During the 2016 presidential campaign, we didn’t have a full picture of what was happening behind the scenes.
It’s something that didn’t quite sink in as I kept track of the minutiae of FBI special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible Trump-Russia collusion over the past two years.
But thanks to my colleague Madeline Marshall, who gathered dozens of video clips from the 2016 campaign, I was able to relive several events that felt very different given what Mueller has uncovered thus far. He has revealed three major connection between Donald Trump and people who worked for or with Russia:
- Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort had several shady connections with people who worked for or with the Russian government.
- Several Trump staffers, including Trump’s son Don Jr., were willing to work with Russians to get dirt on Hillary Clinton and other top Democrats.
- And Trump was working on a lucrative real estate deal in Moscow — and his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, was the main negotiator. Cohen reached out to top Vladimir Putin officials to help grease the wheels. (The deal didn’t end up going through.)
This incredibly concise explainer by my colleague Andrew Prokop walks through the details of each of these connections. And these facts provide much-needed context to the way we should remember the 2016 campaign.
The video above attempts to further organize all the moving parts into a simple visual diagram that can help us frame information we already know — and information we will learn in the coming weeks and months.
To watch more Vox videos, follow us on YouTube, where we will continue to try to take a step back and organize the news visually.
