov. 2016
Late 2015
June 2016
Conservative
publication
hires Fusion
GPS
Trump wins
election
Fusion GPS hires
Christopher
Steele
JAN. 10, 2017
spring 2016
July and
OCT. 2016
BuzzFeed
publishes
dossier of
Steele reports
Contract switches to
law firm paid by DNC,
Clinton campaign
Steele briefs
FBI agents
Steele compiles reports
on Trump and Russia
Detail below
Each icon is a report
filed by Steele to
Fusion GPS
JUNE 20, 2016
First report after Steele is hired by Fusion.
Alleges Russians have compromising
material on Trump.
JULY 5
Steele meets with
FBI agent in London.
JULY 19
Alleges Trump adviser Carter Page
met with Russian officials.
JULY 26
Describes large Russian
hacking operation.
JULY 30
Describes Russian unease
over U.S. election operation.
AUG. 10
Argues the Kremlin was pleased
with the internal divisions they
were sowing in U.S. electorate.
AUG. 10
Describes effort to turn
Sanders voters to Trump.
SEPT. 14
Alleges Trump paid bribes
and engaged in compromising
personal behavior.
OCT. 3
Steele briefs FBI agents in Rome.
OCT. 12
Says Putin was angry about how
the operation was progressing.
OCT. 19
Claims Trump lawyer Michael Cohen
helped connect Trump’s team and
Moscow, which Cohen has denied.
OCT. 31
Mother Jones reports on former
spy who provided memos to FBI.
NOV. 8
Trump wins the election.
DEC. 13
Steele files his final report.
Late 2015
spring 2016
July and
OCT. 2016
JAN. 10, 2017
June 2016
Nov. 2016
Contract switches to
law firm paid by DNC,
Clinton campaign
Conservative
publication hires
Fusion GPS
BuzzFeed
publishes dossier
of Steele reports
Fusion GPS hires
Christopher
Steele
Steele briefs
FBI agents
Trump wins
election
Steele compiles reports
on Trump and Russia
Detail below
JULY 19
Alleges Trump adviser
Carter Page met with
Russian officials.
AUG. 10
Argues the Kremlin
was pleased with
the internal divisions
they were sowing in
U.S. electorate.
OCT. 31
Mother Jones
reports on former
spy who provided
memos to FBI.
JUNE 20, 2016
First report after Steele
is hired by Fusion.
Alleges Russians
have compromising
material on Trump.
JULY 30
Describes
Russian unease
over U.S. election
operation.
OCT. 12
Says Putin was
angry about how
the operation was
progressing.
NOV. 8
Trump wins
the election.
Each icon is a report
filed by Steele to
Fusion GPS
JULY 5
Steele meets
with FBI agent
in London.
JULY 26
Describes
large Russian
hacking
operation.
AUG. 10
Describes
effort to turn
Sanders voters
to Trump.
SEPT. 14
Alleges Trump
paid bribes
and engaged
in compromising
personal behavior.
OCT. 3
Steele briefs
FBI agents
in Rome.
OCT. 19
Claims Trump lawyer
Michael Cohen helped
connect Trump’s team
and Moscow, which
Cohen has denied.
DEC. 13
Steele files
his final report.
Christopher Steele is a British former intelligence officer who was hired by the Washington research firm Fusion GPS in June 2016 to investigate Donald Trump's ties to Russia. The 17 reports he filed — collectively known as the dossier — alleged that the Russians had compromising material about Trump and that they sought to tilt the election in his favor. Trump has denied the allegations in the dossier. However, the U.S. intelligence community has concluded that the Russians engaged in an elaborate operation to swing the election to Trump.
Read story: Hero or hired gun? How a British former spy became a flashpoint in the Russia investigation
Pre-2016
2009
Simpson and Steele first meet
Glenn Simpson and Christopher Steele are introduced by mutual friends, who know they are both interested in Russian organized crime.
2009
Steele works with FBI on FIFA probe
While working for the English Football Association, Steele assists the FBI in its investigation of corruption in FIFA, world soccer's governing body.
