But, the months-long saga has so many chapters and intertwined characters, it's pretty impossible to keep everything straight at this point. To help keep track of what exactly's going on in Washington D.C. (and Russia), we compiled a timeline of the Russia scandal . In order to understand the issue fully, we have to go all the way back to beginning. Troubling news about potential Russia involvement in the 2016 presidential election first surfaced last summer, and the story's been slowly unfolding since then.