The blame it on Unkraine conspiracy

Notes from an FBI interview were released on Saturday after lawsuits by BuzzFeed News and CNN led to public access to hundreds of pages of documents from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. The documents included summaries of interviews with other figures from the Mueller investigation, including Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen.

Information related to Ukraine took on renewed interest after calls for impeachment based on efforts by the president and his administration to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Democrat Joe Biden. Trump, speaking with Ukraine’s new president in July, asked about the DNC servers in the same phone call in which he pushed for an investigation into Biden.

  The Guardian

The "perfect" phone call.

Manafort speculated about Ukraine’s responsibility as the campaign sought to capitalize on DNC email disclosures and as Trump associates discussed how they could get hold of the material themselves, deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates told investigators, according to a summary of one of his interviews.

Gates said Manafort’s assertion that Ukraine might have done it echoed the position of Konstantin Kilimnik, a Manafort business associate who had also speculated that the hack could have been carried out by Russian operatives in Ukraine.

Even if that were true, how do you equate Russian operatives in Ukraine to the Ukrainian government? Only if you're trying to find a way to move the blame from Russia and you leave out the "Russian operatives" part.

US authorities have assessed that Kilimnik, who was also charged in Mueller’s investigation, has ties to Russian intelligence. American intelligence agencies have determined that Russia was behind the hack, and Mueller’s team indicted 12 Russian agents in connection with the intrusion.

Gates also said the campaign believed that Michael Flynn, who became Trump’s first national security adviser, would be in the best position to obtain Hillary Clinton’s missing emails because of his Russia connections.

Flynn said he could use his intelligence sources to obtain the emails and was “adamant that Russians did not carry out the hack” because he believed that the US intelligence community couldn’t have figured out the source, according to the agent’s notes. Flynn later pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador.

[...]

Gates worked with Manafort in a lucrative international political consulting business that included Ukraine and later testified against him. Gates pleaded guilty last year in Mueller’s investigation and has been one of the government’s key cooperators. He has yet to be sentenced as he continues working with investigators. Manafort was sentenced to more than seven years in prison, in part for financial crimes arising from his Ukraine work.

[...]

During his interviews with investigators, Gates said Donald Trump Jr would ask where the hacked emails were during family meetings in the summer of 2016. Gates recalled that other key campaign aides, including future attorney general Jeff Sessions, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and Flynn, also “expressed interest in obtaining the emails as well”, according to an agent’s written summary of one interview.

The identity of one of the people who expressed interest in the emails is blanked out.

Interesting.

One time on the campaign aircraft, Gates told the FBI, Donald Trump said “get the emails”. Gates also said that another point, Trump told him more leaks were coming, though the heavily redacted documents do not indicate how Trump knew that.

Also interesting, and I wonder if that is because those blacked out names are still (or were at the time) under investigation in some other agency.

Gates also described conversations with the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, who entered the White House as chief of staff. Gates described the RNC as energized by the emails and said that though Trump and Kushner were initially skeptical about cooperating with the RNC, “the WikiLeaks issue was a turning point”, the FBI notes show. WikiLeaks was the website that published the stolen emails in the weeks before the election.

The campaign was also very pleased by the releases, though Trump was advised not to react to it but rather to let it all play out, according to the interview summaries.

Too bad Trump doesn't take advice.

The RNC would put out press releases to amplify the emails’ release, Gates told the FBI.

“The RNC also indicated they knew the timing of the upcoming releases,” though Gates didn’t specify who at the RNC had that information. “Gates said the only non-public information the RNC had was related to the timing of the releases.”

Manafort, meanwhile, was trying to advise the Trump campaign even after severing ties, causing alarm among some of the candidate’s most senior advisers.Manafort emailed Kushner on 5 November 2016, just days before the election, saying he was feeling good about the prospect of a Trump presidency. In the email, Manafort said he was “focusing on preserving the victory” and that he had sent a memo to Priebus and had briefed Gates and Fox News host Sean Hannity.

[...]

Kushner sent Manafort’s email to Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who replied: “We need to avoid this guy like the plague.”

Again, too bad Trump doesn't take advice.

“Paul is nice guy but can’t let word get out he is advising us.”

On that, they managed to hold out. Which is how Manafort got away with having his defense attorneys share information with Trump when he was supposed to be cooperating with the Feds.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

TheBuzzfeed report

Mueller testimony

Eric Swalwell (D) presented a slide of the convicted Trump cabal liars:



Asked by Swalwell if the investigation was hampered by encryption and deletion of electronic messages, Mueller replied, "True."  He also agreed that other info protected by attorney-client privilege hampered the investigation.  He won't discuss whether he wanted to subpoena or interview Junior, but he will say he wanted to interview Senior.  Does this indicate there's still an investigation out there that includes Junior? Perhaps a counterintelligence investigation?  That may explain why it seems Junior got off.  Maybe he's not clear yet.  Maybe that's one of the aspects that Mueller's team passed off to another office.*

Will Hurd (R) mimicked Justin Amash's performance in an earlier Congressional hearing in that he actually asked questions designed to get information about intelligence and counterintelligence and what we can do to prevent Russia from interfering again, which is ostensibly why this committee is having this hearing.  Kudos to one more Republican.  Hopefully, he won't be driven out of the Party because of it, as Amash was.  Looking back, I see Hurd has been cross-ways with Trump before:  on the border wall, and on reopening some agencies Trump shut down.

