Trump on releasing the JFK records

[Sandy Larsen]

17 hours ago, Keven Hofeling said:

Thus, concerning Mueller's Office of Special Counsel allegations that Manafort had breached the terms of his plea agreement by lying to the FBI and the OSC, of the 5 allegations, the Court found in favor of the government on 3, all of which were predicated upon Manafort's consulting work for the government of Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine before Yanukovych's overthrow in 2014. The Court specifically found that Manafort had not intentionally made false statements concerning Kilimnick's role in the obstruction of justice conspiracy, and that Manafort had not intentionally made a false statement concerning his contacts with the Trump administration.

 

It appears that that is not the whole story. According to this Wikipedia article:

On November 26, 2018, Mueller reported that Manafort violated his plea deal by repeatedly lying to investigators. On February 13, 2019, D.C. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson concurred, voiding the plea deal.^[22][23][24] On March 7, 2019, Judge T. S. Ellis III sentenced Manafort to 47 months in prison.^[25][26][27] On March 13, 2019, Jackson sentenced Manafort to an additional 43 months in prison.^[28][29] Minutes after his sentencing, New York state prosecutors charged Manafort with sixteen state felonies.^[30] On December 18, 2019, the state charges against him were dismissed because of the doctrine of double jeopardy.^[31][32][33] The Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee concluded in August 2020 that Manafort's ties to individuals connected to Russian intelligence while he was Trump's campaign manager "represented a grave counterintelligence threat" by creating opportunities for "Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump campaign."^[34]

^{(Bolding mine.)}

 

[W. Niederhut]

People living in the MAGA-verse need to educate themselves about the lengthy history of Donald Trump's involvement with Russia.

Do they know that Kremlin lobbyist Paul Manafort's relationship with Putin's oligarch Oleg Deripaska goes back to 2005?

Do they know that Manafort and Michael Flynn were in direct contact with Kremlin officials about U.S. Ukraine-related policies in the spring of 2016-- while serving as Trump's Campaign Manager and foreign policy advisor, respectively?

Here's an excellent educational resource for Kevin Hofeling and others, who remain clueless about Trump's involvement with Russia.

The Trump-Russia-Ukraine Timeline - Just Security

[Keven Hofeling]

2 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

People living in the MAGA-verse need to educate themselves about the lengthy history of Donald Trump's involvement with Russia.

Do they know that Kremlin lobbyist Paul Manafort's relationship with Putin's oligarch Oleg Deripaska goes back to 2005?

Do they know that Manafort and Michael Flynn were in direct contact with Kremlin officials about U.S. Ukraine-related policies in the spring of 2016-- while serving as Trump's Campaign Manager and foreign policy advisor, respectively?

Here's an excellent educational resource for Kevin Hofeling and others, who remain clueless about Trump's involvement with Russia.

The Trump-Russia-Ukraine Timeline - Just Security

Mr. Neiderhut:

Once again, you are attempting to circumvent the actual judicial adjudication of Paul Manafort's crimes committed in the context of his pre-Russiagate lobbying business in Ukraine with exaggerated, sensationalist, yellow journalism which offers no actual evidence in support of its claims of Russian collusion.

The burden is still on you to produce the evidence of Russian collusion which the Mueller Report and the Senate Intelligence Report on Collusion failed to bring to light.

Robert Mueller's Office of Special Counsel charged and prosecuted Paul Manafort for crimes related to his pre-Russiagate lobbying business in Ukraine, and not for ANYTHING related to allegations of Russian collusion, and there is no better evidence of this fact than the actual pleadings and Orders resulting from the actual Court proceedings (See below). Yellow journalism articles rife with exaggerations and sensationalist allegations are conclusively surpassed by the evidentiary weight of the actual court proceedings by leaps and bounds, and you seem to be having difficulties wrapping your mind around that fact.

The following are the bona fide Court pleadings and Orders from the actual prosecutions of Paul Manafort for his pre-Russiagate crimes committed in the context of his lobbying business in Ukraine, having nothing to do with Russian collusion allegations, and we are all still waiting for your explanation of why you believe that we should assign greater evidentiary weight to yellow journalism articles rife with exaggerated, sensationalist allegations.

_____________

Mr. Neirdehut, the Ron Wyden letter you were clamoring about flast week illustrates the problem with your Washington Post article (which I am going to demonstrate below):

https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/final_signed_wyden_letter_to_dni_on_2016_election_report_declassification.pdf

Senator Wyden, unlike you, has the good sense to have done his preliminary research, and has become aware that the Paul Manafort case suffers from a severe shortcoming, that being, a total absence of solid substantiating evidence. Thus, he has written to the Director of National Intelligence requesting declassification of redacted portions of the Senate Intelligence Report on Collusion. Senator Wyden knows, of course, what the redacted sections amount to, and therefore knows that they won't be redacted, because -- it is my prediction -- the redactions are exculpatory in nature and were redacted to save the Committee from further embarrassment. In any event, for your purposes, the redacted portions of the Senate Committee report do not constitute "evidence," and your allusions to the contrary are mere speculation.

The headline of your Washington Post article is "Federal judge finds Paul Manafort lied to Mueller probe about contacts with Russian aide," so we shall see if it delivers the content it promises.

Your Washington Post article begins with the following paragraph:

"Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort lied to prosecutors with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III about matters close to the heart of their investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, a federal judge ruled Wednesday."

It certainly sounds damning, but is it true?

In determining this, I want to expand the scope of the inquiry to include all of the Manafort charges and convictions, not only in the Court proceedings addressed in your article (Judge Amy Berman Jackson's U.S. District Court for the District of Colombia), but also for Judge T. S. Ellis III's U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Manafort's trial in the Eastern District of Virginia began on July 31, 2018. Manafort was charged with various financial crimes including tax evasion, bank fraud, and money laundering. There were 18 criminal charges including 5 falsifications of income tax returns, 4 failures to file foreign bank account reports, 4 counts of bank fraud, and 5 counts of bank fraud conspiracy. On August 21, 2018, the jury found Manafort guilty on 8 of the 18 felony counts, including five counts of filing false tax returns, two counts of bank fraud, and one count of failing to disclose a foreign bank account. Judge Ellis declared a mistrial on the remaining 10 charges.

None of the Virginia charges or convictions had anything to do with Russiagate. To provide you with certainty about that I am providing you with Office of Special Counsel ("OSC") Robert Mueller's summary of the Virginia proceedings from page 5 and 6 of the "GOVERNMENT’S SENTENCING MEMORANDUM" in the District of Colombia case, as follows:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597.525.0_4.pdf

Likewise, none of the District of Colombia charges or convictions had anything to do with Russiagate. To provide you with certainty about that I am providing you with OSC Robert Mueller's summary of the D.C. proceedings from page 6-8 of the "GOVERNMENT’S SENTENCING MEMORANDUM" in the District of Colombia case, as follows:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597.525.0_4.pdf

Note that so far, Manafort has not been charged with or convicted of any offenses that have anything to do with Russiagate or Russian collusion, which brings us to the subject matter of your Washington Post article, the charges and convictions related to Paul Manafort's breach of his Cooperation Agreement with the OSC.

The OSC charged Paul Manafort with 5 charges related to his breach of the Cooperation Agreement. The most concise recitation of those 5 charges and proceedings associated therewith is found in Judge Amy Berman Jackson's February 13, 2019 Order, which follows. As you can see, none of these 5 offenses have anything to do with Russiagate or Russian collusion, and I have included links to the pleadings of the OSC and Defendant Manafort upon which the Court based its judgment so that you can inquire further about the nature of each charge (but note that there are redactions which I believe were intended to make it difficult for the media to report that there was no Russia collusion involved, so you may need to review all of them to piece it together as I have):

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597.509.0_5.pdf

"...On November 26, 2018, the parties informed the Court in a joint status report [Dkt. # 455]
that it was the government’s position that the defendant had breached the plea agreement by making false statements to the FBI and Office of Special Counsel (“OSC”) and that it was time to set a sentencing date. The defendant disputed the government’s characterization of the information he had provided and denied that he had breached the agreement, but he agreed that in light of the dispute, it was time to proceed to sentencing. Thereafter, the government was ordered to provide the Court with information concerning the alleged breach, a schedule was established for the defense to respond, and the following submissions were made a part of the record in the case:

December 7, 2018 Government’s Submission in Support of its Breach Determination
[Dkt. # 461] (Sealed); [Dkt. # 460] (Public) https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597.460.0_3.pdf

January 8, 2019 Defendant’s Response to the Government’s Submission in Support
of its Breach Determination [Dkt. # 470] (Sealed); [Dkt. # 472] (Public) https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597.471.0_6.pdf

January 15, 2019 FBI Declaration in Support of the Government’s Breach
Determination with accompanying exhibits [Dkt # 477] (Sealed); 
[Dkt. # 476] (Public) https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597.476.0_4.pdf

January 23, 2019 Defendant’s Reply to the Declaration [Dkt. # 481] (Sealed);
[Dkt. # 482] (Public) https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597.482.0_7.pdf

The Court held a sealed hearing on February 4, 2019, and the parties each filed post-hearing
submissions. See Def.’s Post-Hearing Mem. [Dkt. # 502] (Sealed), [Dkt. # 505] (Public);
Government’s Suppl. [Dkt. # 507] (Sealed). https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597.505.0.pdf

It is a matter of public record that "the Office of Special Counsel has alleged that the defendant made intentionally false statements to the FBI, the OSC, and/or the grand jury in connection with five matters: (i) a payment made by Firm A to a law firm to pay a debt owed to the law firm by defendant Manafort; (ii) co-defendant Konstantin Kilimnik’s role in the obstruction of justice conspiracy; (iii) the defendant’s interactions and communications with Kilimnik; (iv) another Department of Justice investigation; (v) and the defendant’s contacts with the current administration after the election. The parties are agreed that it is the government’s burden to show that there has been a breach of the plea agreement, but to be relieved of its obligations under the agreement, it must simply demonstrate that its determination was made in good faith. Plea Agreement ¶ 13."

With regard to the 5 charges brought against Manafort by the OSC, Judge Amy Berman Jackson's February 13, 2019 final Order provided as follows:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597.509.0_5.pdf

Thus, concerning Mueller's Office of Special Counsel allegations that Manafort had breached the terms of his plea agreement by lying to the FBI and the OSC, of the 5 allegations, the Court found in favor of the government on 3, all of which were predicated upon Manafort's consulting work for the government of Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine before Yanukovych's overthrow in 2014. The Court specifically found that Manafort had not intentionally made false statements concerning Kilimnick's role in the obstruction of justice conspiracy, and that Manafort had not intentionally made a false statement concerning his contacts with the Trump administration.

This means that the central claim of your Washington Post article -- that "Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort lied to prosecutors with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III about matters close to the heart of their investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, a federal judge ruled Wednesday." -- is absolutely and categorically false.

Your Washington Post article goes on to state the following:

"Manafort’s lies, the judge found, included “his interactions and communications with [Konstantin] Kilimnik,” a longtime aide whom the FBI assessed to have ties to Russian intelligence.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District said Manafort also lied to the special counsel, the FBI and the grand jury about a payment from a company to a law firm — which he previously characterized as a loan repayment — and made false statements that were material to another Justice Department investigation whose focus has not been described in public filings in Manafort’s case."

Note how the author of the article inserted that Konstantin Kiliminak was "a longtime aide whom the FBI assessed to have ties to Russian intelligence" to imply that Manafort's non-Russiagate related convictions were in fact related to Russiagate.

