Manafort the Spy
I read the Mueller Report, every unredacted page. It’s a difficult read, dry and full of careful legal prose, but I found it fascinating. A few quick takeaways:
This was not a witch hunt. People conducting witch hunts do not allow their targets to plead the Fifth. They do not set up a “taint team” to make sure no privileged documents end up in the hands of investigators. Angry mobs with torches do not decide, at the end, that there isn’t enough evidence to convict the target of being a witch.
The Special Counsel’s office conducted a straightforward police investigation into the Trump Campaign. The first part of the report examines Russia’s efforts to interfere in our election and contacts between Russian agents and members of the Trump Campaign. The second part of the report focuses on the actions the President made to interfere and even shut down the investigation. The report explains in great detail the legal arguments for charging the President with obstruction of justice.
I predict that, in the coming months, many pundits, experts and politicians will be commenting on obstruction. Already, that second half of the Mueller report has earned the most press coverage. I will focus instead on the first part of the report, on the attempts of Russian agents to infiltrate the Trump Campaign and their efforts on social media to turn the election in Trump’s favor.
The George Papadopoulos incident was well reported in the media after the Trump campaign official was charged with lying to investigators. There were other incidents detailed in the report, of Russian agents reaching out to low- and mid-level staffers on the Trump campaign, offering aid and support. To his credit, Corey Lewandowski, during his time as Trump’s Campaign Manager, batted most of these attempts away.
One got through, however, all the way to Trump himself. The Russians knew Trump from their business dealings with him in 2015. They had the measure of the man, for better and for worse. Their agent knew just what to say to win Trump’s favor: “I’ll work for you for free.”
Russia’s agent, the spy, was Paul Manafort.
Now, you protest, “Yes, he wears nice suits, but he doesn’t have a watch that shoots poison darts and he doesn’t drive a car that shoots rockets and can turn into a submarine!” No, but he did send send encrypted messages back to his handlers in Russian Intelligence. The FBI intercepted those transmissions but could not decode them. Thus, the Special Counsel chose not to charge Manafort with criminal conspiracy. (Instead, they got convictions on money laundering and tax evasion, despite efforts by the President to obstruct justice by dangling a pardon and tampering with the jury through his public statements.)
Manafort worked for Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska in Ukraine, helping to prop up the corrupt and incompetent pro-Russia leader, Viktor Yanukovych. Manafort worked closely with Konstantin Kilimnik, who had long-standing ties to Russian Intelligence. (This was a well known fact in Manafort’s circle. Rick Gates, in his testimony, called Kilimnick “a spy.”)
The Russians want to take back Ukraine and make it part of Russian again, just as Ukraine was once part of the Soviet Union. They annexed Crimea, then used their money and soldiers to stir up trouble in Eastern Ukraine. The last thing Russia wants is for NATO to come to Ukraine’s rescue if Russia invades. That could possibly lead to another World War, to a nuclear exchange.
Putin would rather starve Ukraine into submission. Taking the Eastern section of Ukraine, containing much of the countries resources and industry, would do just that. In 2016, they put forward a fake “peace plan” that would put Yanukovych back in charge of Eastern Ukraine. Hillary Clinton would never go along with the scam, but Putin thought political neophyte Trump just might.
That was Manafort’s main assignment. Get Trump, and by extension, the Republican party, to change their position on Ukraine and endorse the Russian “peace plan.” The Republican platform did shift slightly during their 2016 convention, but not nearly enough to prove to the ever-cautious Mueller that there was a deal on the table.
Reince Priebus and other Republican leaders knew that Manafort was bad news. They were likely the ones who killed the idea of Trump endorsing Putin’s plan. They forced out Manafort as quickly as they could, but not before Manafort and Gates passed along Republican polling data to Kilimnick.
What Kilimnick did with that data, Mueller will not speculate. (He doesn’t speculate on anything in this report. It’s all facts and law.) Mueller does detail much of what we have learned about Russia’s interference in our election. Putin’s Internet Research Agency used Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to target voters in key battleground states. They were trying to turn out the vote for Trump and suppress the vote for Clinton. The polling data Manafort provided them would have been of great assistance to this effort. Without inside information, the Russians would not have been so effective.
I wrote several months ago that I did not believe Trump would purposefully betrayed our country. I was concerned that he was naive and inexperienced enough to let a spy in his midst unwittingly. Unfortunately for us, this is exactly what happened.
***
Thanks for reading! As I mentioned back on April 1, GoodReads took away my ability to see the read counts for this blog. I will have no way of knowing you are reading this unless you hit “like.” So, please, like and comment! And, if there was an earlier post that you enjoyed reading, please go back and like that one, too. I really appreciate it.