John Ratcliffe (R), who was also on the previous committee and very aggressive there, declined to ask any questions, and tried to look gracious by thanking Mueller, acting like he respects the man.  Even Devin Nunes has been respectful (while his opening statement as Ranking Member was highly critical of the Dems and generally disparaged the Mueller report).

Republicans on both committees brought up the idea that Konstantin Kilimnik, whom Manafort provided polling data to and is characterized in the report as a Russian agent, is actually connected to US intelligence.  That has surely come out before, but I don't recall hearing it (although I may have and just forgot).  Mueller won't comment.  I wonder, if this is true, whether Manafort would have known that, or if he were being played as part of the intelligence scheme/investigation that was already underway when the Special Counsel was appointed.

Peter Welch (D) read out a list of evidence of conspiracy in the Mueller report, which Republicans have been repeatedly saying the report found no evidence of.

Welch asks if accepting information and help from foreign countries is now going to be the new normal.  Mueller says he hopes not, but "I fear it is."  In fact, Trump has said he'd accept it again.

Patrick Maloney (D) asks why Mueller didn't subpoena the president.  He answers they negotiated for over a year to get an interview, but finally, having had no success, they didn't want to subpoena because of the "necessity of expediting the end of the investigation," and that a subpoena would drag it out.  He says the written responses "were not as useful."  Incomplete, inadequate, imprecise, etc.  Maloney asks why it stopped being vital to get the president's interview, something Mueller had claimed when asking for a face-to-face.  Maloney wonders if Mueller didn't think he needed it in the end.  Did you have sufficient evidence without it to show the president's intent to obstruct?  "We had to make a balanced decision....We didn't do the interview because of the length of time it would take," is all Mueller would admit to.

Val Demings (D) asks if they asked all the questions of the president they wanted to, and Mueller says no.  He says he "can't get into" what he thinks of Trump's credibility.  Trump's incomplete answers included those related to the Trump Moscow Project, and he didn't answer follow-up questions.  In fact, there were several questions he didn't answer.  Mueller finally admits that "generally" the president's answers were not always truthful.  And Demings says she finds the fact that Trump was allowed to get away with that "a disgrace" to US law inforcement.

Adam Schiff ends the hearing by asking if Mueller agrees it's unethical to accept help from a foreign government, to which Mueller replies, "And a crime, given certain circumstances."  Schiff's closing comments are much like his opening statement.  "We must take any action necessary to protect the country while [Trump] is in office."  He gave some specifics about what Mueller didn't investigate because it was outside Mueller's purview, so what "we [Congress] must find out."  I think that indicates at the least that they're continuing with various investigations, not necessarily that he thinks they should impeach, although he did mention that as an option.

This was certainly a better showing for the Democrats than the Judiciary Committee hearing.

*  I went back over  Mike Quigley's questioning because Mueller said something was "subject to investigation," but I'd missed what it was.  In fact, it was about Junior.  After establishing Mueller's and the US Intel community's belief that Wikileaks is a "hostile intelligence service," Quigley showed this slide...

...and asked Mueller's reaction.  "Problematic is an understatement...in terms of some  hope, or some boost, to what is and should be illegal activity," he responded.  Then Quigley quotes from the report about Junior having direct contact with Wikileaks during the campaign period.

"On October 16, Wikileaks sent another direct message to Trump Jr. asking 'you guys' to help disseminate a link alleging candidate Clinton had advocated a drone to attack Julian Assange.  Trump Jr responded back he 'had already done so.'  Same question.  Is this behavior, at the very least, disturbing?"  Mueller responds, "Disturbing, and also subject to investigation."

I'd say that's pretty indicative that Junior is still under investigation.  And he's not president.  I wonder who's handling it.  SDNY maybe.

UPDATE:

Could Mueller actually charge a conspiracy?

Court documents and pre-sentence hearings that dealt with the breach of Manafort’s plea deal suggest that prosecutors might have more ammunition to go after the 69-year-old on matters that go directly to the question of a conspiracy with Russia, rather than the financial crimes and violations of foreign-agent laws that he’s been charged with to date.

[...]

[Mueller] “intentionally made multiple false statements” to the FBI, the special counsel’s office, and the grand jury “concerning matters that were material to the investigation: his interactions and communications” with the suspected Russian intelligence officer Konstantin Kilimnik, D.C. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled last month.

[...]

