From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.

Today, its 2018 and the Special Counsel's Russia investigation is nowhere near done, as the Trump administration had predicted it would be.

Instead, New reporting on what prompted a federal investigation in the first place, Shed's New Light on what Mueller was up to this past year.

It's Tuesday, January 2nd.

So May of 2016, we're in London. George Poppettopoulos, a recently named foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign, is out drinking the Kensington wine rooms to upscale bar with an Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer.

Matt Apuzzo has been covering this story from the beginning. And they're drinking and they're schmoozing and doing what campaign foreign policy advisor does and trying to make some connections and the Australians trying to do what a diplomat does and feel out this new advisor.

And at some point in the night, Poppettopoulos let's slip that he knows the Russian government has political dirt on Hillary Clinton.

Today, in 2018, the significance of that statement is obvious. In the moment, it's not clear how significant that statement was.

So nothing happens from May through July. And then at the end of July, WikiLeaks dumps a bunch of hacked democratic emails. And the United States government begins to realize the Russians have hacked democratic targets and are probably trying to influence the election.

They've basically weaponized their hacking. Tonight, the FBI is investigating a new hacking incident involving computers inside the Democratic Congressional campaign committee.

Party officials say it's similar to the DNC hat, which is being blamed on Russian hackers.

And it's at that moment that the Australian government comes to the FBI and says there's something you should know.

We had this conversation back in May with George Poppettopoulos and there was at least the indication that he and the Trump campaign may have known about this stuff in advance.

You take those two things, the hacking and the release of the democratic emails and the knowledge from the Australians that somebody in the Trump campaign may have known about it in advance.

You put those two together and that was the match that started this fire that has been burning for over a year.

So Matt, what you're outlining after months of reporting on Russian interference in the 2016 election is entirely new reporting on how the whole investigation started.

Yeah, absolutely. One of the real questions that has gone on the answer here for months is what exactly got American intelligence agencies so worried in the summer and fall of last year.

You know, because we heard from John Brennan, the former CIA director, he testified last year.

Did evidence exist of collusion, coordination, conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian state actors.

At the time you learned of 2016 efforts.

I encountered and I'm aware of information intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and US persons involved in the Trump campaign.

The CIA was seeing information that suggested Russian agents were trying to subordinate members of the Trump campaign.

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