Read more
Late 2015
Conservative group hires Fusion GPS
Fusion GPS, which was founded by former journalist Glenn Simpson, pictured above, is hired by the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative publication funded by Republicans opposed to Donald Trump, and begins to examine his and his team's relationship with Russia, along with other matters.
Read moreJuly 2015
Trump praises Putin
Donald Trump provides enthusiastic public praise of Vladimir Putin in response to a question put to him at a Las Vegas forum by Russian graduate student Maria Butina. “I know Putin and I’ll tell you what, we get along with Putin,” Trump says in the first of a remarkably consistent series of positive public comments about the Russian president.
Early 2016
March 21
Trump cites Page, Papadopoulos as foreign policy advisers
At a meeting with The Washington Post's editorial board, Trump names Carter Page and George Papadopoulos as two of his foreign policy advisers.
Read moreMarch 28
Manafort hired by Trump campaign
Trump campaign announces it has hired Paul Manafort to lead convention efforts.
Read moreSpring
Democrats hire Fusion GPS
Fusion GPS's contract switches to Perkins Coie, a law firm working for the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign.
Read more
April 26
Papadopoulos is told Russians have Clinton emails
George Papadopoulos, shown above, is told by a professor in London that the Russians have dirt on Clinton in the form of thousands of emails.
Read more
April
Democrats hacked
DNC notices it has been hacked and alerts CrowdStrike.
June
Early June
Page attends meeting on Trump's behalf
Carter Page, above, attends meeting at Blair House with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, claims to be there on Trump campaign's behalf and praises Putin.
June
Steele hired by Fusion GPS
Fusion GPS hires Christopher Steele, above, and his London company, Orbis Business Intelligence, to investigate Trump's ties to Russia more fully.
June 8
DC Leaks releases Hillary for America clips and emails.
June 9
Trump campaign officials meet with Russian lawyer
Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort meet with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, after Trump Jr. is told she has damaging information about Hillary Clinton as part of a Russian government effort to help his father.
Read more
June 14
The Washington Post first reports that the DNC has been hacked and that Russia is suspected.
Read moreJune to July
Guccifer 2.0 and then DC Leaks post additional documents online, including some hacked from Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
June 20
First Steele report submitted
Christopher Steele completes the first of 16 pre-election reports, submitting it to Fusion GPS a few days later. The first report alleges that Russia has been cultivating Trump for five years and has compromising material from the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow. These 16 reports, plus one more written in December 2016, would come to be known as the Steele dossier.
June 20
Manafort named campaign chairman
Manafort, pictured above, is named Trump campaign chairman.
Read moreJuly
July 5, 2016
FBI agent, Steele meet in London
Steele meets with an FBI agent in London to outline initial findings.
July 7, 2016
Carter Page speaks at the New Economic School in Moscow.
July 13, 2016
DC Leaks releases emails by Sarah Hamilton, an HFA advance staff member.
July 19, 2016
Report alleges Page met with Russians
Steele submits a report to Fusion GPS that alleges Carter Page met with Rosneft chief Igor Sechin and senior Kremlin official Igor Diveykin during Moscow trip. Page later denies meeting the men.
July 22, 2016
On eve of Democratic National Convention, WikiLeaks posts tens of thousands of hacked emails from DNC, forcing the resignation of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schulz (Fla.), the party's chairman.
Read more
Undated report
Undated report alleges 'well-developed conspiracy' between Trump associates and Russia
Report alleges "a well developed conspiracy of cooperation" between Trump associates and the Kremlin and that the recent release of internal DNC emails by WikiLeaks was undertaken in exchange for Trump sidelining Ukraine as a campaign issue and questioning the value of NATO.
July 26, 2016
Report describes Russian hacking
Steele submits report describing extensive Russian government hacking operation, including coercion of criminal hackers by government agents.
July 27, 2016
Trump encourages Russia to find deleted Clinton emails
In a news conference, Trump encourages Russia to hack Clinton's emails and locate emails she deleted from her time as secretary of state.
Read moreLate July 2016
FBI opens Papadopoulos investigation
The FBI formally opens a counterintelligence investigation of George Papadopoulos after the U.S. government is informed by Australia that Papadopoulos had bragged to an Australian in late May that he'd been told the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton.