Then, again, the article falsely insinuates that the OSC's prosecution of Mantafort involved Russiagate, when it in fact did not:

"In the deal with prosecutors, Manafort agreed to cooperate “fully and truthfully” with the government, seemingly giving investigators access to a witness who was at key events relevant to the Russia investigation — a Trump Tower meeting attended by a Russian lawyer, the Republican National Convention and a host of other behind-the-scenes discussions in the spring and summer of 2016."

And throughout the article are allegations that imply Russian involvement in the past associations between Kilimnik and Manafort which were not substantiated in the Virginia or D.C. cases, nor by the Mueller Report or the Senate Committee Report on Collusion:

"Mueller prosecutors have said Manafort’s lies about the frequency and substance of his contacts with Kilimnik go “very much to the heart of what the special counsel’s office is investigating.”

They highlighted Manafort’s shifting account of an August 2016 meeting in New York City with Kilimnik — a longtime aide who also has been indicted in the Mueller investigation — in which the pair discussed a peace plan for Ukraine, while Manafort served as Trump’s campaign chairman.

 A resolution of hostilities in Ukraine that leads to the lifting of sanctions against Russia is a top Kremlin foreign policy goal.

Mueller’s office also claims Manafort “intentionally provided false information” in debriefing sessions on several topics, including the extent and substance of his interactions with Kilimnik.

The pair met in December 2016, in January 2017 when Kilimnik was in Washington and again in February 2017, and as recently as the winter of 2018, according to previously released court documents.

Prosecutors also said that Manafort passed polling data related to the U.S. presidential campaign to Kilimnik during the campaign and that the two worked on a poll in Ukraine in 2018....

...Jackson’s brief order did not add to what was previously known about the Aug. 2, 2016, meeting at the Grand Havana Room, an upscale cigar bar in Manhattan, between Manafort and Kilimnik.

Prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said in a previous court hearing that the meeting included Rick Gates, who was Manafort’s top deputy on the Trump campaign and in Ukraine and has also pleaded guilty in the Mueller investigation, and that Gates said the men left separately using different exits than Kilimnik."

Mr. Neiderhut, your Washington Post article is yellow journalism in its purest form, and that you think it is solid evidence of Russiagate makes you and Russiagate appear all the more ridiculous.

 

[Keven Hofeling]

22 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

It appears that that is not the whole story. According to this Wikipedia article:

On November 26, 2018, Mueller reported that Manafort violated his plea deal by repeatedly lying to investigators. On February 13, 2019, D.C. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson concurred, voiding the plea deal.^[22][23][24] On March 7, 2019, Judge T. S. Ellis III sentenced Manafort to 47 months in prison.^[25][26][27] On March 13, 2019, Jackson sentenced Manafort to an additional 43 months in prison.^[28][29] Minutes after his sentencing, New York state prosecutors charged Manafort with sixteen state felonies.^[30] On December 18, 2019, the state charges against him were dismissed because of the doctrine of double jeopardy.^[31][32][33] The Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee concluded in August 2020 that Manafort's ties to individuals connected to Russian intelligence while he was Trump's campaign manager "represented a grave counterintelligence threat" by creating opportunities for "Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump campaign."^[34]

^{(Bolding mine.)}

 

I've already covered the exaggerated sensationalist allegatins of the Senate Intelligence Report on Collusion as follows Sandy...

__________

My comments below are in dark blue, Neirdehut's are in black:

NOTE: Sensationalist claims and yellow journalism and the innuendo and speculation of the government DO NOT constitute evidence. Mr. Neirdehut, you are wasting my time with your persistent failures to produce any real evidence of your Russian collusion claims...

U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee Document on Paul Manafort's Work for Russia*

1)  Manafort worked for years as a lobbyist and political consultant for Kremlin psy-ops in Ukraine, on behalf of Putin's Ukrainian puppet, Victor Yanukovych.

You have the same problem here as you have with everything else, Mr. Neiderhut. You have no evidence. The innuendo and speculation of the Senate Committee Report on Collusion is not evidence, it is mere speculation and innuendo.

As you can see in the following, the government never had any evidence of communications between Paul Manafort and Russian intelligence officials. Yellow journalism and the innuendo and speculation of members of the Senate Committee just doesn't make the cut. You are shooting blanks again.

On page 8 of Defendant Paul Manafort's pleading entitled "MEMORANDUM OF LAW IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO REQUIRE A HEARING REGARDING IMPROPER DISCLOSURES RELATING TO CONFIDENTIAL GRAND JURY INFORMATION AND POTENTIALLY CLASSIFIED MATERIALS," filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on April 30, 2018, Manafort's attorneys represented to the Court, pursuant to Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, that:

"...Despite multiple discovery and Brady requests in this regard, the Special Counsel has not produced any materials to the defense-no tapes, notes, transcripts or any other material evidencing surveillance or intercepts of communications between Mr. Manafort and Russian intelligence officials, Russian government officials (or any other foreign officials). The Office of Special Counsel has advised that there are no materials responsive to Mr. Manafort's requests..."   https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5001611-Memorandum-in-Support-of-Motion-for-Hearing-04.html

The Mueller team's response marked a tacit admission that as of 2019, the FBI did not consider Kilimnik a Russian agent. 

And in early 2017, FBI agent Peter Strzok interviewed the Steele dossier’s main source, now known to be Igor Danchenko. Danchenko said he passed on “rumors and speculation” and that he couldn’t back up the claims made in the dossier. Strzok said Steele “may not be in a position to judge the reliability of his subsource network.’’ Strzok then printed out a copy of a New York Times report that claimed there was evidence of communications between Paul Manafort and Russian agents and wrote in the margin, “we are unaware of any Trump advisors engaging in conversations with Russian intelligence officials.”  U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary republication of the Wall Street Journal Editorial "The FBI’s Dossier Deceit."    https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/rep/releases/icymi-the-fbis-dossier-deceit

2)  Manafort's long-term Russian military intelligence (GRU) associate was Konstantin Kilimnik.

There is no evidence that Konstantin Kilimnik was a Russian military intelligence officer or any other kind of Russian intelligence official. The Mueller Office of Special Counsel indicted Kilimnik in 2018 for obstruction of justice, unrelated to the 2016 election, but the case has never gone forward. When asked by investigative journalist Aaron Maté in 2020 if the FBI's assessment of Kilimnik has changed, a Department of Justice spokesman said that “the Mueller report speaks for itself,” suggesting that it has not adopted the Senate committee’s determination.

Again, the speculation and innuendo of the Senate Intelligence Report on Collusion does not constitute evidence. If you think there is such evidence in the Report, or anywhere else, then state exactly what you think that evidence consists of.

3) Manafort also worked with Putin's oligarch, Oleg Deripaska.

The Mueller Office of Special Counsel obtained convictions against Paul Manafort for illegal activities related to his lobbying business in Ukraine, but none of those convictions had anything to do with the Russian collusion allegations, for which Manafort was not even charged by the Office of Special Counsel. See above regarding the total absence of evidence of any communications between Paul Manafort and Russian intelligence officials.

4)  Manafort secretly met with Kilimnik during the 2016 Trump Presidential campaign.

You evidently don't even know the actual details of the Senate Report, as at the bottom of volume iv, page 29, it states that Manafort and Kilimnik met secretly "in the United States and Spain in early 2017," not in 2016, meaning that your claim that the Senate Intelligence Report on Collusion found that "Manafort secretly met with Kilimnik during the 2016 Trump Presidential campaign" is patently false.    https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf

5)  Manafort went to great lengths to conceal his 2016 contacts with Kilimnik from Mueller-- even committing perjury.

Paul Manafort was never charged with or convicted of "perjury." Manafort was convicted of three of the five counts of breaching the cooperation agreement that he had with the Office of Special Counsel. This does not constitute evidence that Manafort was in communication with Russian intelligence officials, or that Kilimnik was a Russian intelligence official. You need to present evidence of your claims in this regard, which neither Mueller's Office of Special Counsel or the Senate Select Intelligence Committee ever did. Sensationalist claims and yellow journalism, and the innuendo and speculation of the government DO NOT constitute evidence.

Mueller's Office of Special Counsel alleged that Manafort had breached the terms of his plea agreement by lying to the FBI and the OSC, and of five such allegations, the Court found in favor of the government on three, all of which were predicated upon Manafort's consulting work for the government of Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine before Yanukovych's overthrow in 2014. The Court specifically found that Manafort had not intentionally made false statements concerning Kilimnik's role in the obstruction of justice conspiracy, and that Manafort had not intentionally made a false statement concerning his contacts with the Trump administration.    https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597.509.0_5.pdf

*  report_volume5.pdf (senate.gov)

 

Edited April 5 by Keven Hofeling

[Sandy Larsen]

20 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

The Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee concluded in August 2020 that Manafort's ties to individuals connected to Russian intelligence while he was Trump's campaign manager "represented a grave counterintelligence threat" by creating opportunities for "Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump campaign."^[34]

 

From the same Wikipedia article, pertinent details regarding the Republican-Controlled Senate Intelligence Committee findings:

The United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded in its August 2020 final report that as Trump campaign manager "Manafort worked with Kilimnik starting in 2016 on narratives that sought to undermine evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election" and to direct such suspicions toward Ukraine. The report characterized Kilimnik as a "Russian intelligence officer" and said Manafort's activities represented a "grave counterintelligence threat."^[172] The investigation found:

Manafort's presence on the Campaign and proximity to Trump created opportunities for the Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump Campaign. The Committee assesses that Kilimnik likely served as a channel to Manafort for Russian intelligence services, and that those services likely sought to exploit Manafort's access to gain insight [into] the Campaign...On numerous occasions over the course of his time of the Trump Campaign, Manafort sought to secretly share internal campaign information with Kilimnik...Manafort briefed Kilimnik on sensitive campaign polling data and the campaign's strategy for beating Hillary Clinton.^[173][174]

The Committee did not definitively establish Kilimnik as a channel connected to the hacking and leaking of DNC emails, noting that its investigation was hampered by Manafort and Kilimnik's use of "sophisticated communications security practices" and Manafort's lies during SCO interviews on the topic.^[175] The report noted:

"Manafort's obfuscation of the truth surrounding Kilimnik was particularly damaging to the Committee's investigation because it effectively foreclosed direct insight into a series of interactions and communications which represent the single most direct tie between senior Trump Campaign officials and the Russian intelligence services."^[175]

In April 2021, a document released by the U.S. Treasury Department announcing new sanctions against Russia confirmed a direct pipeline from Manafort to Russian intelligence, noting: “During the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, Kilimnik provided the Russian Intelligence Services with sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy”.^[176][177]

 

[Sandy Larsen]

 

The following April 5, 2021 New York Times article give details on how Paul Manafort was linked to Russian intelligence. The referenced (and linked) Treasury Department document gives the greatest details.

 

Biden Administration Says Russian Intelligence Obtained Trump Campaign Data

Following is an excerpt from the article:

The revelation, made public in a Treasury Department document announcing new sanctions against Russia, established for the first time that private meetings and communications between the [Trump] campaign officials, Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, and their business associate were a direct pipeline from the campaign to Russian spies at a time when the Kremlin was engaged in a covert effort to sabotage the 2016 presidential election.

