Just hours before Donald Trump provided America with a new definition of terror in nine minutes, lawyers working for Paul Manafort provided the nation with a fresh peek at a very, very definite instance of collusion within the Trump campaign. Either by accident, or “by accident,” Manafort’s attorney’s submitted a document to the court in which some of the information was redacted behind those now-familiar black bars. Only not really. On the Manafort document, that text is hidden only in the same way that putting her hand over her eyes makes a preschooler invisible.
Much of what is hiding in all but plain sight turned out to be nothing but complaints that the special counsel’s office hadn’t provided enough information about its charges that Manafort continued to lie to investigators after making a plea deal, which make the black bars seem more like underlining than redaction. But included in the document were some details of Manafort’s dealings with Russian operative Konstantin Kilimnik. And that information, even in these jaded latter days, when it seems that a dozen instances of “Well, there’s the last nail in the coffin” have come and gone without burying Trump, still opened a few eyes.
When the redacted information was revealed, it was clear that Manafort:
- Traveled to Madrid to meet with Kilimnik, and only admitted this to the special counsel when he was confronted by proof they had been there together.
- Talked with Kilimnik on multiple occasions about a plan for Ukraine—a discussion that happened at nearly the same time that Trump was insisting on changes in the Republican platform about Ukraine.
- Provided Kilimnik with internal polling data collected by the Trump campaign, and lied to investigators about it during the plea deal.
This is Donald Trump’s campaign chair making overseas trips to meet with a Russian operative, strategize about the future of an occupied state, and providing information directly related to the 2016 campaign. It’s far from the only evidence of collusion (or conspiracy, take your pick) by the Trump campaign, but it certainly is collusion.
It’s likely that Trump really didn’t really plan his speech as a distraction from this evidence—but then, since Trump is in distraction mode almost 24 / 7, he’s bound to clobber a lot of stories that deserve more attention. And in this case, Trump should count himself genuinely lucky, because 99 percent of the overnight and morning talk has been about his self-generated “crisis on the border” or the directly related government shutdown.
The fact that his campaign chair was definitely, definitively colluding with the Russians has garnered about ten seconds of air time on the same networks that gave Trump his lock on the evening, and even that time has been devoted to pondering whether or not Manafort was acting on his own.
Honestly, there seems to be little doubt that Manafort was acting for Manafort. During the whole 2016 campaign, oligarch Oleg Deripaska and Manafort’s other Russian contacts were pressuring him about the millions he owed them. That’s a given.
But why would those same sources want Manafort to jump in to run the Trump campaign? And why would Manafort believe that internal polling data from the Trump campaign would be of any interest to his Russian contact?
Both of those things point to the same thing: Manafort’s entire presence on Team Trump was just another “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr Trump” that Rob Goldstone wrote about in his letter to Donald Trump before the infamous Trump Tower meeting—a meeting that was attended by Paul Manafort.