July 30, 2016
Report alleges eight-year Russian effort to cultivate Trump
Steele report to Fusion GPS describes growing unease in Russia about American election operation, but says cultivation of Trump has gone on for eight years.
August
Aug. 5, 2016
Report says Kremlin split on risk of operation
A Steele report identified Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as a key figure in the DNC hack and described a split inside the Kremlin over whether the operation had grown too risky.
Aug. 8, 2016
Stone predicts additional leaks
Roger Stone, shown here, claims he has communicated with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and makes predictions about additional documents that will be released. He later says he was in touch with Assange through an intermediary.
Aug. 10, 2016
Report: Kremlin pleased with internal divisions it was sowing
A report argues the Kremlin is pleased with internal divisions it was sowing in U.S. electorate and would target educated American youth who might oppose Clinton as a vote against the establishment. It names other U.S. officials whom the Kremlin had supported, including Michael T. Flynn and Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
Aug. 10, 2016
Report: Russian effort to flip Sanders voters to Trump
Another report describes one goal of Kremlin effort as turning Bernie Sanders voters from Clinton to Trump but says some Trump associates were upset, believing Putin was now trying more broadly to weaken U.S. democracy.
Aug. 15, 2016
Guccifer 2.0 releases DCCC documents related to Florida primaries.
Aug. 21, 2016
Roger Stone tweets that it will "soon" be Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's "time in the barrel."
Aug. 22, 2016
Report: Manafort's alleged payments
In another report, Steele asserted that Putin met on Aug. 15 with former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, who confirmed to him that Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had received significant kickbacks while working as a political consultant in Kiev but assured Putin that no documents existed to corroborate the payments.
September
Sept. 13, 2016
Guccifer 2.0 releases DNC documents
Sept. 14, 2016
Report says Russia may release more Clinton emails
Steele submits report to Fusion GPS alleging that Russia is considering releasing more Clinton emails after Duma elections in late September.
Sept. 14, 2016
Report: Alfa Bank closely tied with Putin
Another release that day describes a close relationship between the leadership of Alfa Bank and its executives and Putin.
Sept. 14, 2016
Report alleges that Trump paid bribes for possible business deals
Asserts that Trump paid bribes for possible business deals in St. Petersburg.
Early Fall
Steele meets with former MI6 head
Steele and his partner, Christopher Burrows, meet with Richard Dearlove, pictured above, a former head of MI6, for advice. Dearlove advises them to provide information to the UK government, with the intention that it be passed to U.S. law enforcement officials.
October
Oct. 3, 2016
Steele briefs FBI agents in Rome
At the FBI's request, Steele meets with a group of agents in Rome and offers a full debriefing on his information.
Oct. 4, 2016
Guccifer 2.0 releases DCCC documents and falsely advertises them as Clinton Foundation documents.
Oct. 7, 2016
Intelligence agencies call out Russian interference
U.S. intelligence formally declares that Russia is interfering in U.S. campaign through cyberhacks, including of the DNC, in operation ordered by senior-level officials.
Read more
Oct. 7, 2016
Post: Trump made 'extremely lewd' comments in 'Access Hollywood' tape
A video surfaces of Trump bragging in vulgar terms about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women during a 2005 conversation caught on a hot microphone.
Read more
Oct. 7, 2016
Podesta emails released
WikiLeaks releases first batch of emails hacked from the account of Clinton chairman John Podesta. Thousands of additional Podesta emails are public each day forward until the election.
Oct. 12, 2016
Report says Russians fear their efforts are failing
Steele submits a report to Fusion GPS saying that Russia is having "buyer's remorse" with best Clinton information already released, worried it is not having enough effect.
Oct. 18, 2016
Another Steele report on Page
Steele tells Fusion GPS again that Carter Page met with Sechin and emphasizes importance of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen to Kremlin-Trump relationship.
Oct. 19, 2016
Report details Cohen role
This document provides more details of Cohen's role, alleging that he had been assigned task of cleaning up the operation from the Trump side.