 

[Keven Hofeling]

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

From the same Wikipedia article, pertinent details regarding the Republican-Controlled Senate Intelligence Committee findings:

The United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded in its August 2020 final report that as Trump campaign manager "Manafort worked with Kilimnik starting in 2016 on narratives that sought to undermine evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election" and to direct such suspicions toward Ukraine. The report characterized Kilimnik as a "Russian intelligence officer" and said Manafort's activities represented a "grave counterintelligence threat."^[172] The investigation found:

Manafort's presence on the Campaign and proximity to Trump created opportunities for the Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump Campaign. The Committee assesses that Kilimnik likely served as a channel to Manafort for Russian intelligence services, and that those services likely sought to exploit Manafort's access to gain insight [into] the Campaign...On numerous occasions over the course of his time of the Trump Campaign, Manafort sought to secretly share internal campaign information with Kilimnik...Manafort briefed Kilimnik on sensitive campaign polling data and the campaign's strategy for beating Hillary Clinton.^[173][174]

The Committee did not definitively establish Kilimnik as a channel connected to the hacking and leaking of DNC emails, noting that its investigation was hampered by Manafort and Kilimnik's use of "sophisticated communications security practices" and Manafort's lies during SCO interviews on the topic.^[175] The report noted:

"Manafort's obfuscation of the truth surrounding Kilimnik was particularly damaging to the Committee's investigation because it effectively foreclosed direct insight into a series of interactions and communications which represent the single most direct tie between senior Trump Campaign officials and the Russian intelligence services."^[175]

In April 2021, a document released by the U.S. Treasury Department announcing new sanctions against Russia confirmed a direct pipeline from Manafort to Russian intelligence, noting: “During the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, Kilimnik provided the Russian Intelligence Services with sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy”.^[176][177]

 

Sandy, the Senate Intelligence Committee on Collusion based its findings on Mueller's Office of Special Counsel's convictions of Paul Manafort, all of which related to Manafort's pre-Russiagate lobbying activities in Ukraine, and the Mueller Report also relied upon those same Court proceedings.

Sure, Mueller and the Senate Committe made sensationalist allegations, but they never produced evidence that Paul Manafort or Konstantin Kiliminik ever had any contacts with Russian intelligence officers.

This is the United States, and under the constitutional and judicial principles of our system of justice every defendant, including Paul Manafort and Konstantin Kiliminik, is entitled to a presumption of innocence, meaning that in a criminal trial, or even an investigation by a Senate Intelligence Committee, they are both assumed to be innocent until they have been proven guilty. As such, a prosecutor is required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Manafort and Kiliminik committed the crimes alleged if they are to be convicted. To do so, proof must be shown for every single element of a crime.

In the case of Manafort and Kiliminik, neither has ever been indicted for any crimes related to Russian collusion, just for crimes related to Manafort's lobbying business in Ukraine. The sensationalist allegations of the Mueller Report and the Senate Intelligence Committee on Collusion do not even offer any actual evidence that Manafort and Kiliminik ever had any contacts with Russian intelligence officers, much less any criminal charges for same. Presuming Manafort and Kiliminik are guilty without being convicted of crimes, and even without any evidence that crimes were committed (i.e. evidence of contacts with Russian intelligence officers), is what you might expect to happen in Russia or China, but not in the United States.

The following constitutes conclusive proof that all of the charges that were brought against Paul Manafort by Mueller's Office of Special Counsel, and all of the convictions that resulted against Paul Manafort, were all related to their lobbying activities in Ukraine, and had nothing to do with allegations of Russian collusion.

____________

Mr. Neirdehut, the Ron Wyden letter you were clamoring about flast week illustrates the problem with your Washington Post article (which I am going to demonstrate below):

https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/final_signed_wyden_letter_to_dni_on_2016_election_report_declassification.pdf

Senator Wyden, unlike you, has the good sense to have done his preliminary research, and has become aware that the Paul Manafort case suffers from a severe shortcoming, that being, a total absence of solid substantiating evidence. Thus, he has written to the Director of National Intelligence requesting declassification of redacted portions of the Senate Intelligence Report on Collusion. Senator Wyden knows, of course, what the redacted sections amount to, and therefore knows that they won't be redacted, because -- it is my prediction -- the redactions are exculpatory in nature and were redacted to save the Committee from further embarrassment. In any event, for your purposes, the redacted portions of the Senate Committee report do not constitute "evidence," and your allusions to the contrary are mere speculation.

The headline of your Washington Post article is "Federal judge finds Paul Manafort lied to Mueller probe about contacts with Russian aide," so we shall see if it delivers the content it promises.

Your Washington Post article begins with the following paragraph:

"Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort lied to prosecutors with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III about matters close to the heart of their investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, a federal judge ruled Wednesday."

It certainly sounds damning, but is it true?

In determining this, I want to expand the scope of the inquiry to include all of the Manafort charges and convictions, not only in the Court proceedings addressed in your article (Judge Amy Berman Jackson's U.S. District Court for the District of Colombia), but also for Judge T. S. Ellis III's U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Manafort's trial in the Eastern District of Virginia began on July 31, 2018. Manafort was charged with various financial crimes including tax evasion, bank fraud, and money laundering. There were 18 criminal charges including 5 falsifications of income tax returns, 4 failures to file foreign bank account reports, 4 counts of bank fraud, and 5 counts of bank fraud conspiracy. On August 21, 2018, the jury found Manafort guilty on 8 of the 18 felony counts, including five counts of filing false tax returns, two counts of bank fraud, and one count of failing to disclose a foreign bank account. Judge Ellis declared a mistrial on the remaining 10 charges.

None of the Virginia charges or convictions had anything to do with Russiagate. To provide you with certainty about that I am providing you with Office of Special Counsel ("OSC") Robert Mueller's summary of the Virginia proceedings from page 5 and 6 of the "GOVERNMENT’S SENTENCING MEMORANDUM" in the District of Colombia case, as follows:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597.525.0_4.pdf

Likewise, none of the District of Colombia charges or convictions had anything to do with Russiagate. To provide you with certainty about that I am providing you with OSC Robert Mueller's summary of the D.C. proceedings from page 6-8 of the "GOVERNMENT’S SENTENCING MEMORANDUM" in the District of Colombia case, as follows:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597.525.0_4.pdf

Note that so far, Manafort has not been charged with or convicted of any offenses that have anything to do with Russiagate or Russian collusion, which brings us to the subject matter of your Washington Post article, the charges and convictions related to Paul Manafort's breach of his Cooperation Agreement with the OSC.

The OSC charged Paul Manafort with 5 charges related to his breach of the Cooperation Agreement. The most concise recitation of those 5 charges and proceedings associated therewith is found in Judge Amy Berman Jackson's February 13, 2019 Order, which follows. As you can see, none of these 5 offenses have anything to do with Russiagate or Russian collusion, and I have included links to the pleadings of the OSC and Defendant Manafort upon which the Court based its judgment so that you can inquire further about the nature of each charge (but note that there are redactions which I believe were intended to make it difficult for the media to report that there was no Russia collusion involved, so you may need to review all of them to piece it together as I have):

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597.509.0_5.pdf

"...On November 26, 2018, the parties informed the Court in a joint status report [Dkt. # 455]
that it was the government’s position that the defendant had breached the plea agreement by making false statements to the FBI and Office of Special Counsel (“OSC”) and that it was time to set a sentencing date. The defendant disputed the government’s characterization of the information he had provided and denied that he had breached the agreement, but he agreed that in light of the dispute, it was time to proceed to sentencing. Thereafter, the government was ordered to provide the Court with information concerning the alleged breach, a schedule was established for the defense to respond, and the following submissions were made a part of the record in the case:

December 7, 2018 Government’s Submission in Support of its Breach Determination
[Dkt. # 461] (Sealed); [Dkt. # 460] (Public) https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597.460.0_3.pdf

January 8, 2019 Defendant’s Response to the Government’s Submission in Support
of its Breach Determination [Dkt. # 470] (Sealed); [Dkt. # 472] (Public) https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597.471.0_6.pdf

January 15, 2019 FBI Declaration in Support of the Government’s Breach
Determination with accompanying exhibits [Dkt # 477] (Sealed); 
[Dkt. # 476] (Public) https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597.476.0_4.pdf

January 23, 2019 Defendant’s Reply to the Declaration [Dkt. # 481] (Sealed);
[Dkt. # 482] (Public) https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597.482.0_7.pdf

The Court held a sealed hearing on February 4, 2019, and the parties each filed post-hearing
submissions. See Def.’s Post-Hearing Mem. [Dkt. # 502] (Sealed), [Dkt. # 505] (Public);
Government’s Suppl. [Dkt. # 507] (Sealed). https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597.505.0.pdf

It is a matter of public record that "the Office of Special Counsel has alleged that the defendant made intentionally false statements to the FBI, the OSC, and/or the grand jury in connection with five matters: (i) a payment made by Firm A to a law firm to pay a debt owed to the law firm by defendant Manafort; (ii) co-defendant Konstantin Kilimnik’s role in the obstruction of justice conspiracy; (iii) the defendant’s interactions and communications with Kilimnik; (iv) another Department of Justice investigation; (v) and the defendant’s contacts with the current administration after the election. The parties are agreed that it is the government’s burden to show that there has been a breach of the plea agreement, but to be relieved of its obligations under the agreement, it must simply demonstrate that its determination was made in good faith. Plea Agreement ¶ 13."

With regard to the 5 charges brought against Manafort by the OSC, Judge Amy Berman Jackson's February 13, 2019 final Order provided as follows:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597/gov.uscourts.dcd.190597.509.0_5.pdf

Thus, concerning Mueller's Office of Special Counsel allegations that Manafort had breached the terms of his plea agreement by lying to the FBI and the OSC, of the 5 allegations, the Court found in favor of the government on 3, all of which were predicated upon Manafort's consulting work for the government of Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine before Yanukovych's overthrow in 2014. The Court specifically found that Manafort had not intentionally made false statements concerning Kilimnick's role in the obstruction of justice conspiracy, and that Manafort had not intentionally made a false statement concerning his contacts with the Trump administration.

This means that the central claim of your Washington Post article -- that "Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort lied to prosecutors with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III about matters close to the heart of their investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, a federal judge ruled Wednesday." -- is absolutely and categorically false.

Your Washington Post article goes on to state the following:

"Manafort’s lies, the judge found, included “his interactions and communications with [Konstantin] Kilimnik,” a longtime aide whom the FBI assessed to have ties to Russian intelligence.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District said Manafort also lied to the special counsel, the FBI and the grand jury about a payment from a company to a law firm — which he previously characterized as a loan repayment — and made false statements that were material to another Justice Department investigation whose focus has not been described in public filings in Manafort’s case."

Note how the author of the article inserted that Konstantin Kiliminak was "a longtime aide whom the FBI assessed to have ties to Russian intelligence" to imply that Manafort's non-Russiagate related convictions were in fact related to Russiagate.

Then, again, the article falsely insinuates that the OSC's prosecution of Mantafort involved Russiagate, when it in fact did not:

"In the deal with prosecutors, Manafort agreed to cooperate “fully and truthfully” with the government, seemingly giving investigators access to a witness who was at key events relevant to the Russia investigation — a Trump Tower meeting attended by a Russian lawyer, the Republican National Convention and a host of other behind-the-scenes discussions in the spring and summer of 2016."