The first clue that Mueller’s interest in Manafort goes beyond his financial crimes came early last month, when one of the top prosecutors on Mueller’s team, Andrew Weissmann, said in a closed-door hearing that a meeting Manafort had in August 2016 goes “very much to the heart of what the special counsel’s office is investigating.” (Manafort’s deputy Rick Gates was also at the meeting, The Washington Post said, citing court records. [...] ) During that meeting Manafort provided internal Trump-campaign polling data to Kilimnik and discussed a “Ukraine peace plan” favorable to Russia. Mueller was appointed in May 2017 to investigate “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with” Trump’s campaign, as his appointment memo described it; Jackson agreed that the topic of Manafort’s meeting was at “the undisputed core of the Office of Special Counsel’s investigation.”

But Weissmann’s tantalizing comment wasn’t resolved in the government’s sentencing memo for Manafort; on the contrary, details about the August 2016 meeting were conspicuously absent from the 800-page document.

[...]

A footnote in a court filing submitted by Manafort’s attorneys last month, first noticed by the national-security journalist Marcy Wheeler, indicates that Manafort and his deputy sent 75 pages of polling to Kilimnik and that Kilimnik sent at least six emails to the pair discussing the data. Richard Westling, Manafort’s lawyer, denied that Manafort had lied about the content of the August 2 meeting and said that while the data that Manafort shared with Kilimnik was “very detailed” and “relevant” to a meeting the campaign had had earlier in the day, it would not have been useful to the suspected Russian spy. "It frankly, to me, is gibberish,” Westling said. “It’s not easily understandable." Jackson shot back: "That’s what makes it significant and unusual.”

  The Atlantic

No kidding. What a stupid thing for the lawyer to say. My client shared something "very detailed" and "relevant" that I don't understand, so it wouldn't be of any use to the person he shared it with. Tell us, Mr. attorney, why did he share it then?

Still, the content of the 2016 meeting was only revealed by accident due to a redaction error by Manafort’s lawyers, and the significance of the episode to Mueller’s main probe, while hinted at by Weissmann, has yet to be fully explained.

“It’s hard to imagine that something so explosive and central to the mission of his investigation wouldn’t be addressed either in charges against someone (Manafort or others) or in a report,” Mimi Rocah, a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, wrote in an email. “And the fact that the special counsel hasn’t brought it out but it was only revealed inadvertently, reinforces the idea that [Mueller] is saving it for something else.”

Hopefully to provide incontrovertible evidence that impeachment is impossible to avoid.

That “something else” could be anything from a line in Mueller’s report to an entire conspiracy charge. “My money is on Mueller including the Manafort efforts as part of the ‘case’ alleging Trump campaign collaboration with the Russians,” Patrick Cotter, a former federal prosecutor who specialized in organized crime, told me in an email. “The question then is, what is the best way to make that case? For myself, I believe a RICO [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act] indictment would be the appropriate vehicle to bring such a case: charge the campaign as the ‘racketeering enterprise’ and name Trump, Manafort and the rest of the gang as members of the enterprise … straight out of the mob prosecution playbook.”

And, if not, I still think that money laundering charges in the state of New York should be coming down one day on Trump's businesses and his family. Allen Weisselberg is still out there, presumably cooperating, along with Felix Sater.

Cotter, who is familiar with Mueller’s by-the-book style but has no direct knowledge of his internal plans, said Mueller is more likely to take the “safer route”—laying out all the facts that would support such a case in a report, “but not actually charging the legally plausible but politically nuclear formal criminal case.” Any RICO indictment against the campaign for a conspiracy with Russia “would be the new definition of bold and cutting edge.” The former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Cramer agreed that Mueller could bring a conspiracy case and name Manafort and others as unindicted co-conspirators—but if the evidence doesn’t rise to the level of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, it will likely just be outlined in the report.

[...]

[Adam Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee saod] that the lingering questions about Manafort’s role underscore how important it is that Mueller’s final report be provided to Congress—and that the report include all of the underlying evidence Mueller collected, regardless of whether it results in a conspiracy charge. “Our standard is not whether there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” Schiff said, “but whether there is a risk to national security.”

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Manafort's lawyers write a memo for Trump

Manafort's sentencing memorandum

Attorneys for Paul Manafort urged a judge to sentence him to substantially less than the 10-year maximum prison term he faces in his case in Washington, contending he has been treated harshly by the special counsel and “vilified in a manner that this country has not experienced in decades.”

[...]

[They[ stressed that Manafort was convicted of financial crimes related to his lobbying work and not accused of any collusion with Russia involving the 2016 presidential campaign. They highlighted his long career working with elected officials, including presidents, and said his actions came under intense scrutiny because he served as campaign chairman for President Trump.

[...]

The defense said Manafort was unduly singled out for prosecution by the special counsel’s office for “garden-variety” financial crimes and “esoteric” foreign lobbying disclosure violations but not, they said, on charges that showed any links between the Russian government or individuals and the campaign.

“As said at the beginning of the case,” his attorney wrote to Judge Amy Berman Jackson, “there is no evidence of Russian collusion.”

  WaPo

That's all obviously written for Trumpanzees and Trump himself. It's not going to be effective for swaying the judge. Doesn't matter how he came under scrutiny. What they found will be the question.