Oct. 20, 2016
Steele report on Cohen travel
Steele report alleges Michael Cohen went to Prague to coordinate the relationship with Russia, a claim Cohen has repeatedly denied.
Oct. 21, 2016
Surveillance court judge approves wiretap of Page
A federal judge approves a secret warrant allowing for surveillance of former Trump adviser Carter Page. The warrant application includes material provided to the FBI by Steele.
Read moreOct. 28, 2016
Comey announcement on Clinton investigation
FBI Director James B. Comey tells Congress that agents are examaining additional emails that appear connected to Clinton, essentially announcing that the investigation of Clinton's private email server has been reopened.
Read moreOct. 31, 2016
Mother Jones report on 'former intelligence officer'
Mother Jones reports that a "former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence" had provided his research memos to the FBI "in recent months."
Read more
Oct. 31, 2016
New York Times publishes story saying that the FBI did not see a “clear link” between Trump and Russia. The story angers Simpson and Steele. Simpson later tells Senate Judiciary Committee interviewers that Steele stopped cooperating with the FBI after the Times report.
Read moreNovember
Nov. 18, 2016
McCain briefed on Steele dossier by former U.K. ambassador to Russia
Sen. John McCain attends Halifax International Security Forum in Canada, where he is told about Steele's work by Sir Andrew Wood, a Britsh former ambassador to Russia, shown here. He asks that his longtime adviser, David Kramer, get a copy of the dossier for him to review.
Nov. 28, 2016
Steele meets with McCain confidant
Steele and David Kramer meet in Surrey, England, according to British court document.
December
Dec. 9, 2016
McCain passes dossier to Comey
Having received material from Kramer, McCain meets with Comey and gives him the dossier.
Dec. 11, 2016
McCain and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) call for select committee to investigate Russian cyber activities during the election.
Read more
Dec. 13, 2016
Steele completes last report
Steele completes the last of 17 reports that would later become known as the dossier. The final report offers more details about an alleged trip Michael Cohen took to Prague to organize hacks, with claims Trump paid hackers. Cohen later denies the allegations.
2017
Jan. 6, 2017
U.S. intelligence chiefs brief President-elect Trump on findings that Russia interfered in election; afterward, Comey provides Trump a two-page synopsis of the dossier, describing parts of it as salacious and unverified.
Read moreJan. 10, 2017
Collection of Steele reports published
BuzzFeed publishes what would come to be known as the Steele dossier: the 17 reports detailed above in which Steele alleges ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Read moreJan. 12, 2017
Steele goes into hiding
Steele and his family go in to hiding after a Wall Street Journal story identifies him as author of the dossier.
Read moreJanuary 2017
FBI agents interview former Trump adviser George Papadopoulos in Chicago about his contacts with Russia-connected people during the campaign.
March 2017
Page is interviewed by FBI agents who pressed him on claims from the dossier, including that he was part of a “well developed conspiracy of cooperation” between Trump and the Kremlin.
May 17, 2017
Following the firing of Comey as FBI director, the Justice Department appoints special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to investigate whether the Trump campaign had links to Russia
Read moreSeptember 2017
Mueller agents interview Steele
Steele is interviewed over two days in London by investigators working for Mueller.
2018
January 5, 2018
Sens. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) ask the Justice Department to investigate Steele for lying to the FBI about his contacts with the media before the election.
Read moreFeb. 2, 2018
Nunes memo flags Steele bias
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) releases a memo accusing the FBI of not properly alerting a federal judge that Steele was being paid by the Clinton campaign while incorporating his research into a warrant to monitor former adviser Carter Page in 2016.
Read more
More stories
Who’s who in the Nunes FBI memo and how they’re connected
The memo alleges that Christopher Steele, a former intelligence officer in Britain, admitted that he was “desperate that Donald Trump not get elected” in a conversation with Bruce Ohr, a Justice Department official.
The full Nunes memo, annotated
After cries to #ReleaseTheMemo and an even bigger outcry of opposition, the memo has now been released. Here's what it says.
Here are members of Team Trump who are known to have Russian connections.
Congress and U.S. intelligence agencies are scrutinizing connections between Russia and the Trump campaign as they investigate evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.