And throughout the article are allegations that imply Russian involvement in the past associations between Kilimnik and Manafort which were not substantiated in the Virginia or D.C. cases, nor by the Mueller Report or the Senate Committee Report on Collusion:

"Mueller prosecutors have said Manafort’s lies about the frequency and substance of his contacts with Kilimnik go “very much to the heart of what the special counsel’s office is investigating.”

They highlighted Manafort’s shifting account of an August 2016 meeting in New York City with Kilimnik — a longtime aide who also has been indicted in the Mueller investigation — in which the pair discussed a peace plan for Ukraine, while Manafort served as Trump’s campaign chairman.

 A resolution of hostilities in Ukraine that leads to the lifting of sanctions against Russia is a top Kremlin foreign policy goal.

Mueller’s office also claims Manafort “intentionally provided false information” in debriefing sessions on several topics, including the extent and substance of his interactions with Kilimnik.

The pair met in December 2016, in January 2017 when Kilimnik was in Washington and again in February 2017, and as recently as the winter of 2018, according to previously released court documents.

Prosecutors also said that Manafort passed polling data related to the U.S. presidential campaign to Kilimnik during the campaign and that the two worked on a poll in Ukraine in 2018....

...Jackson’s brief order did not add to what was previously known about the Aug. 2, 2016, meeting at the Grand Havana Room, an upscale cigar bar in Manhattan, between Manafort and Kilimnik.

Prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said in a previous court hearing that the meeting included Rick Gates, who was Manafort’s top deputy on the Trump campaign and in Ukraine and has also pleaded guilty in the Mueller investigation, and that Gates said the men left separately using different exits than Kilimnik."

Mr. Neiderhut, your Washington Post article is yellow journalism in its purest form, and that you think it is solid evidence of Russiagate makes you and Russiagate appear all the more ridiculous.

 

Edited April 4 by Keven Hofeling

[W. Niederhut]

More reality for Kevin What's-His-Face and others living in the MAGA-verse...

1)  Robert Mueller never claimed that the 2016 Trump campaign did not collude with Russia.  That false MAGA trope was relentlessly repeated by Trump, Fox News, and the MAGA media after Bill Barr aborted Mueller's investigation in March of 2019, and publicly misrepresented Mueller's findings.  Barr also blocked Congressional and public access to the Mueller Report, which Senate Democrats had requested prior to Barr's narrow confirmation as AG, along party lines.

     Barr worked hard to suppress and cover up Trump's Russiagate scandal-- just as he had worked hard to pardon Reagan and GHWB's Iran-Contra convicts in 1989.

2) Both Paul Manafort and Donald Trump, himself, repeatedly stonewalled Mueller's investigation.  Trump floated pardons to witnesses and, ultimately, pardoned Manafort for committing perjury to stonewall Mueller's investigation.

3) Mueller never subpoenaed Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, or Don, Jr.

4) Trump stonewalled Mueller's written questions with repeated claims that he "could not recall" details of his 2016 campaign collusion with Russian officials.

See, for example;

Full text of Mueller's questions and Trump's answers | AP News

Edited April 4 by W. Niederhut

[Keven Hofeling]

3 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

The following April 5, 2021 New York Times article give details on how Paul Manafort was linked to Russian intelligence. The referenced (and linked) Treasury Department document gives the greatest details.

 

Biden Administration Says Russian Intelligence Obtained Trump Campaign Data

Following is an excerpt from the article:

The revelation, made public in a Treasury Department document announcing new sanctions against Russia, established for the first time that private meetings and communications between the [Trump] campaign officials, Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, and their business associate were a direct pipeline from the campaign to Russian spies at a time when the Kremlin was engaged in a covert effort to sabotage the 2016 presidential election.

 

Sandy, as you will see in the following, the Treasury Department had no new evidence to support their claimed justification for the sanctions, so the whole matter remains where it was as presented in my other responses to you:

THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF ANY CONTACTS BETWEEN PAUL MANAFORT AND KONSTANTIN KILIMNIK, AND THE MUELLER OFFICE OF SPECIAL COUNSEL CASES AGAINST THEM WHICH WERE ENTIRELY BASED UPON THEIR PRE-RUSSIAGATE LOBBYING IN UKRAINE IS STILL THE BEST SOURCE OF EVIDENCE WITH THE GREATEST EVIDENTIARY WEIGHT SHOWING THAT THERE WAS NO RUSSIAN COLLUSION.

Here is the key excerpt from the New York Times article you are quoting, which acknowledges that there was no new evidence to support the Russian collusion allegation (a characteristic that is rampant among mainstream press coverage of these Russian collusion stories [characteristic of yellow journalism], and is also true of sources such as Wikipedia):

"...The Biden administration provided no supporting evidence to bolster the assessment that the Russian intelligence services obtained the polling data and campaign information. And the release shed no light on why Mr. Manafort and Mr. Gates gave polling data to Mr. Kilimnik, although previous government reports have indicated that Mr. Manafort thought Trump campaign strategy information could be a valuable commodity for future business deals with Kremlin-connected oligarchs.

Having the polling data would have allowed Russia to better understand the Trump campaign strategy — including where the campaign was focusing resources — at a time when the Russian government was carrying out its own efforts to undermine Donald J. Trump’s opponent.

Mr. Gates said in a statement on Thursday that the Treasury Department had failed to provide any evidence to back up its claim, adding that “the polling data passed periodically to Kilimnik at Paul Manafort’s direction was simplistic and outdated, never in real time.”

“It was from both public and internal sources,” Mr. Gates said. “It was not massive binders full of demographics or deep research. It was ‘topline’ numbers and did not contain any strategic plans.”..."

'Biden Administration Says Russian Intelligence Obtained Trump Campaign Data'
A Treasury Department document shed more light on links between the campaign and Russian spies.

By Mark Mazzetti and Michael S. Schmidt | New York Times | April 15, 2021 |  https://web.archive.org/web/20211107015515/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/15/us/politics/russian-intelligence-trump-campaign.html

A Treasury Department document shed more light on links between the campaign and Russian spies.

NBC News asked the Treasury Department to disclose the evidence upon which the sanctions were based and were, as usual with government disclosures of evidence relating to the Russiagate hoax, given the runaround:

"....The officials did not disclose when or how the U.S. came into possession of the new intelligence about Kilimnik, including whether or not the information was developed during the Trump or Biden administrations. The officials did not identify the source or type of intelligence that had been developed...."

'U.S. has new intel that Manafort friend Kilimnik gave Trump campaign data to Russia'

By Tom Winter and Monica Alba | NBC News | April 16, 2021 | https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/u-s-has-new-intel-manafort-friend-kilimnik-gave-trump-n1264371
Paul Manafort was chair of the Trump campaign for part of 2016. Kilimnik had worked for him in Ukraine. U.S. officials say Kilimnik is a Russian spy.

All the usual suspects immediately trumpeted the Treasury Report from the rooftops as if it were evidence, such as Rachel Maddow and Adam Schiff, as noted in the following video excerpt by Aaron Mate and Glenn Greenwald (who emphasize, highlight and underscore the fact that there is absolutely no evidence to support the Russia collusion allegations against Paul Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik):

Glenn Greenwald on why Russiagate disinformation never ends

The Grayzone | Apr 30, 2021 | https://youtu.be/6AXcjwX-JGA?si=P48JFo0WzKhR-y-6&t=861

On the same day that the claim of "Russian bounties" in Afghanistan collapsed, another US intelligence-sourced, evidence-free claim was treated as vindication for conspiracy theories about Trump-Russia collusion. 

Glenn Greenwald and Aaron Maté discuss the predictable demise of the "Russian bounties"; the Biden administration's new evidence-free assertion that Paul Manafort associate Konstantin Kilimnik passed Trump campaign polling data to Russia; and why major US media outlets continue to parrot Russiagate disinformation no matter how many times the "bombshells" turn into duds.

Guest: Glenn Greenwald. Journalist whose latest book is "Securing Democracy: My Fight for Press Freedom and Justice in Bolsonaro’s Brazil." 

Ultimately, the truth remains as follows, even after the Department of Treasury sanctions:

"...All of this highlights another inconvenient fact about Mueller’s case against Manafort: It is not about Russia, but about tax, bank, and lobbying violations stemming from his time in Ukraine. The Virginia judge who presided over Manafort’s first trial said the charges against him “manifestly don’t have anything to do with the [2016] campaign or with Russian collusion.” The collusion probe, the DC judge in Manafort’s second trial concurred, was “wholly irrelevant” to these charges...."

The Manafort Revelation Is Not a Smoking Gun
AARON MATÉ | THE NATION | JANUARY 11, 2019 | https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/manafort-no-smoking-gun-collusion/

Proponents of the Trump-Russia collusion theory wildly overstate their case, again.

The following interview of and article about Konstantin Kilimnik reveals how hollow and fraudulent the exagerated and sensational claims that Paul Manafort and Kilimnik had contacts with Russian intelligence agents are, and I highly recommend that you read it:

 

Accused Russiagate 'Spy' Kilimnik Speaks -- and Evidence Backs His 'No Collusion' Account

Konstantin KiIimnik says his standard red passport, above, disproves the Mueller report's claim he used a diplomatic passport, a tipoff to being a Russian agent. See "Kilimnik Passport" section below.

By Aaron Maté, RealClearInvestigations
May 19, 2021 | https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/05/19/accused_russiagate_spy_kilimnik_speaks_-_and_evidence_backs_his_no_collusion_account_777328.html

The man cast as a linchpin of debunked Trump-Russia collusion theories is breaking his silence to vigorously dispute the U.S. government’s effort to brand him a Russian spy and put him behind bars.

In an exclusive interview with RealClearInvestigations, Konstantin Kilimnik stated, "I have no relationship whatsoever to any intelligence services, be they Russian or Ukrainian or American, or anyone else."

Konstantin Kilimnik: Decries the U.S. government's "senseless and false accusations."

AP Photo

 

Kilimnik, a longtime employee of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, spoke out in response to an explosive Treasury Department statement declaring that he had "provided the Russian Intelligence Services with sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy" during the 2016 election. That press release, which announced an array of sanctions on Russian nationals last month, also alleged that Kilimnik is a "known Russian Intelligence Services agent implementing influence operations on their behalf."

Treasury's claim came shortly after two other accusatory U.S. government statements about the dual Ukrainian-Russian national. In March, a U.S. Intelligence Community Assessment accused Kilimnik of being a "Russian influence agent" who meddled in the 2020 campaign to assist Trump's reelection. A month earlier, an FBI alert offered $250,000 for information leading to his arrest over a 2018 witness tampering charge in Manafort's shuttered Ukraine lobbying case, which was unrelated to Russia, collusion, or any elections.

Treasury provided no evidence for its claims, which go beyond the findings of the two most extensive Russiagate investigations: the 448-page report issued in 2019 by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the 966-page report issued in August 2020 by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Treasury has declined all media requests for elaboration on how it reached conclusions that those probes did not. Two unidentified officials told NBC News that U.S. intelligence "has developed new information" about Kilimnik "that leads them to believe" (emphasis added) that he passed on the polling data to Russia. But these  sources "did not identify the source or type of intelligence that had been developed," nor "when or how" it was received.

"Nobody has seen any evidence to support these claims about Kilimnik," a congressional source familiar with the House and Senate's multiple Russia-related investigations told RCI.

Adam Schiff: Treated the Treasury claim about Kilimnik as the Trump-Russia smoking gun. "That's what most people would call collusion," he said.

