Sergey Kislyak is the Russian ambassador to the United States. As a diplomat, it's his job to meet different people and he is also good at it.
Sergey Kislyak has been serving this position for quite some time, but now he is at the center of a political firestorm because of his meetings with Trump's officials during the 2016 presidential election campaign. However, it's not unusual for diplomats to meet American officials. In fact, it's one of their main responsibilities. These encounters were described by the intelligence community as a way to undermine Hillary Clinton's campaign and the electoral system itself. Nowadays, the Trump and Russia fiasco is getting complicated.
To help you make sense of things, here is the basic timeline:
February 1 - The 2016 presidential primary season's official start. Donald Trump takes the 2nd place in the Republican contest. Hillary Clinton takes 1st place for the Democratic caucus.
May 4 - Trump becomes the Republican nominee after John Kasich and Ted Cruz backed out from the race.
June 14 - The Democratic National Committee reported that Russian hackers gained entry to their servers and accessed opposition research and emails.
July 21 - Trump officially accepts the Republican nomination for the 2016 Presidential election.
October 7 - The U.S. intelligence publicly accused the Russian Government of attempting to meddle with the 2016 election through the hacking of the Democratic National Committee's servers. On the same day, Washington Post released tapes of Trump bragging about sexual assaults.
November 8 - Trump won against Clinton during the general election.
November 17 - Trump appoints Michael Flynn as the administration's National Security Adviser.
November 18 - Trump nominated Jefferson Sessions for the position of Attorney General.
December 9 - President Obama instructed the U.S. Intelligence agencies to hand him a report concerning Russia's interference during the election.
December 30 - Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, announced that Russia has no plans of retaliating against the sanctions placed by the United States. Putin claims that he will not stoop down to the levels of what he calls as irresponsible kitchen diplomacy. Shortly after Putin's announcement, Trump posted on Twitter about the great move of Putin.
January 6 - James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, released a 26-page report. In it, the U.S. Intelligence concluded that Russia's government carried out several cyber-attacks, and then leaked the stolen documents. This was all done to undermine the people's confidence in the United States’ democratic system. The report also added that harming Hillary Clinton's candidacy was one of the cyber-attacks’ missions.
January 11 - After five days of being briefed by the U.S. Intelligence, Trump told the reporters that he thought it was Russia that was behind the hacking.
January 20 - President Trump was sworn in and proclaimed as the United States' 45th president. Sergey Kislyak and other diplomatic corps members attended the event.
So that's it for now. For sure, this Trump-Russia fiasco is far from over. Let’s just all stay tuned for the next episode.