Manafort “is presented to this Court by the government as a hardened criminal who ‘brazenly’ violated the law and deserves no mercy. But this case is not about murder, drug cartels, organized crime, the Madoff Ponzi scheme or the collapse of Enron,” the attorneys wrote in a memo filed in U.S. District Court in Washington.

If he gets his pardon, those kinds of charges will be coming from New York's AG.

Mueller prosecutors reserved the right at sentencing March 13 to ask Jackson to impose a punishment that runs on top of any prison time Manafort is sentenced to for related crimes in a Virginia federal court.

[...]

As with Jackson, Mueller prosecutors in Alexandria made no specific sentencing request and asked only that U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III hand down a sentence reflecting “the seriousness of these crimes.”

[...]

Manafort’s attorneys asked for any sentences to run concurrently. “In light of his age and health concerns, a significant additional period of incarceration will likely amount to a life sentence for a first time offender,” wrote attorneys Kevin M. Downing, Thomas E. Zehnle and Richard W. Westling.

Perhaps he shouldn't have committed crimes while out on bond.

Manafort’s lawyers in their sentencing memo said Manafort acknowledged that conspiring with Kilimnik to attempt to tamper with witnesses was wrong, but his lawyers said the conduct consisted of a “handful of short or ignored telephone calls and text messages,” unlike “most witness tampering cases” involving offers of bribes, financial incentives or threats of physical harm.

Witness tampering lite. That the witness wouldn't be tampered with has no bearing on the attempt to do so. Again, this is obviously directed to Trumpland and not the judge, who knows better.

Conspiring with Kilimnik to attempt witness tampering and giving Kilimnik polling data just look like collusion. But they're not.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Tony Fabrizio and the Russian connection

Tony Fabrizio was honored as Pollster of the Year for his work on Trump’s 2016 presidential election.

As chief pollster, he was hired to assist Trump’s team and the RNC on the modeling, polling and targeting of specific voter groups.

[...]

“[His firm, Fabrizio, Lee & Associates] FLA was able to identify with precision the voters who wanted change but were not supporting Mr. Trump. Knowing their beliefs, what messages most strongly resonated with them, and their media consumption habits, FLA advised the leadership teams in each key state how best to reach this hugely important cohort of voters,” according to a campaign brief posted to its website.

[...]

“We knew the 14 million people we needed to win 270. We targeted those in over 1,000 different universes with exactly the things that mattered to them."

[...]

They also ran three parallel online voter suppression campaigns specifically targeting “idealistic white liberals, young women and African Americans.”

[...]

Christopher Wylie, a former Cambridge Analytica developer, admitted to Congress that Steve Bannon had “directed the political data consultancy to conduct research on suppressing Black voters, among other groups.”

Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA) appears to have run a similar operation. It was posting comparable divisive messaging on the same media platforms to the same Trump targets during similar time periods.

  Medium

What's legally known as conspiracy? Campaign coordination with a foreign source is illegal at any rate.

Paul Manafort worked for Trump’s campaign from March to August 2016. Before joining the campaign, he recruited Fabrizio. That spring, Manafort and Rick Gates, his business partner and Trump deputy campaign manager, are alleged to have shared the campaign’s polling data with Konstantin V. Kilimnik, Manafort’s protegé with ties to Russian intelligence.

[...]

Fabrizio claims he had no knowledge of Trump polling data being given to the Russians. It’s not the first time he and Manafort have been associated with Russian officials and elections. Manafort previously employed Fabrizio for Viktor Yanukovych and Ukraine’s Party of Regions campaigns in 2012–2013.

[...]

[Manafort] secretly issued orders to rewrite Wikipedia entries to smear any Yanukovych opponents. He ran multiple social media campaigns aimed at promoting Yanukovych to audiences in Europe and the US.

And he also helped set up the ­Brussels-based European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, which contracted with U.S. lobbying firms Mercury Public Affairs and the Podesta Group to promote Yanukovych in D.C. while obscuring Manafort’s role. Fabrizio is also a senior counselor at Mercury Public Affairs [...] currently being investigated by federal prosecutors for the legal and lobbying work they did in 2012 and 2013 for Manafort and Yanukovych.

[...]

Fabrizio was interviewed by Mueller’s team a year ago and reportedly asked about the polling work he’d done for Manafort in Ukraine. He was also questioned about how that polling data had been shared with Russians Konstantin Kilimnik, Serhiy Lyovochkin and Rinat Akhmetov.

[...]

His list of clients includes a number of politicians with ties to Russia. Before joining Trump, he was Rand Paul’s pollster on his 2016 presidential campaign. By that time, Paul was already a known friend to Russian officials.

[...]

Fabrizio was also a pollster and senior advisor to Ron DeSantis on his 2015 Florida Senate campaign. He’d previously worked on former FL Gov. Rick Scott’s two successful governor races and for the GOP on former WI Gov. Scott Walker’s 2014 reelection campaign.

A Walker PAC received $1.1 million in funding from Russian oligarch Len Blavatnik during that campaign. Matt Oczkowski, who worked as Walker’s digital director at the time, later became head of product for Cambridge Analytica.

