Manafort associate had Russian intelligence ties during 2016 campaign, prosecutors say

[Khayembii Communique]

Manafort associate had Russian intelligence ties during 2016 campaign, prosecutors say

The FBI has found that a business associate of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had ongoing ties to Russian intelligence, including during the 2016 campaign when Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates, were in touch with the associate, according to new court filings.


The documents, filed late Tuesday by prosecutors for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, also allege that Gates had said he knew the associate was a former officer with the Russian military intelligence service.


The allegations underscore Mueller’s interest in Manafort and Gates, who continued to interact with business associates in Ukraine even as they helped lead Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.


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So there you go. Anyone that claims that Manafort's indictment has nothing to do with collusion is not paying attention. Konstantin Kilimnik is the same associate that Manafort told to provide private briefings to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. The same Deripaska that was caught on video meeting on his yacht with a Russian government official. The same government official that left the boat before docking so he and Deripaska wouldn't be seen together.

Person A, Kilimnik, came up in the VDZ case.

I made a post earlier suspecting Person A of being Kilimnik:

Person A could also be Konstantin Kilimnik, Manafort's business counterpart and who has ties to Russian intelligence. Kilimnik also has ties to Oleg Deripaska through their business dealings. Manafort allegedly told Kilimnik to provide private briefings to Deripaska about the Trump campaign. Deripaska met with Sergei Prikhodko, a Russian Deputy PM, on a yacht to secretly discuss US relations. Deripaska's girlfriend alleges that Prikhodko left the yacht mid-voyage to avoid being seen at all ashore with Deripaska.

So, while this doesn't necessarily indict anyone in Trump's family, it does seem to support the theory that Manafort, while working with the Trump campaign, was providing intelligence on the campaign to Russia.

If Mueller has Gates, Van Der Zwaan and Kilimnik flipped, that puts an enormous amount of pressure on Manafort. Kilimnik can essentially corroborate Manafort's willingness to provide the Russians with intelligence, which would be a much more serious crime of course.

If Manafort was acting alone he's toast. If others in the campaign were knowledgeable or complicit in this, then there's your collusion; Manafort flips against whoever in the campaign knew, and the case is blown wide open.

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

Curioser and curioser.

However, you must admit that

"All the evidence so far is that the Russians were colluding with 'Team Trump' and there isn't a single shred of reliable evidence that 'Team Trump' was colluding (which isn't even a crime) with the Russians. Besides no one has actually been convicted of anything and we don't know what people were promised as rewards for entering fake so-called "Guilty" pleas in order that the vast, huge, giant, hidden, secret, covert, conspiracy-plot by the left-wing,liberal, socialist, commies to destroy President Trump and the United States of America will succeed in replacing the Constitution of the United States of America with Sherry Law, forcing all the Cheerleaders to wear Burke Hats, and making interracial same-sex marriage mandatory by fluoridating our vaccines."

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DAMN! I left my AKME Mk.3 Revolutionary Rhetoric Standard Speech Generating Gadget turned on and dialed to "Right-wing Wacko" again.