(Al Drago/Pool via AP)

 

Despite the absence of evidence, the Treasury press release's one-sentence claim about Kilimnik has been widely greeted as the Trump-Russia smoking gun. Rep. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who heads the House Intelligence Committee, told MSNBC that Treasury's assertion about Kilimnik proved that Russian intelligence was "involved in trying to help Trump win in that [2016] election. That's what most people would call collusion."

Speaking to RCI in fluent English from his home in Moscow, Kilimnik, 51, described these U.S. government assertions as "senseless and false accusations."

His comments are backed up by documents, some previously unreported, as well as by Rick Gates, a longtime Manafort associate and key Mueller probe cooperating witness. (Gates pleaded guilty to making a false statement and to failing to register as a foreign agent in connection to his lobbying work in Ukraine.) The evidence raises doubts about new efforts to revive the Trump-Kremlin collusion narrative by casting Kilimnik as a central Russian figure.

"They needed a Russian to investigate 'Russia collusion,' and I happened to be that Russian," Kilimnik said.

Highlights from the interview and RCI's related reporting:

• Kilimnik denies passing 2016 polling data to Russian intelligence, or any Russian for that matter. Instead, Kilimnik says he shared publicly available, general information about the 2016 American presidential race to Ukrainian clients of Manafort's in a bid to recover old debts and drum up new business. Gates told RCI that the Mueller team "cherry-picked" his testimony about Kilimnik to spread a misleading, collusion-favorable narrative. The U.S. government has never publicly produced the polling data at issue, nor any evidence that it was shared with Russia.
• Despite his centrality to the Trump-Russia saga, Kilimnik says no U.S. government official has ever tried get in touch with him. "I never had a single contact with [the] FBI or any government official," Kilimnik says. 
• Kilimnik shared documents that contradict the Special Counsel's effort to prove that he has Russian intelligence "ties." Photos and video of his Russian passport and a U.S. visa in his name, shared with RCI, undermine the Mueller report’s claim that Kilimnik visited the United States on a Russian "diplomatic passport" in 1997. To judge from the images, he travelled on a civilian passport and obtained a regular U.S. visa. The Mueller team has never produced the “diplomatic passport.” 
• Kilimnik denies traveling to Spain to meet Manafort in 2017. If true, this would undercut the Mueller team’s claim that Manafort lied in denying such a meeting. That denial was used to help secure a 2019 court ruling that Manafort breached a cooperation agreement. The Special Counsel never furnished evidence for the alleged Madrid encounter.
• While the Treasury Department and Senate Intelligence Committee claim that Kilimnik is a Russian intelligence officer, no U.S. security or intelligence agency has adopted this characterization.
• Kilimnik has never been charged with anything related to espionage, Russia, collusion, or the 2016 election. Instead, the Mueller team indicted Kilimnik on witness-tampering charges in a case pertaining to Manafort's lobbying work in Ukraine. 
• Meanwhile, the FBI's $250,000 bounty for Kilimnik is larger than most rewards it offers for the capture of violent fugitives, including those accused of child murder. 

Reviving the Polling Data Conspiracy Theory

Kilminik has provided an inviting target for proponents of Trump-Russia conspiracy theories. He was born in 1970 in Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet Union, and later worked for Paul Manafort as a translator and aide there. This background makes him one of the few people in the broad Trump 2016 campaign orbit to possess a Russian passport.

To this Mueller and others have added a series of ambiguous and disputed allegations to say that the FBI "assesses" him to "have ties to Russian intelligence." This characterization, first made in a 2017 court filing, quickly transmogrified into a presumed fact of the collusion narrative.

Rather than prosecute Manafort for any crime related to Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, the Mueller team instead pursued him on financial and lobbying charges involving his pre-Trump stint as a political consultant in Ukraine. In 2018, it accused Kilimnik of seeking to pressure two "potential witnesses" by sending them text messages about Manafort's Ukraine lobbying work.

As the Russia probe came to a close without a single indictment related to a Trump-Kremlin conspiracy, the Mueller team used Kilimnik to suggest collusion without formally alleging it.

In January 2019, the Mueller team accused Manafort of breaching their cooperation agreement by lying about his interactions with his Russian employee. Topping the list were alleged false statements about sharing election polling data with Kilimnik in 2016.

Andrew Weissmann: Despite this lead Mueller prosecutor's suggestion otherwise, the Mueller report "did not identify evidence of a connection between Manafort’s sharing polling data and Russia’s interference in the election," as the report itself stated.

NYU Law

 

"This goes to the larger view of what we think is going on, and what we think is the motive here," lead prosecutor Andrew Weissmann told Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC. "This goes, I think, very much to the heart of what the special counsel’s office is investigating."

Weissmann's musings became collusion fodder. Media pundits and influential Democrats, namely Congressional intelligence leaders Schiff and Mark Warner, speculated that Kilimnik shared Trump campaign polling data with Russian intelligence officers as they allegedly worked to turn the election in Trump's favor. "This appears as the closest we've seen yet to real, live, actual collusion," Warner told CNN. "Clearly, Manafort was trying to collude with Russian agents."

But soon after, the Mueller team quietly undercut Weissmann's "larger view" and the conspiratorial innuendo that it had fueled. One month after igniting the frenzy about the polling data, Weissmann submitted a heavily redacted court filing that walked back some of his claims. The following month, the Special Counsel's final report acknowledged that its musings and speculations about Kilimnik could not be corroborated. The Mueller team not only "did not identify evidence of a connection between Manafort’s sharing polling data and Russia’s interference in the election," as the report stated, but also "could not assess what Kilimnik (or others he may have given it to) did with it."

Rick Gates: Ex-Manafort aide says the Mueller team "cherry-picked" his testimony about Kilimnik to spread a misleading, collusion-favorable narrative.

AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

 

"I have no idea who made up the lies about 'detailed' or 'sensitive' polling data, or why they did it," Kilimnik says. "They were mostly quotes of the polls from the media, such as LA Times and others. They would be 'Clinton – 43, Trump – 42.' Never anything more detailed. I never got even a page printed out with either polling data or any other info."

This public data was shared, Kilimnik says, with Ukrainian clients of Manafort's as part of both regular political chatter and an effort to encourage future business. "I shared this info with a lot of our clients in Ukraine, who were closely following the race and who were excited about Paul working for [Trump]," Kilimnik says.

If any government official did receive his polling data, Kilimnik adds, they were not Russian but rather from Ukraine or even the United States. "I would share it with our political contacts in Ukraine, basically to keep their interest to Paul and our Ukrainian business alive. Also I shared it with the U.S. and other embassies, basically offering the opinion that the election is not over."

Kilimnik's account is corroborated by Gates, the ex-Manafort associate and Trump campaign official whose testimony was used by the Mueller team – deceptively, he says – to suggest a connection between the polling data and possible Trump-Russia collusion. The Special Counsel's office "relied heavily on Mr. Gates for evidence" about the polling data, the New York Times noted in February 2019.

According to Gates, that reliance entailed significant creative license by Mueller's prosecutors, particularly Weissmann. Gates says he told the Special Counsel's Office that the polling data was not sensitive information, but rather publicly available figures taken from media outlets.

"I explained to them, over the course of many interviews, what the polling data was about, and why it was being shared," Gates told RCI. "All that was exchanged was old, topline data from public polls and from some internal polls, but all dated, nothing in real time. So for example, Trump 48, Clinton 46. It was not massive binders full of demographics or deep research. No documents were ever shared or disclosed. And this is part of what Mueller left out of the report. They cherry-picked and built a narrative that really was not true, because they had pre-determined the conclusion."

Happier times: Manafort and colleagues, with Kilimnik far left and the boss seated in white shirt, red tie.

AP Photo

 

Asked why Manafort shared any polling data with clients in Ukraine, Kilimnik and Gates stressed the same reason: money. "The were some outstanding debts, which we were working to get repaid, which never happened," Kilimnik says. "And there was also Paul's reputation. He was very well known to a lot of people in Kiev, and he hoped [he] could generate some new business" by showcasing his work for Trump's campaign.

"This was a way that Paul was using to let people in Ukraine know that he was doing very well in the United States running the election of Donald Trump, and that he was trying to collect the remaining fees that he was owed," for prior work in Ukraine, Gates says. "He was trying to position himself. This is not unlike any other political operative, Republican or Democrat, in politics. They all do it."

The Mueller report itself quietly bolsters Gates' and Kilimnik's converging recollections. "Gates' account about polling data is consistent [redacted]," it states, "… with multiple emails that Kilimnik sent to U.S. associates and press contacts" in the summer of 2016. "Those emails referenced 'internal polling,' described the status of the Trump Campaign and Manafort's role in it, and assessed Trump' s prospects for victory." The corresponding footnote cites eight emails from Kilimnik to these "U.S. associates and press contacts." This indicates that the Mueller team obtained direct evidence of the polling data that was shared; how it was discussed; and with whom it was shared.

Rather than highlight the Kilimnik emails that it obtained, and Gates' account that the polling data was shared for financial reasons, the Mueller report mentioned this information only in passing and ultimately concluded that it "could not reliably determine Manafort's purpose in sharing" the information. 

Weissmann did not respond to a request for comment.

The Kilimnik Passport

Kilimnik's passport from the time in question – to judge from photos and a video he shared with RCI – was issued in the standard red ... 

Konstantin Kilimnik via RealClearInvestigations

 

...  not in the green of the diplomatic corps. Mueller cited a Kilimnik "diplomatic passport" as evidence of "ties to Russian intelligence."

Government of Russia/Wikimedia

 

Although the Mueller report walked back Weissman’s innuendo regarding polling data, its assertion that Kilimnik has “ties to Russian intelligence" remains a foundation of the Russia collusion narrative.

Putting aside the fact that the government has never produced any evidence that Kilimnik communicated with Russian intelligence or the Kremlin, RCI has obtained documents that undercut the government’s basis for assuming those unspecified "ties."

In Mueller's own telling, Kilimnik's only direct link to the Russian government was his enrollment in a Soviet military academy from 1987 to 1992, where he trained as a linguist. "It's a language school, similar to what you guys have in Fort Monterey," Kilimnik said, referring to the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, in Monterey, California. "It's a university that trains military translators, mostly for the army, not for the intelligence services. Basically it was a military training, for five years, focusing on English and Swedish. In normal circumstances, I would actually go and serve in the army, but because Soviet Union was falling apart, I was able to get a job as the instructor of Swedish at the university. I never served in the real army. If teaching Swedish counts as spying – that will be very surprising."

To substantiate Kilimnik's alleged Russian intelligence "ties," the Mueller team wrote that Kilimnik "obtained a visa to travel to the United States with a Russian diplomatic passport in 1997." (Intelligence operatives often travel to foreign countries under diplomatic cover.)

Kilimnik's U.S. visa shows an "R" for "regular." (The typo in his last name was corrected on a later visa.)

Konstantin Kilimnik via RealClearInvestigations

 

But Kilimnik's passport from that period – to judge from the images he shared with RCI via a messaging app – was issued in the standard red color, not in the green color of the diplomatic corps. The document also contains a regular U.S. visa issued on October 28, 1997 – the same date the Mueller report claims he traveled to the U.S. "with a Russian diplomatic passport." The U.S. visa to Kilimnik is issued under the category of "R" – which stands for Regular – and "B1/B2," the designation for a temporary visa for business and tourism.