And, don't forget about our old friend Mitch McConnell.

Fabrizio’s also done strategy and polling work for Rick Perry, Mitch McConnell, the NRA, the RNC, Amway (DeVos family), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and at least five different casino or gaming entities, including Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts.

What a list.

Paul Manafort's last tango

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s lies caught up with him in federal court on Wednesday. The result was a decision that likely means, absent either a deal or a presidential pardon, he’ll spend the rest of his life in jail.

  WaPo

And I don't think it's absolutely certain that he'll get a pardon.

The judge’s finding that Manafort, 69, breached his cooperation deal with prosecutors by lying after his guilty plea could add years to his prison sentence and came after a set of sealed court hearings.

Manafort had denied intentionally lying after his plea deal, but U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District found he lied in three of five areas alleged by prosecutors.

[...]

The subject matter of Manafort’s lies goes to the core of possible cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russians linked to Russian intelligence — in this case, Konstantin Kilimnik, who met with Manafort during the 2016 presidential campaign.

In particular, the court found that Manafort lied about his contacts with Kilimnik both during and after the election. Manafort was also found to have lied about “a payment that was routed through a pro-Trump political action committee to cover his legal bills, and about information relevant to another undisclosed investigation underway at the Justice Department.”

[...]

The Post previously reported that, at a hush-hush August 2, 2016 meeting at the Grand Havana Room, a private cigar room in New York, Manafort, deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates and Kilimnik discussed “a proposed resolution to the conflict over Ukraine, an issue of great interest to the Russian government, according to a partially redacted transcript of the Feb. 4 hearing.” It was there that there may have been “a handoff by Manafort of internal polling data from Trump’s presidential campaign to his Russian associate.”

Manafort finds himself in a much worse position than he was as a cooperating witness trying to whittle down his potential sentence for eight felony convictions handed down last year in Virginia. “Manafort is either the most self-destructive, irrational liar in history, or he is still protecting a secret so dark that exposing it would kill his chance for a pardon,” former Justice Department spokesman Matt Miller tells me.

Or his Russian mob buddies know Manafort's family's address.

This, in short, was collusion — Trump’s top campaign official giving material to a suspected agent of a hostile foreign government that the campaign had already been warned was attempting to interfere with our election. Whatever you call it — direct or indirect evidence — this now is one link proven in court between the campaign and the Russians.

Which is probably why Republican Senator Richard Burr came out with his announcement a couple of days ago that the Senate Intel Committee has found "no direct evidence" of collusion.

We know of others, of course, including the Trump Tower meeting in June 2016 designed to get dirt on Hillary Clinton, Trump’s public call for Russia to go after Clinton’s emails, and more than 100 contacts between Russian figures and members of the Trump circle.

[...]

The only question is which of these contacts Trump was aware of and/or authorized, and what the nature of any quid pro quo may have been.

[...]

“There is no non-nefarious explanation for the chairman of a presidential campaign secretly meeting with a suspected Russian agent in the midst of an election that the Russians are actively trying to influence and then lying about it to the prosecutor after agreeing to cooperate.,” says Max Bergmann of the Moscow Project. “The only reason for Manafort to lie at this point is to cover up something truly devastating.”

[...]

[Former prosecutor Mimi Rocah] notes that "Manafort chose to lie about his dealings with a Russian intelligence officer and spend years more in prison than he would have if he had told the truth. So the looming question that remains in my mind is — why? "

Could be he wants to stay alive (and keep his family alive) even if it means he spends the rest of his life in jail. Could be he does believe he'll get a pardon.

With Manafort now under extreme pressure, he could for the first time tell us what exactly is the deep dark secret about Russia and the Trump operation that so many people have lied to cover up.

I'm not holding my breath.

Manafort's sentencing is scheduled for March 13.

They're not finished squeezing Manafort

Even though his trial is set for next month, the Feds are still getting information to put the screws on.

Sam Patten, a former associate of Paul Manafort, pleaded guilty in federal court on Friday to illegally acting as a foreign agent and has agreed to cooperate with government prosecutors.

Patten pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, a federal law governing foreign lobbying, in federal court in D.C. on Friday.

[...]

He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison, followed by supervised release for up to three years, and could be fined up to $250,000 for the offense.

As part of his plea agreement, Patten has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.

[...]

Patten also is said to have ties to Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian who Mueller indicted earlier this year along with Manafort for conspiring to obstruct justice and obstructing justice.

[...]

The judge released Patten on Friday morning shortly before noon but directed him to hand over his passports and report by phone weekly to the Pretrial Services Agency. He will also have to get the court’s permission to travel outside the greater Washington metro area.

  The Hill

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Did the government screw up in Manafort's favor?

What will this mean?  Mistrial?  If so, this is a big fuckup.

Grand Jury Friday: Rackin' 'em up against Manafort

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has secured an indictment against a Russian-Ukrainian political consultant who worked with Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort.

