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Instead of just wondering “What did Trump know — and when did he know it?”
Investigators can now go direct to source, the Trump Campaign Manager, and simply find out.
Here’s just a few of the Questions they will no doubt want to ask, Trump’s biggest Flipper …
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The Trump Tower meeting
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The Trump team has insisted that the meeting was a nothing but waste of time, with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya spending most of the time talking about Russian adoption by American families. In congressional testimony about the meeting, Don Jr. said he “didn’t know” or “couldn’t remember” 186 times. Testimony from Manafort could clear up several things that slipped the president’s son’s mind:
- What did the meeting participants actually discuss?
- Could Manafort explain his cyrptic notes from the meeting?
- Did the Russians meet with Donald Trump, as Steve Bannon has suggested?
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- Did Don. Jr speak to his father after the meeting? He received a call from a blocked number in between the two calls— and Trump is known to use a blocked number.
The RNC convention’s Ukraine platform changes
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Trump has insisted he had nothing to do with the language change, and other Republicans have said the move followed the proper procedure. But many are suspicious about Manafort’s role running the convention and his long history of working for pro-Russia forces in Ukraine — including his former patron, ex-Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.
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Besides knowing the internals of Roger Stone’s activities, as The Atlantic explains, Manafort also has the inside track on the activities of Russian Oligarchs too ...
by Franklin Foer, The Atlantic — Sept 14, 2018
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The Oleg Deripaska Connection
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Manafort finally reached out to Deripaska, just after he joined Donald Trump’s campaign. In emails obtained by The Atlantic that Paul Manafort traded with an aide, Manafort proposed giving Deripaska special access to the campaign, with the apparent hope of making his debts disappear. We don’t know what became of Manafort’s outreach to Deripaska. Perhaps, it yielded nothing. Deripaska claims that he never received messages from Manafort in 2016. But it’s also worth watching hidden video footage of Deripaska, sitting on his yacht with a top Putin official, procured by the Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny. The video captured a meeting held in August 2016, two weeks before Manafort resigned as campaign chair. According to Navalny, the video lends credibility to the theory that Deripaska might have been a crucial intermediary between Manafort and the Kremlin.
The Curious Case of Konstantin Kilimnik
Robert Mueller has periodically suggested that Manafort’s top aide was an active agent of Russian intelligence in 2016. When I profiled Konstantin Kilimnik earlier this year, an old colleague of his quoted Manafort as describing him as “my Russian brain.” Is this connection to Russian intelligence just a meaningless coincidence? Kilimnik was Manafort’s primary interface with Deripaska.
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If you had just 3 Questions to ask of Trump’s latest turncoat — what would they be?
1. Did the Trump campaign have any heads-up about alleged Russian hacking of Democrats? [...]
2. Did Trump know about that meeting with a Russian lawyer? [...]
3. What do Manafort’s other ties to Russia mean? [...]
— www.washingtonpost.com — Sept 14, 2018
This is the Day that Trump has been Tweeting like crazy to prevent.
Too bad Donald — you Lose!
Manafort is cooperating with Mueller. 8 legal experts explain what that means for Trump.
Spoiler alert: it’s not good.
Diane Marie Amann, law professor, University of Georgia
The Manafort shoe has dropped. Today’s plea agreement, aimed at resolving the two federal criminal cases against Manafort, hinges on his full cooperation with Mueller’s investigation. At the plea hearing, that cooperation was said to encompass briefing prosecutors, producing documents, and testifying in other proceedings.
Those proceedings well might go to the heart of Mueller’s inquiry into, to quote the terms of Mueller’s mandate, “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump.”
Given Manafort’s long association with Trump — which includes serving as presidential campaign manager and attending a 2016 Trump Tower meeting with certain Russians — Manafort’s cooperation promises to be a major boost to Mueller’s investigation.
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Now that that other Big Shoe has finally dropped (the Manafort Full Cooperation Agreement with the Special Counsel), where do you think it will end up hitting the dangerous Despot, the worse …
Kick him in the head, Kick him in the nuts, Kick him in the bank accounts?
This is the beginning of the end of our long national nightmare.
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Which of these Manafort disclosures will leave the Liar-in-Chief painfully gasping for a solitary breath of credibility.
As if such a thing actually exists … outside of Trump-world.
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