The Mueller team's claim that he possessed and travelled on a diplomatic passport is "a blatant lie," Kilimnik told RCI. "I never had a diplomatic passport in my life. It's one of many very sloppy things in the Muller report, which don't make sense."

The Mueller report cites Kilimnik's "travel to the United States with a Russian diplomatic passport."

Mueller report, Page 133

 

Told of the Mueller report's apparent error concerning Kilimnik's passport, a Justice Department spokesperson declined comment. Former Special Counsel Mueller and former lead prosecutor Weissmann did not respond to emailed queries.

Ironically, at the time when Mueller team claims that he visited the U.S. on behalf of the Russian government, Kilimnik was in fact working for the U.S. government at the U.S. Congress-funded International Republican Institute (IRI) in Moscow. As RealClearInvestigations has previously reported, Kilimnik's 10-year IRI tenure is among several substantial Western government connections that have been ignored in amid efforts to accuse him of ties to the Russian government. "I gave IRI my CV which clearly said which school I graduated from, and gave my detailed background," Kilimnik recalls. "I never concealed anything."

Kilimnik: No Madrid Meeting With Manafort

When it comes to his travel history, Kilimnik says that the Special Counsel's Office made another significant error: falsely claiming that he and Manafort held a meeting in Spain.

"I have never been to Madrid in my life," Kilimnik says.

Wikimedia

 

When Manafort denied that he and Kilimnik met in Madrid in 2017, the Mueller team accused him of lying and cited this as one of several alleged breaches of their cooperation agreement. The Mueller report claims that the two met in the Spanish capital on Feb. 26, 2017, "where Kilimnik had flown from Moscow."

It also states that Manafort initially denied the Madrid meeting in his first two interviews with the Special Counsel's office, but then relented "after being confronted with documentary evidence that Kilimnik was in Madrid at the same time as him." 

But Kilimnik tells RCI that no such meeting occurred, and that he believes that Manafort was coerced into changing his story.

"I have never been to Madrid in my life," Kilimnik says. The "documentary evidence" referenced in the Mueller report was, he speculates, a flight booking that was ultimately cancelled. "I was thinking about going to Madrid, and I discussed it with Paul," he says. "But it made no sense. And ultimately, it was too expensive. So I didn't go."

Had he actually visited Madrid, Kilimnik says, the Mueller team would have "easily found proof – tickets, boarding passes, border crossings – all that stuff. It's not rocket science to get it. The European Union is a pretty disciplined place. There would be at least be a record of me crossing the border somewhere in the EU."

Kilimnik told RCI that the last time he saw Manafort was one month before the alleged Madrid trip, around the time of Trump’s inauguration in Janaury 2017. "I did not attend any of the inauguration events myself," he recalls. "But I spent some time to meet with Paul, and to catch up. That was our last meeting in-person, in Alexandria [Virginia]."

Asked why Manafort would have admitted to a Madrid meeting that did not in fact take place, Kilimnik said that his former boss faced heavy pressure while locked up by the Mueller team, which included a long stint in solitary confinement. "I don't know why he said that. I have difficulties to imagine Paul's psychological state when he was jailed. A guy who [had] a very high-level life. Jail is a tough place. I still get the shudders to think what he had to go through."

The allegation that Manafort lied to the Mueller team proved consequential. In February 2019, U.S. District Judge  Jackson sided with the Special Counsel and voided Manafort's plea deal. No longer bound to give him a reduced sentence for cooperating, Jackson nearly doubled Manafort's prison term on top of his earlier conviction and excoriated him for telling "lies." President Trump pardoned in Manafort in December 2020.

Told that Kilimnik denies ever visiting Madrid, and asked whether the Special Counsel's office collected concrete evidence to the contrary, both former Special Counsel Mueller and lead prosecutor Weissmann did not respond. A Justice Department spokesperson declined comment.

FBI Alert Contradicts Senate-Treasury Spy Claim

Over one year after Mueller closed up shop, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) unilaterally upgraded Kilimnik's alleged Russian intelligence status. The panel's August 2020 report declared that Kilimnik, far from merely having "ties" to the GRU as Mueller had claimed, is in fact a full-fledged "Russian intelligence officer."

The Senate made the leap despite offering no new public evidence to support its explosive "assessment", and even acknowledging that its "power to investigate" – as well as "its staffing, resources, and technical capabilities" -- ultimately "falls short of the FBI's."

Richard Burr and Mark Warner, Republican chair and Democratic co-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The FBI and Justice Department do not endorse their panel's judgment that Kilimnik is a "Russian intelligence officer."

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

 

The Senate also labelled Kilimnik a Russian spy despite simultaneously presenting new evidence that he was, in the Committee's own words, a "valuable resource" for officials at the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, with whom he was "in regular contact."

In September 2020, RCI asked the FBI and Justice Department whether it shares the SSCI's judgment that Kilimnik is a "Russian intelligence officer." A DOJ spokesperson replied that "the Mueller report speaks for itself," and advised that the public "defer" to how Kilimnik was characterized in the Mueller report and the Special Counsel Office's indictments. This strongly suggested, RCI reported, that the FBI has not adopted the SSCI's view that Kilimnik is a Russian spy.

The FBI’s February "alert" offering $250,000 for information leading to Kilimnik's arrest bolsters this reporting. It once again states that Kilimnik is "assessed by the FBI to have ties to Russian intelligence" – shunning the SSCI's spy language and reverting to Mueller's original, ambiguous characterization.

The wording of the FBI alert underscores that while the Senate Intelligence Committee and Treasury Department have declared that Kilimnik is a Russian spy, the nation's top law enforcement agency has never adopted that assessment. When Manafort's legal team asked the Special Counsel's Office for any communication between Manafort and "Russian intelligence officials," they were told that "there are no materials responsive to [those] requests." In unsealed notes from early 2017, Peter Strzok – the top FBI counterintelligence agent who opened the Trump-Russia investigation – wrote: "We are unaware of ANY Trump advisers engaging in conversations with Russian intelligence officials."

Asked whether the FBI has altered its characterization of Kilimnik in light of Treasury's claim that he is a "known Russian Intelligence Services agent", an FBI spokesperson declined comment.

The FBI's alert was also remarkable for the size of the Kilimnik bounty, which is more than double the amount of most members of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List. While the bureau is offering $100,000 each for information regarding six alleged murderers, and $200,000 for another, the FBI is offering $250,000 for help nabbing Kilimnik on a lone witness tampering charge in Manafort's Ukraine lobbying case.

The Mueller team accused Kilimnik of sending text messages to two individuals with whom Manafort had worked during his Ukraine lobbying days. Kilimnik's aim, the Special Counsel's Office alleged, was to pressure the pair to attest that their prior work was focused on lobbying officials in Europe, not in the United States. These individuals – identified in court documents as "Person D1" and "Person D2" – were not active witnesses for the Mueller probe, but instead, according to the Special Counsel's Office, "potential witnesses."

The 13 Kilimnik messages to these "potential witnesses" cited by Mueller include the following:

• [Person D2], hi! How are you? Hope you are doing fine. ;)) 

• My friend P [Manafort] is trying to reach [Person D1] to brief him on what's going on.

• If you have a chance to mention this to [Person D1] - would be great.

• Basically P wants to give him a quick summary that he says to everybody (which is true) that our friends never lobbied in the U.S., and the purpose of the program was EU.

• Hi. This is [Kilimnik]. My friend P is looking for ways to connect to you to pass you several messages. Can we arrange that.

Kilimnik says that he was not trying to tamper with anyone. "I do not understand how two messages to our old partners who helped us get out the message about Ukraine's integration aspirations in EU, and asking them to get in touch with Paul, can be interpreted as 'intimidation' or 'obstruction of justice,'" he says. 

Whether or not Kilimnik sought to tamper with "potential witnesses" in Manafort's Ukraine lobbying case, the alleged 2018 infraction has nothing to do with 2016 Trump-Russia collusion. 

The FBI alert from February raises questions about the bombshell Treasury Department claims released two months later. If the U.S. government stands by Treasury's claims about Kilimnik, why is he wanted only on a minor, non-Russia related witness-tampering charge, and not for taking part in alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election? If Kilimnik indeed passed on "sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy" to Russian intelligence while working as a spy, why has he not been indicted alongside the Russian social media company charged by Mueller in February 2018, or the Russian intelligence officers charged by Mueller in July 2018?

To Kilimnik, the answer is found on that same Russian passport that Mueller mischaracterized. "It is clear to me that the indictment of 2018 was pulled out of the thin air, simply to have a Russian face in the mix," he says. "I understand that they needed a Russian to investigate 'Russia collusion,' and I happened to be that Russian," he says.

"The funny thing is that I'm not hiding. And I would have explained the same thing to the FBI or anyone who never reached out to me.  They don't because they don't want the truth." 

From Russian Spy to "Influence Agent"

In Kilimnik's eyes, his utility as a Russian national for the Trump-Russia collusion narrative also explains his prominent inclusion in the recent U.S. Intelligence Community Assessment, released in March one month after the FBI alert for his arrest.

In yet another new iteration of how Kilimnik is described by the U.S. government, the ICA does not call him a Russian intelligence officer, but instead a "Russian influence agent."

The ICA does not define the term "Russian influence agent," or explain how it reached that new assessment about Kilimnik. Nor does it put forth any evidence for the alleged Russian influence activities ascribed to him .

The report alleges that Kilimnik was part of a "network of Ukraine-linked individuals … connected to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB)" who "took steps throughout the [2020] election cycle to damage U.S. ties to Ukraine, denigrate President Biden and his candidacy, and benefit former President Trump’s prospects for reelection."

Andriy Derkach: "I have never met him in my life," Kilimnik says of this Ukrainian lawmaker with reputed Kremlin ties.

Petro Zhuravel/Wikimedia

 

As part of this alleged meddling network, the ICA asserts that Kilimnik tried to influence U.S. officials; helped produce a documentary that aired on U.S. television in January 2020; and worked with Andriy Derkach, a Ukrainian lawmaker alleged to have Kremlin ties. "Derkach, Kilimnik, and their associates sought to use prominent U.S. persons and media conduits to launder their narratives to U.S. officials and audiences," the ICA states.

Kilimnik says the U.S. intelligence officials who wrote those words are using their anonymity and power to launder their false narratives about him.

"I have no idea what they're talking about," he says. "I would really love to see at least one confirmation of the things they allege. Pulling me into this report with zero evidence really shows that [U.S. intelligence] people high up do not give a damn about the truth, facts, or anything."

As for Derkach, "I have never met him in my life," Kilimnik says. "I don't know why, or on what basis, they're making claims that he has any relationship to me."

"I had zero meetings with anybody related to the Trump campaign. In fact, I have tried to do my best – understanding how I've gotten into this mess – to stay as far as possible from any U.S. politics." If he had held such meetings, Kilimnik adds, "this should be easy to prove."

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not respond to requests for comment.

No Effort to Contact Russiagate's Top Russian

Even though Kilimnik's name fills dozens of pages of the Mueller and Senate Intelligence reports after years of federal scrutiny and he is the target of a $250,000 FBI reward, this seemingly critical Russiagate figure has never been contacted by a single U.S. government official, to judge from the public record as well as Kilimnik's account.

