Paul Manafort Interview: I Gave Trump Campaign Polling Data to Russian Business Associate
Category: News & Politics
Via: jbb • 2 years ago • 4 commentsBy: Mattathias Schwartz (Business Insider)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Paul Manafort with Trump at the Republican National Convention in 2016. Brooks Kraft/Getty Images
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- Paul Manafort, Donald Trump's 2016 campaign chairman, sat down for an exclusive interview with Insider.
- Manafort made his first public admission that he shared polling data with Konstantin Kilimnik, a longtime business associate with suspected ties to Russian intelligence.
- Manafort said the purpose of sharing data was to not to get Trump elected, but to make money for himself.
In an interview with Insider, Paul Manafort, who served as Donald Trump's campaign chairman, made his first public admission that in 2016 he shared polling data from the Trump campaign with Konstantin Kilimnik, a longtime business associate with suspected ties to Russian intelligence.
Kilimnik then passed the data on to Russian spies, according to the US Treasury Department, which has characterized the data as "sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy."
Manafort's acknowledgment contradicts his earlier denials, during the investigation into election interference conducted by the special counsel Robert Mueller, that he had anything to do with the transfer of sensitive campaign data. It also differs from the account he gives in his forthcoming memoir, "Political Prisoner," in which he concedes only that he presented Kilimnik with "talking points" on polling data that was already public.
In his interview with Insider, Manafort reiterated that at least some of the data was public. "The data that I shared with him," he said, "was a combination of public information and stuff for the spring that was — it was old." It's one of Manafort's primary lines of defense — that the data he funneled to Kilimnik was essentially worthless.
In fact, in an email seized by Mueller, Manafort ordered his deputy Rick Gates, just a few hours before the two men met with Kilimnik in person, to print out four pages of internal campaign polling data showing Trump's city-by-city strength in 18 swing states. Contrary to Manafort's claim, that data was not from the spring. It was collected by the campaign in mid-July — two weeks before the meeting with Kilimnik.
Manafort denied to Insider that the printouts were given to Kilimnik. But he said he directed Gates to feed Kilimnik polling data via email, to "keep Konstantin informed." He also worked hard to keep his dealings with Kilimnik a secret. In its report on Russian interference in the election, the Senate Intelligence Committee wrote that it "had limited insight into Kilimnik's communications with Manafort" because the men relied on "sophisticated communications security practices." These included encryption, burner phones, and "foldering" — writing emails as drafts in a shared account.
Manafort told Insider that he directed his deputy, Rick Gates to feed Kilimnik polling data via email to "keep Konstantin informed." The goal was to use his access to Trump to drum up business for himself. Win McNamee/Getty Images
Gates told the FBI that, at Manafort's direction, he began sending Kilimnik internal polling data in the spring of 2016 over WhatsApp and continued updating it periodically. He deleted his messages to Kilimnik daily. All told, according to court filings, he sent 75 pages of polling data to Kilimnik. Other than the four pages from August 2, the data itself has never been made public.
Manafort told Insider the purpose of sending the polling data to Kilimnik was not to help elect Trump by aiding the Russians in their attempts to undermine the election but rather to lay the groundwork for future business deals. "It was meant to show how Clinton was vulnerable," he said. By his account, he was trying to use his influence with the future US president to extract money from pro-Russia oligarchs.
Kilimnik, a Soviet-born political consultant with a Russian passport, had worked closely with Manafort for years in his lobbying and election efforts on behalf of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Mueller and the FBI concluded that Kilimnik had ties to Russian intelligence. The Senate Intelligence Committee went further, calling Kilimnik "a Russian intelligence officer." Kilimnik was sanctioned by the Treasury Department in 2021 for providing Russian intelligence with "sensitive information" from the Trump campaign.
Konstantin Kilimnik worked with Manafort for years. "None of us believed KK worked for Russian intelligence," Manafort told Insider. Federal Bureau of Investigation
Manafort said he had no reason to think Kilimnik was spying for Russia and pointed out that Kilimnik had been vetted and cleared by Yanukovych's staff. "None of us believed KK worked for Russian intelligence," he told Insider. But the allegations shouldn't have come as a surprise. Kilimnik was open about the fact that he'd attended a language school run by the Soviet military, and Gates told the FBI that Manafort's own employees believed Kilimnik had worked as a linguist for Russian intelligence.
Kilimnik, for his part, claims to have been a victim of Russophobia. "Had I been of a different nationality, nobody would have given a damn," he told Insider, via email. Under federal indictment and wanted by the FBI, he is reported to be living near Moscow.
Mueller was ultimately unable to prove that the Trump campaign illegally conspired with Russia to influence the election. And it seems highly unlikely that the information Manafort provided to Kilimnik was responsible for tipping the race to Trump, given the relatively modest size of Russia's influence campaign. But by Manafort's own admission, the incident makes clear that Trump's campaign chairman couldn't even wait until the election was over to try to cash in on his access to and influence over the Republican nominee.
In the interview with Insider, Manafort said the conditions of his detention had caused his memory to deteriorate and blamed his imprisonment for the many inconsistencies he told Mueller's team. His lawyers made a similar claim in court, arguing that Manafort's failure to recall details about sharing data with Kilimnik was not proof he "intentionally lied." The court disagreed, finding that Manafort had purposefully deceived prosecutors.
Read the full interview with Manafort.
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Definitive proof Trump WAS COLLUDING WITH Russia!
Do let Nancy Pelosi know so she can start the third impeachment hearings before the midterms!
Nothing in the above article mentions or implicates Trump...or implies collusion