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If this is not evidence of a Trump Campaign-Russia Conspiracy — I don’t know what is.
PS. You can’t get much higher in an Election Campaign than its Campaign Manager.
Trump Associate Paul Manafort ‘Changed His Story Completely’ to Protect Suspected Member of Russian Intelligence, Prosecutors Say
[...]
Manafort allegedly lied about Kilimnik’s work with the so-called “Hapsburg Group,” a small group of high-level politicians from Central Europe who lobbied officials in Washington and Europe about issues related to Ukraine. Manafort changed his story on multiple occasions to make it appear as if Kilimnik’s involvement in this scheme was only related to work in Europe and not to lobbying work in the U.S., prosecutors allege.
Manafort “changed his story completely within 32 days" because he did not want to provide any evidence that could be used with respect to Kilimnik, the court documents read.
“There are ample records of Mr. Kilimnik being involved in setting up the Hapsburg Group events, being on emails where the Hapsburg Group is working in the United States. So it’s not a case where Mr. Kilimnik and Mr. Manafort didn’t both know and knew that the others knew,” the transcript continues.
At the heart of the matter is whether Manafort was helping Kilimnik lobby for a peace plan for Ukraine that would be beneficial to the Kremlin. Pro-Russian separatists have been fighting with Ukraine’s forces and destabilizing the country since 2014, and Russia has an interest in creating facts on the ground that will allow Moscow to control its neighbor. Efforts to promote a peace plan for Ukraine appear to have continued well after Manafort was indicted, according to prosecutors. Manafort and his business partner Rick Gates also allegedly made efforts to conceal their contacts with Kilimnik, including a meeting that took place in Manhattan in August 2016, just weeks after the Republican National Convention.
The men allegedly discussed sanctions relief for Russia.
The idea that Manafort conducted all these Russian contacts without the knowledge and consent of Donald the Putin-groveler — is laughable.
Manafort: “Hey Donald I’m going to slip out for a few days, I got some business overseas I gotta take care of, Capisce? Aaah I’m gonna need the demo-data for the Midwestern states too — I got some light reading I need to catch up on the flight over, OK?”
Like that happened. “Sure thing Paul. Have fun on your Vacation,” is not something I can imagine Trump saying. Not at the height of their lying, scheming Campaign battle, to take down the “7 GOP dwarfs”.
More likely: “Hey Boss, we got to give them what they want — if were ever gonna Win this thing.”
Wannabee Oligarch: “OK, make it happen, Paul. I’m counting on you.”
(Hypothetically speaking, of course.)
Russia collusion case against Trump just got a lot stronger
by MAX BOOT, www.stuff.co.nz -- Jan 10 2019
[...]
They admitted [the Attorneys for Paul Manafort, in their incorrectly-redacted document] that during the 2016 campaign Manafort and his longtime associate Konstantin Kilimnik, who the FBI has said has ties to Russian intelligence, discussed a peace plan for Ukraine and that Manafort also shared with him political polling data.
Peace plan? Where have we heard that before? Oh, that's right: Trump's attorney, Michael Cohen, Trump's former Mafia-linked, Russian American business associate Felix Sater and Ukrainian politician Andrii Artemenko conspired after the 2016 election to present a peace plan to incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was himself suspiciously friendly to the Russians.
The plan would have legitimated Russian annexation of Crimea and lifted sanctions on Russia. In other words, it would have been the pay off that Russian President Vladimir Putin was seeking from his well-documented intervention on behalf of candidate Trump - and it could easily have come to fruition if the Russian election interference had not become a scandal. [...]
The Trump-Russia “Conspiracy Case” just got a lot stronger too, since it was confirmed in those court filings that Manafort delivery Polling Data direct to “The GRU Guy”. THAT conspiring happened in 2016 while Manafort was still that Trump Campaign Chairman.
And the “GRU Guy” who was Manafort’s Russian Intel contact was Konstantin Kilimnik, was also a ‘fixer’ for Russian Oligarch, Oleg Deripaska [The Metals Magnate].
Konstantin Kilimnik reportedly met with Manafort in Madrid, to receive Trump Polling data.
And these guys go way back [Secret Ledger in Ukraine Lists Cash for Donald Trump’s Campaign Chief] … something like this just doesn’t suddenly “slip your mind” …
Unless your even more “mobbed up” than you ever dare admit to Mueller. Ever!
by Franklin Foer, The Atlantic — Sept 14, 2018
[...]
The Oleg Deripaska Connection
[...]
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.
[...]
Those “hidden videos of Deripaska” by the way, recently made “dramatic media headlines” as the Belarus Model who took the videos, tearfully disown them, as she pleaded for her life, in a Russian sham trial. She pled directly to Oleg Deripaska that she had no more evidence against him. That she would never say another thing about it.
Hellvua a justice system they got there in Moscow — where Billionaire Oligarchs are the Plaintiffs, against anyone who would dare speak out against them — even when they are citizens of other countries … arrested on trumped-up charges. Justice for All — All the buddies of Putin.
Feb 1, 2019 - MOSCOW — A Belarusian model who claims to have information on ties between Russia and Donald Trump’s election campaign told The Associated Press on Friday that she has turned that material over to Russian billionaire businessman Oleg Deripaska.
There goes another smoking gun.
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Max Boot goes on to summarize the import of the recent disclosures, revealed by the inept submittal of their bumbling defense for Manafort’s consonantly shifting story-lines. Vis-a-vis, the exchanges of Russian dirt and US data, and Ukrainian “Peace Plans for Sanctions” … Boot summarizes it like this:
[...]
The revelation about Manafort sharing data with Kilimnik is the most significant evidence of collusion/conspiracy since Michael Cohen's November 29 guilty plea on charges of lying to Congress to conceal the Trump Organization's active pursuit during the 2016 campaign, with help from Putin aides, of a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. That, in turn, was the most damning evidence to emerge since the New York Times revealed that there had been a meeting at Trump Tower on June 9, 2016, between the campaign high command and a Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, promising dirt on Hillary Clinton. (Veselnitskaya's deep links to the Kremlin have just been confirmed in a new court filing.)
[Links added.]
How much evidence is it going to take?
Before something actually sticks to the Teflon Don?
Remember Trump has boasted he hires “Only the Best People” … (which includes Manafort.)
Only the best “Fall-guys” ...
Perhaps “Only the Best Fall-guys” would be a better term for it.
Given how “above it all” the out-of-the-loop Don even now pretends to be.
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