The lack of contact is similar to the way FBI, Mueller, and Senate investigators treated other supposedly central Russiagate figures. When Joseph Mifsud, whose conversations with George Papadopoulos triggered the FBI's Trump-Russia probe, visited the U.S. in early 2017, the FBI subjected him to a light round of questioning and then let him leave the country. The Mueller team later claimed in its final report that Mifsud had lied to FBI agents, yet inexplicably did not indict him. Despite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's central role in publishing the stolen Democratic Party emails supposedly hacked and supplied by Russia, the Mueller team never contacted him and the Senate Intelligence Committee shunned an offer to interview him.

Kilimnik believes that this avoidance is deliberate. "The FBI and others could have had the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv or Moscow, or have any of my numerous contacts in the U.S., reach out and start a conversation, if they wanted info," he says. "But they do not really need it. All they is need is a scarecrow. And as one of the few people within reach of the Trump campaign who has a Russian passport, they picked me."

"They never reached out to me," he adds. "I never had a single contact with FBI or any government official, basically since charges were brought [on] Paul. Nobody ever tried to talk to me because they know the truth.  They understood damn well that I will tell them what I'm telling you."

Kilimnik says that he has had only minimal contact with Manafort since the former Trump campaign chairman was released to home confinement in March 2020 and subsequently pardoned by Trump in late December. "We had one short contact after he got out of jail, basically catching up about family and kids and everything," Kilimnik recalls. "I want to give him time to just basically get his life back to normal. We have not spoken on the telephone."

After years in Ukraine working with Manafort, Kilimnik now lives full-time in Moscow with his wife and two children. "I have been pretty open all my life, and have not been hiding from anyone," Kilimnik says. "I would have been happy to answer any questions from the FBI, or whoever. But I refuse to be a toy in bizarre political games and have my life ruined more than it has been because of the senseless and false accusations."

Despite being labeled a Russian spy who meddled in the 2016 election, Kilimnik has no plans to return to the U.S. and try to clear his name. "I am not going to the U.S. on my own dime, with no visa in COVID times only to be crucified by the media, having zero chance of justice," he says. "This is a sad continuation of a deeply wrong story. I thought it would be over with Trump gone and the need to create lies about his 'ties to Russia.' But obviously, I was wrong."

Edited April 4 by Keven Hofeling

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Keven Hofeling said:

Sure, Mueller and the Senate Committee made sensationalist allegations, but they never produced evidence that Paul Manafort or Konstantin Kiliminak ever had any contacts with Russian intelligence officers.

 

The reason for that was because the Senate Committee's "investigation was hampered by Manafort and Kilimnik's use of 'sophisticated communications security practices' and Manafort's lies during SCO interviews on the topic."^[175]

As noted in the report:

"Manafort's obfuscation of the truth surrounding Kilimnik was particularly damaging to the Committee's investigation because it effectively foreclosed direct insight into a series of interactions and communications which represent the single most direct tie between senior Trump Campaign officials and the Russian intelligence services."^[175]

 

1 hour ago, Keven Hofeling said:

This is the United States, and under the constitutional and judicial principles of our system of adjudication every defendant, including Paul Manafort and Konstantin Kiliminak, is entitled to a presumption of innocence...

 

"Presumed innocence" is not the same thing as "innocence."

 

1 hour ago, Keven Hofeling said:

In the case of Manafort and Kiliminak, neither has ever been indicted for any crimes related to Russian collusion...

 

The FBI is sufficiently satisfied that Paul Manafort funneled information to Russian spies via Konstantin Kilimnik, an FBI fugitive.

The following April 5, 2021 New York Times article give details on how Paul Manafort was linked to Russian intelligence. The referenced (and linked) Treasury Department document gives the greatest details.

 

Biden Administration Says Russian Intelligence Obtained Trump Campaign Data

Following is an excerpt from the article:

The revelation, made public in a Treasury Department document announcing new sanctions against Russia, established for the first time that private meetings and communications between the [Trump] campaign officials, Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, and their business associate were a direct pipeline from the campaign to Russian spies at a time when the Kremlin was engaged in a covert effort to sabotage the 2016 presidential election.

 

[Keven Hofeling]

50 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

The reason for that was because the Senate Committee's "investigation was hampered by Manafort and Kilimnik's use of 'sophisticated communications security practices' and Manafort's lies during SCO interviews on the topic."^[175]

As noted in the report:

"Manafort's obfuscation of the truth surrounding Kilimnik was particularly damaging to the Committee's investigation because it effectively foreclosed direct insight into a series of interactions and communications which represent the single most direct tie between senior Trump Campaign officials and the Russian intelligence services."^[175]

 

 

"Presumed innocence" is not the same thing as "innocence."

 

 

The FBI is sufficiently satisfied that Paul Manafort funneled information to Russian spies via Konstantin Kilimnik, an FBI fugitive.

The following April 5, 2021 New York Times article give details on how Paul Manafort was linked to Russian intelligence. The referenced (and linked) Treasury Department document gives the greatest details.

 

Biden Administration Says Russian Intelligence Obtained Trump Campaign Data

Following is an excerpt from the article:

The revelation, made public in a Treasury Department document announcing new sanctions against Russia, established for the first time that private meetings and communications between the [Trump] campaign officials, Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, and their business associate were a direct pipeline from the campaign to Russian spies at a time when the Kremlin was engaged in a covert effort to sabotage the 2016 presidential election.

 

Keven Hofeling wrote:

"Sure, Mueller and the Senate Committee made sensationalist allegations, but they never produced evidence that Paul Manafort or Konstantin Kilimnik ever had any contacts with Russian intelligence officers."

Sandy Larsen responded: The reason for that was because the Senate Committee's "investigation was hampered by Manafort and Kilimnik's use of 'sophisticated communications security practices' and Manafort's lies during SCO interviews on the topic."^[175]

As noted in the report:

"Manafort's obfuscation of the truth surrounding Kilimnik was particularly damaging to the Committee's investigation because it effectively foreclosed direct insight into a series of interactions and communications which represent the single most direct tie between senior Trump Campaign officials and the Russian intelligence services."^[175]

Keven Hofeling replied: First of all, there is no such thing as encrypted communications that are beyond the ability of the CIA and the NSA to decipher. Secondly, if there were communications with a Russian intelligence officer there would be at least a single solitary item of evidence that this was the case. But there isn't, and all the charges against Manafort and Kilimnik were instead predicated upon Manafort's pre-Russiagat lobbying activities in Ukraine.

 

"This is the United States, and under the constitutional and judicial principles of our system of adjudication every defendant, including Paul Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik, is entitled to a presumption of innocence..."

Sandy Larsen responded: "Presumed innocence" is not the same thing as "innocence."

Keven Hofeling replied: Sandy, Manafort and Kilimnik WERE NOT EVEN CHARGED with any Russian collusion allegations. The exaggerated sensational allusions to Russian collusion were all a smokescreen. You've been conned. There isn't a single solitary piece of evidence of contacts with Russian intelligence officers.

 

"In the case of Manafort and Kilimnik, neither has ever been indicted for any crimes related to Russian collusion..."

Sandy Larsen responded: The FBI is sufficiently satisfied that Paul Manafort funneled information to Russian spies via Konstantin Kilimnik, an FBI fugitive.

Keven Hofeling replied: If so, then why didn't Mueller charge Manafort and Kilimnik with a single count of anything related to Russiagate? The policy of the FBI is not to comment on matters that are screened but not charged, so what do you think is so different about this Sandy? It's political, and improper under the American system of justice. It's political in exactly the same way that McCarthyism was political.

Sandy Larsen responded: The following April 5, 2021 New York Times article give details on how Paul Manafort was linked to Russian intelligence. The referenced (and linked) Treasury Department document gives the greatest details.

Biden Administration Says Russian Intelligence Obtained Trump Campaign Data

Following is an excerpt from the article:

The revelation, made public in a Treasury Department document announcing new sanctions against Russia, established for the first time that private meetings and communications between the [Trump] campaign officials, Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, and their business associate were a direct pipeline from the campaign to Russian spies at a time when the Kremlin was engaged in a covert effort to sabotage the 2016 presidential election.

Keven Hofeling replied: The Department of the Treasury has no evidence to support their sanctions. They've admitted there is nothing new to add to the Mueller Report and the Senate Intelligence Report on Collusion, and those two Reports did not produce any evidence either. What country do you think you are living in Sandy, Russia or China? Don't you think Manafort and Kilimnik are entitled to due process and equal protection under the law, or do you think we should just throw the American system of justice out the window for the sake of McCarthyist hysteria?

Here is the key excerpt from the New York Times article you are quoting, which acknowledges that there was no new evidence to support the Russian collusion allegation (a characteristic that is rampant among mainstream press coverage of these Russian collusion stories [characteristic of yellow journalism], and is also true of sources such as Wikipedia):

"...The Biden administration provided no supporting evidence to bolster the assessment that the Russian intelligence services obtained the polling data and campaign information. And the release shed no light on why Mr. Manafort and Mr. Gates gave polling data to Mr. Kilimnik, although previous government reports have indicated that Mr. Manafort thought Trump campaign strategy information could be a valuable commodity for future business deals with Kremlin-connected oligarchs.

Having the polling data would have allowed Russia to better understand the Trump campaign strategy — including where the campaign was focusing resources — at a time when the Russian government was carrying out its own efforts to undermine Donald J. Trump’s opponent.

Mr. Gates said in a statement on Thursday that the Treasury Department had failed to provide any evidence to back up its claim, adding that “the polling data passed periodically to Kilimnik at Paul Manafort’s direction was simplistic and outdated, never in real time.”

“It was from both public and internal sources,” Mr. Gates said. “It was not massive binders full of demographics or deep research. It was ‘topline’ numbers and did not contain any strategic plans.”..."

'Biden Administration Says Russian Intelligence Obtained Trump Campaign Data'
A Treasury Department document shed more light on links between the campaign and Russian spies.

By Mark Mazzetti and Michael S. Schmidt | New York Times | April 15, 2021 |  https://web.archive.org/web/20211107015515/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/15/us/politics/russian-intelligence-trump-campaign.html

A Treasury Department document shed more light on links between the campaign and Russian spies.

NBC News asked the Treasury Department to disclose the evidence upon which the sanctions were based and were, as usual with government disclosures of evidence relating to the Russiagate hoax, given the runaround:

"....The officials did not disclose when or how the U.S. came into possession of the new intelligence about Kilimnik, including whether or not the information was developed during the Trump or Biden administrations. The officials did not identify the source or type of intelligence that had been developed...."

'U.S. has new intel that Manafort friend Kilimnik gave Trump campaign data to Russia'

By Tom Winter and Monica Alba | NBC News | April 16, 2021 | https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/u-s-has-new-intel-manafort-friend-kilimnik-gave-trump-n1264371
Paul Manafort was chair of the Trump campaign for part of 2016. Kilimnik had worked for him in Ukraine. U.S. officials say Kilimnik is a Russian spy.

All the usual suspects immediately trumpeted the Treasury Report from the rooftops as if it were evidence, such as Rachel Maddow and Adam Schiff, as noted in the following video excerpt by Aaron Mate and Glenn Greenwald (who emphasize, highlight and underscore the fact that there is absolutely no evidence to support the Russia collusion allegations against Paul Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik):

Glenn Greenwald on why Russiagate disinformation never ends

The Grayzone | Apr 30, 2021 | https://youtu.be/6AXcjwX-JGA?si=P48JFo0WzKhR-y-6&t=861

On the same day that the claim of "Russian bounties" in Afghanistan collapsed, another US intelligence-sourced, evidence-free claim was treated as vindication for conspiracy theories about Trump-Russia collusion. 