Konstantin Kilimnik was named in a superseding indictment on Friday along with Manafort. The new indictment replaces the old one against Manafort and adds charges of witness tampering and obstruction of justice to the slew of charges he already faces.

  HuffPo

I believe this is the second superseding indictment.

The indictment alleges that Manafort and Kilimnik “knowingly and intentionally attempted to corruptly persuade” two people “with intent to influence, delay, and prevent the testimony of any person in an official proceeding.”

Mueller’s team, which is investigating potential ties between the presidential campaign of Donald Trump and Russia, has now secured indictments against 20 people. Those include Manafort, Manafort’s aide Rick Gates, Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos.

The hearing to determine whether Manafort goes to jail to await his trial (as opposed to staying near home with two ankle bracelets that he's been doing) is scheduled for June 15.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

No wonder Gates decided he should cooperate with Mueller

[D]ocuments, filed by special counsel Robert Mueller's team [yesterday], allege that Rick Gates, a longtime business partner of Manafort and President Trump's former deputy campaign manager, was aware that an unidentified associate "was a former Russian Intelligence Officer."

The documents also allege that Gates and the individual continued to communicate with one another in the months before the 2016 presidential election. Such communication "was pertinent to the investigation," prosecutors said.

  The Hill

I guess so. And considering the fact that Gates was Manafort's assistant when Manafort was heading up the Trump campaign at that time, this little tidbit should squeeze the vice on him even tighter. And perhaps clue the Trump attorney team - such as it is - that they really are in deep doodoo.

Lordy, I hope Trump is "interviewed" by Mueller.  Wouldn't you like a front row seat to that?

The FBI's assessment was made public in a sentencing memo filed late Tuesday in the case of Alex van der Zwaan, a London-based lawyer, who pleaded guilty last month to lying to investigators about his contacts with Gates and the unidentified associate.

In the memo, prosecutors said that van der Zwaan acknowledged to special counsel investigators in an interview that Gates had told him of the associate's ties to a Russian military intelligence agency, the GRU.

The individual in question is referred to in the court filings only as "Person A." The Washington Post reported Tuesday, however, that the associate matches the description of Konstantin Kilimnik, a longtime Russian employee of Manafort.

Kilimnik has previously denied having ties to Russian intelligence. He told the Post in a statement in June that he has "no relation to the Russian or any other intelligence service."

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Reminder of Manafort's situation when he got on Trump's campaign as manager

From April 26, 2016 Washington Post:

Paul Manafort was hired by Donald Trump to bring the wisdom of an old Washington hand to a campaign of political novices and provide expertise on the arcane art of counting convention delegates.

  WaPo

That was the ruse, anyway. Manafort wasn't actually hired, if by hired you mean contracted for pay.

Manafort, 67, is in many ways a natural choice to be Trump’s top campaign adviser. His firm was hired by Trump in the mid-1980s to lobby on gambling and real estate issues, said Manafort’s former business partner Charlie Black. In addition, Manafort has owned an apartment in Trump Tower since January 2015, property records show. And another former Manafort business partner, Roger Stone, has been an informal adviser to Trump for years.

[...]

More than many traditional political consultants, Manafort has demonstrated a willingness to forge unconventional alliances and cut deals in a way that makes him well suited to help Trump secure the nomination in a fractured GOP.

That's one way to put it. Apparently the Washington Post didn't have much information on Manafort - or perhaps any on the FBI investigation into Russian interference in the election that would come that fall.

Manafort also built a high-powered lobbying practice that did not shy from clients others shunned. They included two corrupt dictators, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire and Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, both of whom stole billions of dollars from their countries.

Always works with the best people.

Deripaska already knew Davis, who with Manafort had helped arrange meetings for him with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in January and August 2006 as McCain prepared to run for president.

Hmmmmm...I wonder if anybody in the FBI looked into that.

Deripaska was interested in building his contacts in the United States, which in July 2006 revoked his visa. The Wall Street Journal reported at the time that his visa was pulled amid concerns that he might be linked to organized crime, something he has vigorously denied. He later received visas to travel to the United States.

So, by August, McCain would have been able to find out he should stay away from Deripaska.

[Oleg Deripaska], a Russian aluminum magnate has accused Manafort in a Cayman Islands court of taking nearly $19 million intended for investments, then failing to account for the funds, return them or respond to numerous inquiries about exactly how the money was used.

[...]

The court filing describes a complicated business plan in which Manafort and his partners would establish companies in Cyprus known as “special purpose vehicles” for tax and regulatory purposes.

Let's cut to the chase: Deripaska was likely talking about ill-gotten funds. I'm guessing the $19 million intended for investments was money waiting to be laundered and/or avoiding taxes.

At one point, attorneys for the Russian businessman, Oleg Deripaska, claimed that they could not locate Manafort or his partner, Richard Gates. The tycoon hired a private investigator to track them down, according to a 2014 petition that Deripaska’s attorneys filed in a Cayman Islands court seeking recovery of the money.

“It appears that Paul Manafort and Rick Gates have simply disappeared,” the petition states.

[...]

