photoJohn McColgan, author of the recently published "Where ever The Truth Might Lie," will hold a book signing Sunday, Feb. 19, from 1 to 4 p.m. at Arrowhead Chocolate shop in Joseph.

There is no way that a brief column could begin to capture all the intrigue that has developed during the past year regarding Russian attempts to interfere in our election or undue Russian influence on President Trump and his administration.

Suffice to say that while new and stunning details emerge almost on a daily basis, a brief review of the highlights of the past year might offer a better perspective and some relief from the numbness that ordinary citizens might now be feeling about this saga.

Last July, after about 30,000 emails of the Clinton campaign were released via Guccifer 2.0 and Wikileaks, the FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies determined that the hacking had been the result of a Russian cyber-attack.

During the fall campaign, the Clinton emails themselves became a major issue, but it wasn’t until after the election that the main focus of government investigation and national news shifted to an inquiry into how much Russia had attempted to engage in an organized campaign of social media propaganda and even attempts to hack into the U.S. election itself.

Ultimately, all U.S. intelligence agencies agreed that Russia had interfered in our election with the intent of helping the Trump campaign, although these agencies held back from concluding that this Russian operation had actually altered the result of the election itself.

The Russia story became even more controversial last December after a dossier that had been prepared by former British MI6 agent Christopher Steele for one of Trump’s Republican presidential primary rivals was sent to Sen. John McCain, who passed the document on to the FBI and then revealed its existence.

Questions and claims raised in this dossier, as well as meetings between then national security adviser Michael Flynn and Russian diplomats, led both houses of Congress to launch formal investigations by their respective committees into Russian meddling in our election.

Unbeknown to most of us until those hearings, the FBI had been conducting its own investigation into these matters as early as July,2016. Director James Comey testified before Congress in open and closed hearings regarding that investigation, as did other members of the Trump administration, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

After it was revealed that Sessions himself had met several times with Russian officials during the campaign (which meetings contradicted Sessions’ sworn statements before the Senate Committee), Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation. Later, acting on a recommendation from assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Sessions concurred that FBI Director Comey had mishandled the Clinton email investigation, and President Trump fired Comey on that basis.

But a few days later, Trump confounded matters by announcing that he had already decided to fire Comey even before reading Rosenstein’s memo because of Comey’s investigation of Russian meddling. Then Trump added gas to the fire when he told Russian diplomats, in a meeting attended by the Russian press but excluded to the American press, that Comey was “a real nut job,” and that pressure on Trump regarding Russia was now relieved.

But the Russia investigation goes on, in the House and the Senate, in public and closed hearings, and now in a separate investigation led by another former FBI Director, Special Counsel Robert Mueller. New details have emerged recently of a meeting held in June 2016 in which Russian lawyers and agents offered to provide dirt on Hillary Clinton to an enthusiastic Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Trump campaign Chair Paul Manafort.

Considering that Kushner ran the digital social media campaign for Trump, and that Manafort has now revealed that he earned $17 million helping a pro-Russia faction of the Ukrainian government to massage its media message during the Obama years, it becomes harder every day to believe President Trump’s assertions that no one in his campaign or administration colluded with the Russians as they interfered in our election.

All patriotic Americans should hope that Congress and Special Counsel Mueller will continue their investigations until they get to the bottom of this entire sordid mess. This inquiry will necessitate careful inspection not only of contacts, but also of whatever money trail might exist between Russian oligarchs and Trump’s worldwide business enterprises.

Only a thorough investigation can reveal whether criminal cases can be made on charges that might eventually include money laundering, racketeering, perjury, obstruction of justice, collusion, conspiracy or even treason.

For the sake of our republic, these investigations need to follow the evidence and follow the money –– wherever that leads.

John McColgan writes from his home in Joseph.