Glenn Greenwald and Aaron Maté discuss the predictable demise of the "Russian bounties"; the Biden administration's new evidence-free assertion that Paul Manafort associate Konstantin Kilimnik passed Trump campaign polling data to Russia; and why major US media outlets continue to parrot Russiagate disinformation no matter how many times the "bombshells" turn into duds.

Guest: Glenn Greenwald. Journalist whose latest book is "Securing Democracy: My Fight for Press Freedom and Justice in Bolsonaro’s Brazil." 

Ultimately, the truth remains as follows, even after the Department of Treasury sanctions:

"...All of this highlights another inconvenient fact about Mueller’s case against Manafort: It is not about Russia, but about tax, bank, and lobbying violations stemming from his time in Ukraine. The Virginia judge who presided over Manafort’s first trial said the charges against him “manifestly don’t have anything to do with the [2016] campaign or with Russian collusion.” The collusion probe, the DC judge in Manafort’s second trial concurred, was “wholly irrelevant” to these charges...."

The Manafort Revelation Is Not a Smoking Gun
AARON MATÉ | THE NATION | JANUARY 11, 2019 | https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/manafort-no-smoking-gun-collusion/

Proponents of the Trump-Russia collusion theory wildly overstate their case, again.

 

Edited April 4 by Keven Hofeling

[Sandy Larsen]

58 minutes ago, Keven Hofeling said:

Sandy Larsen responded: The reason for that was because the Senate Committee's "investigation was hampered by Manafort and Kilimnik's use of 'sophisticated communications security practices' and Manafort's lies during SCO interviews on the topic."^[175]

Keven Hofeling replied: First of all, there is no such thing as encrypted communications that are beyond the ability of the CIA and the NSA to decipher.

 

The Senate report didn't say how Manafort and Kilimnik covertly communicated. We can only guess at how they did it.

Suppose for the sake of argument that they used code words. If that were the case, the CIA or FBI would know only that they were communicating about something that they wanted to keep secret. From that the CIA/FBI could conclude that they were communicating for nefarious reasons. But they couldn't indict or convict them anything since communicating in code is not illegal.

 

58 minutes ago, Keven Hofeling said:

Secondly, if there were communications with a Russian intelligence officer there would be at least a single solitary item of evidence that this was the case. But there isn't...

 

You don't know that. The CIA doesn't disclose things that reveal its sources and methods.

 

58 minutes ago, Keven Hofeling said:

Sandy Larsen responded: "Presumed innocence" is not the same thing as "innocence."

Keven Hofeling replied:  ...There isn't a single solitary piece of evidence of contacts with Russian intelligence officers.

 

You don't know that. The FBI is satisfied with the evidence they have seen. They have security clearances.

 

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Keven Hofeling said:

Keven Hofeling wrote:

"Sure, Mueller and the Senate Committee made sensationalist allegations, but they never produced evidence that Paul Manafort or Konstantin Kilimnik ever had any contacts with Russian intelligence officers."

Sandy Larsen responded: The reason for that was because the Senate Committee's "investigation was hampered by Manafort and Kilimnik's use of 'sophisticated communications security practices' and Manafort's lies during SCO interviews on the topic."^[175]

As noted in the report:

"Manafort's obfuscation of the truth surrounding Kilimnik was particularly damaging to the Committee's investigation because it effectively foreclosed direct insight into a series of interactions and communications which represent the single most direct tie between senior Trump Campaign officials and the Russian intelligence services."^[175]

Keven Hofeling replied: First of all, there is no such thing as encrypted communications that are beyond the ability of the CIA and the NSA to decipher. Secondly, if there were communications with a Russian intelligence officer there would be at least a single solitary item of evidence that this was the case. But there isn't, and all the charges against Manafort and Kilimnik were instead predicated upon Manafort's pre-Russiagat lobbying activities in Ukraine.

 

"This is the United States, and under the constitutional and judicial principles of our system of adjudication every defendant, including Paul Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik, is entitled to a presumption of innocence..."

Sandy Larsen responded: "Presumed innocence" is not the same thing as "innocence."

Keven Hofeling replied: Sandy, Manafort and Kilimnik WERE NOT EVEN CHARGED with any Russian collusion allegations. The exaggerated sensational allusions to Russian collusion were all a smokescreen. You've been conned. There isn't a single solitary piece of evidence of contacts with Russian intelligence officers.

 

"In the case of Manafort and Kilimnik, neither has ever been indicted for any crimes related to Russian collusion..."

Sandy Larsen responded: The FBI is sufficiently satisfied that Paul Manafort funneled information to Russian spies via Konstantin Kilimnik, an FBI fugitive.

Keven Hofeling replied: If so, then why didn't Mueller charge Manafort and Kilimnik with a single count of anything related to Russiagate? The policy of the FBI is not to comment on matters that are screened but not charged, so what do you think is so different about this Sandy? It's political, and improper under the American system of justice. It's political in exactly the same way that McCarthyism was political.

Sandy Larsen responded: The following April 5, 2021 New York Times article give details on how Paul Manafort was linked to Russian intelligence. The referenced (and linked) Treasury Department document gives the greatest details.

Biden Administration Says Russian Intelligence Obtained Trump Campaign Data

Following is an excerpt from the article:

The revelation, made public in a Treasury Department document announcing new sanctions against Russia, established for the first time that private meetings and communications between the [Trump] campaign officials, Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, and their business associate were a direct pipeline from the campaign to Russian spies at a time when the Kremlin was engaged in a covert effort to sabotage the 2016 presidential election.

Keven Hofeling replied: The Department of the Treasury has no evidence to support their sanctions. They've admitted there is nothing new to add to the Mueller Report and the Senate Intelligence Report on Collusion, and those two Reports did not produce any evidence either. What country do you think you are living in Sandy, Russia or China? Don't you think Manafort and Kilimnik are entitled to due process and equal protection under the law, or do you think we should just throw the American system of justice out the window for the sake of McCarthyist hysteria?

Here is the key excerpt from the New York Times article you are quoting, which acknowledges that there was no new evidence to support the Russian collusion allegation (a characteristic that is rampant among mainstream press coverage of these Russian collusion stories [characteristic of yellow journalism], and is also true of sources such as Wikipedia):

"...The Biden administration provided no supporting evidence to bolster the assessment that the Russian intelligence services obtained the polling data and campaign information. And the release shed no light on why Mr. Manafort and Mr. Gates gave polling data to Mr. Kilimnik, although previous government reports have indicated that Mr. Manafort thought Trump campaign strategy information could be a valuable commodity for future business deals with Kremlin-connected oligarchs.

Having the polling data would have allowed Russia to better understand the Trump campaign strategy — including where the campaign was focusing resources — at a time when the Russian government was carrying out its own efforts to undermine Donald J. Trump’s opponent.

Mr. Gates said in a statement on Thursday that the Treasury Department had failed to provide any evidence to back up its claim, adding that “the polling data passed periodically to Kilimnik at Paul Manafort’s direction was simplistic and outdated, never in real time.”

“It was from both public and internal sources,” Mr. Gates said. “It was not massive binders full of demographics or deep research. It was ‘topline’ numbers and did not contain any strategic plans.”..."

'Biden Administration Says Russian Intelligence Obtained Trump Campaign Data'
A Treasury Department document shed more light on links between the campaign and Russian spies.

By Mark Mazzetti and Michael S. Schmidt | New York Times | April 15, 2021 |  https://web.archive.org/web/20211107015515/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/15/us/politics/russian-intelligence-trump-campaign.html

A Treasury Department document shed more light on links between the campaign and Russian spies.

NBC News asked the Treasury Department to disclose the evidence upon which the sanctions were based and were, as usual with government disclosures of evidence relating to the Russiagate hoax, given the runaround:

"....The officials did not disclose when or how the U.S. came into possession of the new intelligence about Kilimnik, including whether or not the information was developed during the Trump or Biden administrations. The officials did not identify the source or type of intelligence that had been developed...."

'U.S. has new intel that Manafort friend Kilimnik gave Trump campaign data to Russia'

By Tom Winter and Monica Alba | NBC News | April 16, 2021 | https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/u-s-has-new-intel-manafort-friend-kilimnik-gave-trump-n1264371
Paul Manafort was chair of the Trump campaign for part of 2016. Kilimnik had worked for him in Ukraine. U.S. officials say Kilimnik is a Russian spy.

All the usual suspects immediately trumpeted the Treasury Report from the rooftops as if it were evidence, such as Rachel Maddow and Adam Schiff, as noted in the following video excerpt by Aaron Mate and Glenn Greenwald (who emphasize, highlight and underscore the fact that there is absolutely no evidence to support the Russia collusion allegations against Paul Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik):

Glenn Greenwald on why Russiagate disinformation never ends

The Grayzone | Apr 30, 2021 | https://youtu.be/6AXcjwX-JGA?si=P48JFo0WzKhR-y-6&t=861

On the same day that the claim of "Russian bounties" in Afghanistan collapsed, another US intelligence-sourced, evidence-free claim was treated as vindication for conspiracy theories about Trump-Russia collusion. 

Glenn Greenwald and Aaron Maté discuss the predictable demise of the "Russian bounties"; the Biden administration's new evidence-free assertion that Paul Manafort associate Konstantin Kilimnik passed Trump campaign polling data to Russia; and why major US media outlets continue to parrot Russiagate disinformation no matter how many times the "bombshells" turn into duds.

Guest: Glenn Greenwald. Journalist whose latest book is "Securing Democracy: My Fight for Press Freedom and Justice in Bolsonaro’s Brazil." 

Ultimately, the truth remains as follows, even after the Department of Treasury sanctions:

"...All of this highlights another inconvenient fact about Mueller’s case against Manafort: It is not about Russia, but about tax, bank, and lobbying violations stemming from his time in Ukraine. The Virginia judge who presided over Manafort’s first trial said the charges against him “manifestly don’t have anything to do with the [2016] campaign or with Russian collusion.” The collusion probe, the DC judge in Manafort’s second trial concurred, was “wholly irrelevant” to these charges...."

The Manafort Revelation Is Not a Smoking Gun
AARON MATÉ | THE NATION | JANUARY 11, 2019 | https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/manafort-no-smoking-gun-collusion/

Proponents of the Trump-Russia collusion theory wildly overstate their case, again.

 

KE-

Keep on truckin'. 

America needs dissenting views and narratives.  

There was a time when, in general, when American intellectuals and academics tried to protect free speech, and encouraged dissent. 

Now, the academics, and many allied in media, want to suppress dissent and speech. Unless a speaker is calling for the genocide of Jews, in which case the speech is protected, depending on context. 

I don't trust government investigations (see the WC) and especially do not trust partisan government investigations. 

I have lost faith in academia and media. 

 

 

 

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

I have lost faith in academia and media.

 

And so, instead, you rely on Trump-friendly fake news sites for your information.

 

[Benjamin Cole]

9 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

And so, instead, you rely on Trump-friendly fake news sites for your information.

 

I do not understand why you would make assumptions, or make a disparaging comments about what news I read or watch. 

In truth, I am bit of a bandysnatch, very eclectic in news consumption. If you are referring to Fox, I almost never watch Fox or any MSM news. The pace and content is far too tedious. 

Perhaps I merely have a different point of view than you. 

I do not make assumptions about your reading or viewing materials, nor do I disparage your views. 

I am skeptical of modern-day academia and media. Leave it at that.

IMHO, I am on firm ground in that regard.