A week after the petition was filed in Virginia, Judge Gerald Bruce Lee issued an order allowing Deripaska’s team to move ahead. Arlington, Va.-based private investigator Deborah C. Martin filed documents with the court showing that subpoenas were delivered to Gates at his Richmond home and to the wife of Davis at their home. Martin made no mention in her court filings of Manafort. She declined to comment to The Post.

[...]

Court records show that, as of August 2015, seven years after Deripaska requested his money back, the Russian businessman was still seeking to recover the funds. A Deripaska representative said last week that the matter still angers Deripaska and that the tycoon’s “accountants and lawyers are looking at this right now.”

[...]

Another case, in which Manafort tried to develop a 65-story Manhattan luxury apartment building in 2008, illustrates how he has tapped into his global political relationships to pursue financial deals.

That suspiciously look like money laundering?

In a bid to build the $850 million project on the site of the historic Drake Hotel, Manafort relied in part on funds from Dmitry Firtash, a Ukrainian energy tycoon with a history of legal troubles around the world.

And, speaking of Oleg Deripaska, this happened yesterday:

Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska plans to step down as the president of aluminium giant Rusal, the company said in a statement on Friday.

The change comes less than a month after the inclusion of Deripaska and dozens of tycoons on a U.S. government list of Russian oligarchs. While it is not a sanctions list, Western banks may be reluctant to deal with companies whose owners are included.

Deripaska also plans to quit the same role in En+ Group, another company he controls, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Feb. 19.

  CNBC

Knowing how Deripaska is connected to Manafort, I'm astonished that CNBC doesn't address the why of his "retirement" beyond getting put on a list of tycoons who probably have connections to the Kremlin. That doesn't make sense to me. Or to some other people.

Before Deripaska's announced resignation, the Russian business daily Kommersant cited his appearance on the Treasury's "Kremlin list" as a reason for why he was planning to quit his Rusal post.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters earlier this week that he was doubtful Deripaska would leave because he appeared on the "Kremlin list," but Peskov did not deny Kommersant's report that the well-connected tycoon was planning to step down.

  RadioFreeEurope RadioLiberty

Kommersant newspaper reported claims by sources in Mr Deripaska's companies that he was leaving the top posts due to his inclusion last month in the “Kremlin list” of Russian oligarchs, which the Trump administration issued under US sanctions legislation.

But the list's impact has been called into doubt since it named all Russians with a net worth of at least $1 billion. A source at the company told The Telegraph that the tycoon simply wanted to focus on developing his automobile concern GAZ and its partnership with German carmaker Volkswagen.

[...]

Mr Deripaska's ties to former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, whom he had previously hired as a consultant, have come under scrutiny. In addition, Republican senator Charles Grassley last week sent a letter asking whether the oligarch had ever employed former British spy Christopher Steele, the author of a controversial dossier claiming Russia had compromising material on Mr Trump.

This month, opposition leader Alexei Navalny discovered recordings allegedly showing that Mr Deripaska had discussed US relations with deputy prime minister Sergei Prikhodko on a yacht trip with young women. According to records found by Mr Navalny, the trip took place the month after Mr Manafort reportedly offered the oligarch private briefings on the Trump campaign.

[...]

Mr Deripaska has sued Anastasia Vashukevich, the model who posted the video and audio recordings of him speaking with Mr Prikhodko to her Instagram, for violating his privacy.

Russian authorities forced Instagram to delete Ms Vashukevich's recordings and temporarily blocked Mr Navalny's website.

  UK Telegraph

Ver interesting.

I wonder if Gates' plea deal and subsequent pressure on Manafort comes into play in Mr. Deripaska's decision. I don't suppose he'll ever get his money out of Manafort now, but at least he knows where he is.

But now, I'm reminded of a report in the March 2018 issue of The Atlantic.

Manafort must have also believed that money would eventually come, just as it always had, from the influence he would wield in the campaign, and exponentially more so if Trump won. So might other favors and dispensations. These notions were very likely what led him to reach out to Oleg Deripaska almost immediately upon securing a post within the campaign, after having evaded him for years. Through one of his old deputies, a Ukrainian named Konstantin Kilimnik, he sent along press clippings that highlighted his new job. “How do we use to get whole,” Manafort emailed Kilimnik. “Has OVD operation seen?” Manafort’s spokesman has acknowledged that the initials refer to Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska. In the course of the exchanges, Kilimnik expressed optimism that “we will get back to the original relationship” with the oligarch.

All of Manafort’s hopes, of course, proved to be pure fantasy. Instead of becoming the biggest player in Donald Trump’s Washington, he has emerged as a central villain in its central scandal. An ever-growing pile of circumstantial evidence suggests that the Trump campaign colluded with Russian efforts to turn the 2016 presidential election in its favor. Given Manafort’s long relationship with close Kremlin allies including Yanukovych and Deripaska, and in particular his indebtedness to the latter, it is hard to imagine him as either a naive or passive actor in such a scheme—although Deripaska denies knowledge of any plan by Manafort to get back into his good graces.

