February 23, 2019

THE TIGHTENING NOOSE:

Russian Spy or Hustling Political Operative? The Enigmatic Figure at the Heart of Mueller's Inquiry (Kenneth P. Vogel and Andrew E. Kramer, Feb. 23, 2019, NY Times)

[I]n a federal court in Washington, Mr. Mueller's prosecutors have repeatedly portrayed Mr. Kilimnik as something potentially more nefarious: "a former Russian intelligence officer" who "has ties to a Russian intelligence service and had such ties in 2016."

And around the same time that he was passing through Washington nearly three years ago -- just as Mr. Trump was clinching the Republican presidential nomination -- he first received polling data about the 2016 election from two top Trump campaign officials, Mr. Manafort and Rick Gates, as Russia was beginning a social media operation intended to help Mr. Trump's campaign.

By early 2017, a senior F.B.I. official was lamenting that the bureau had botched an opportunity to question Mr. Kilimnik while he was in Washington for Mr. Trump's inaugural.

Prosecutors have also scrutinized the effort by Mr. Manafort and Mr. Kilimnik to drum up political consulting business with Kremlin-aligned political figures in Ukraine and Russia who were pushing plans to end the simmering conflict between the countries.

Those so-called peace plans could have resulted in the easing of sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States -- a policy shift to which Mr. Trump had signaled an openness during the campaign and one that would have been a major foreign policy victory for the Kremlin.

Mueller Asks Judge to Throw the Book at Manafort (DAN FRIEDMAN, FEBRUARY 23, 2019, Mother Jones)

In arguing that he had violated his cooperation deal, prosecutors outlined contacts during and after the 2016 presidential campaign between Manafort and his longtime Ukrainian associate Konstan Kilimnik. According to earlier filings, the FBI has concluded that Kilimnik associated with the Russian intelligence unit that hacked and leaked Democratic emails in 2016 in a bid to help elect Trump. In a hearing earlier this month, prosecutors revealed that during a secretive August 2, 2016 meeting in New York, Manafort shared detailed Trump campaign polling data with Kilmnik and talked with him about a Kremlin-backed peace plan for Ukraine that is believed to have involved the US dropping sanctions imposed on Russia in 2014. Manafort and Kilimnik continued to discuss the plan throughout 2018, according to a transcript of that hearing.

Posted by at February 23, 2019 3:23 PM

  

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