When then-candidate Donald Trump announced his team of foreign policy advisers in March 2016, many establishment national security officials expressed bafflement at some of the obscure names listed.
However, as the New York Times' Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti report, the list of foreign policy advisers must have looked enticing to the Russian government -- and they even go so far as to describe them as "Moscow's dream team."
Specifically, the report cites former national security adviser Mike Flynn, who "had long viewed Russia as a natural ally in what he saw as a 'world war' against radical Islam," and Carter Page, who "met in New York with a Russian spy posing as an attaché at the United Nations and passed along energy industry documents in hopes of securing lucrative deals in Moscow."
What's more, the Trump campaign had also just hired Paul Manafort, who had spent years working on behalf of a Kremlin-allied Ukrainian politician.
This was also the point, the report notes, that Russia started ramping up its campaign to undermine the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, who was seen as likely to be Trump's general election rival for the presidency.
"By then, the Russian intelligence operation to intervene in the American election — including efforts to infiltrate and influence the Trump campaign — had begun," the Times states.