[...] Last year, a group of Manafort’s longtime friends, led by an old Republican hand named Bill Greener, tried to organize a cadre of surrogates to defend Manafort from the allegations against him, including the worst one: that he collaborated with a hostile foreign power to subvert the American democratic process. Manafort’s old partner Charlie Black even showed up for a meeting, though the two had largely fallen out of touch. A few of the wheel men from the old firm wanted to help too. Yet, when volunteers were needed to go on TV as character witnesses, nobody raised his hand. “There wasn’t a lot to work with,” one person contacted by this group told me. “And nobody could be sure that Paul didn’t do it.” In fact, everything about the man and the life he chose suggests that he did.

  The Atlantic

No sooner had Manafort secured a position with Trump's campaign than he reached out to Deripaska to ask about clearing up his debt.  By helping the Kremlin-tied oligarch (and likely money launderer) get a hold on Trump's presidency?

And Konstantin Kilimnik, mentioned in that article?  He's allegedly Person A in Mueller's pleading charging Van der Zwaan (who pleaded guilty) just a few days ago.

Person A, who Weissmann said lives largely in Ukraine, appears to be Konstantin Kilimnik, Manafort’s longtime business associate in the country. Prosectors have previously suggested that Kilimnik has ties to Russian intelligence. He also functioned in 2016 as an intermediary between Manafort and Oleg Deripaska, an aluminum oligarch suspected of providing intelligence on the US presidential election to Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2016. In one email Manafort sent while he chaired Trump’s campaign, he told Kilimnik that he was willing to privately brief Deripaska on the 2016 presidential contest. Kilimnik’s involvement appears to further tie Van Der Zwaan’s case to Mueller’s broader investigation.

  Mother Jones

I wonder if Kilimnik will disappear, too.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Van der Zwaan charges

According to the document filed, Van der Zwaan lied to the FBI regarding "communication with Richard W. Gates III."  It also claims he failed to produce emails sought by Mueller's team, which he deleted to try to hide.  Specifically, this seems to refer to one email exchange in particular with "Person A".

The lies, made on November 3, 2017, "concerning his work as an attorney  [...] engaged by the Ukraine Ministry of Justice," are described here:





Supporting charges:



...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:



Intended to make "Person A" squirm?


UPDATE:

Who is Alex Van der Zwaan?


UPDATE 2/24:  "Person A" is being reported as Konstantin Kilimnik.

They're all so forgetful

Special counsel Robert Mueller has abruptly reversed course on a bail agreement his office struck with Paul Manafort's legal team last week that would have allowed him to be released from GPS monitoring.

Manafort evidently failed to tell the government that he was ghost-writing a draft op-ed about his work in Ukraine as late as November 30. He was working on it with his longtime protege Konstantin Kilimnik, who is believed to have ties to Russian intelligence, according to the special counsel's court filing.

The government said that the court had initially "admonished" Manafort's lawyer for making public statements to the press about the case and on November 8 had barred both "the parties and counsel from making statements that could interfere with" a fair trial.

"Even if the ghostwritten op-ed were entirely accurate, fair, and balanced, it would be a violation of this Court’s November 8 Order if it had been publish," the government argued. "The editorial clearly was undertaken to influence the public's opinion of defendant Manafort, or else there would be no reason to seek its publication."

  Business Insider

They ought to revoke his bail, period.  Put him in jail to await trial.

And here's another one of their cabal who needs to be measured for an orange suit...

[One time Trump administration transition official K.T.] McFarland had told lawmakers that she did not discuss or know anything about interactions between Sergey I. Kislyak, who had been Moscow’s ambassador to the United States, and Mr. Flynn, according to Senate documents [from her July testimony].

But emails obtained by The New York Times appear to undermine those statements. In a Dec. 29 message about newly imposed Obama administration sanctions against Russia for its election interference, Ms. McFarland, then serving on Mr. Trump’s transition team, told another transition official that Mr. Flynn would be talking to the Russian ambassador that evening.

The discrepancy is likely to add to mounting troubles for the White House

  NY Times

I think we're beginning to get a very clear picture of just exactly why the Republican-led House Intel Committee was anxious to close out their investigation.

Repeated attempts to reach Ms. McFarland, who served until May as deputy national security adviser and is now awaiting Senate confirmation as ambassador to Singapore, were unsuccessful.

If she's smart, she's already in Singapore.

“Recent developments suggest that Ms. McFarland gave false testimony to the United States Senate on a matter as significant as communications between the Russian government and the Trump transition team,” [Sen. Corey Booker] said. “If this is the case, this is an alarming development, and another example of a pattern of deception on the part of Trump’s closest associates regarding their connections and communications to Russian government officials.”

What do you mean "if"? You've got the documents.  Which couple nicely with her email saying Russia had thrown the election to Trump.

How many Democrats will join Republicans in approving her ambassadorship?  If she were a man, I KNOW she'd get approved.  There's a slight chance of a denial, however, her being a woman.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 12/8:  Dems have asked for full explanation from McFarland.