Fondly, KJ Cartmell
This was not a witch hunt. People conducting witch hunts do not allow their targets to plead the Fifth. They do not set up a “taint team” to make sure no privileged documents end up in the hands of investigators. Angry mobs with torches do not decide, at the end, that there isn’t enough evidence to convict the target of being a witch.
The Special Counsel’s office conducted a straightforward police investigation into the Trump Campaign. The first part of the report examines Russia’s efforts to interfere in our election and contacts between Russian agents and members of the Trump Campaign. The second part of the report focuses on the actions the President made to interfere and even shut down the investigation. The report explains in great detail the legal arguments for charging the President with obstruction of justice.
I predict that, in the coming months, many pundits, experts and politicians will be commenting on obstruction. Already, that second half of the Mueller report has earned the most press coverage. I will focus instead on the first part of the report, on the attempts of Russian agents to infiltrate the Trump Campaign and their efforts on social media to turn the election in Trump’s favor.
The George Papadopoulos incident was well reported in the media after the Trump campaign official was charged with lying to investigators. There were other incidents detailed in the report, of Russian agents reaching out to low- and mid-level staffers on the Trump campaign, offering aid and support. To his credit, Corey Lewandowski, during his time as Trump’s Campaign Manager, batted most of these attempts away.
One got through, however, all the way to Trump himself. The Russians knew Trump from their business dealings with him in 2015. They had the measure of the man, for better and for worse. Their agent knew just what to say to win Trump’s favor: “I’ll work for you for free.”
Russia’s agent, the spy, was Paul Manafort.
Now, you protest, “Yes, he wears nice suits, but he doesn’t have a watch that shoots poison darts and he doesn’t drive a car that shoots rockets and can turn into a submarine!” No, but he did send send encrypted messages back to his handlers in Russian Intelligence. The FBI intercepted those transmissions but could not decode them. Thus, the Special Counsel chose not to charge Manafort with criminal conspiracy. (Instead, they got convictions on money laundering and tax evasion, despite efforts by the President to obstruct justice by dangling a pardon and tampering with the jury through his public statements.)
Manafort worked for Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska in Ukraine, helping to prop up the corrupt and incompetent pro-Russia leader, Viktor Yanukovych. Manafort worked closely with Konstantin Kilimnik, who had long-standing ties to Russian Intelligence. (This was a well known fact in Manafort’s circle. Rick Gates, in his testimony, called Kilimnick “a spy.”)
The Russians want to take back Ukraine and make it part of Russian again, just as Ukraine was once part of the Soviet Union. They annexed Crimea, then used their money and soldiers to stir up trouble in Eastern Ukraine. The last thing Russia wants is for NATO to come to Ukraine’s rescue if Russia invades. That could possibly lead to another World War, to a nuclear exchange.
Putin would rather starve Ukraine into submission. Taking the Eastern section of Ukraine, containing much of the countries resources and industry, would do just that. In 2016, they put forward a fake “peace plan” that would put Yanukovych back in charge of Eastern Ukraine. Hillary Clinton would never go along with the scam, but Putin thought political neophyte Trump just might.
That was Manafort’s main assignment. Get Trump, and by extension, the Republican party, to change their position on Ukraine and endorse the Russian “peace plan.” The Republican platform did shift slightly during their 2016 convention, but not nearly enough to prove to the ever-cautious Mueller that there was a deal on the table.
Reince Priebus and other Republican leaders knew that Manafort was bad news. They were likely the ones who killed the idea of Trump endorsing Putin’s plan. They forced out Manafort as quickly as they could, but not before Manafort and Gates passed along Republican polling data to Kilimnick.
What Kilimnick did with that data, Mueller will not speculate. (He doesn’t speculate on anything in this report. It’s all facts and law.) Mueller does detail much of what we have learned about Russia’s interference in our election. Putin’s Internet Research Agency used Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to target voters in key battleground states. They were trying to turn out the vote for Trump and suppress the vote for Clinton. The polling data Manafort provided them would have been of great assistance to this effort. Without inside information, the Russians would not have been so effective.
I wrote several months ago that I did not believe Trump would purposefully betrayed our country. I was concerned that he was naive and inexperienced enough to let a spy in his midst unwittingly. Unfortunately for us, this is exactly what happened.
***
Thanks for reading! As I mentioned back on April 1, GoodReads took away my ability to see the read counts for this blog. I will have no way of knowing you are reading this unless you hit “like.” So, please, like and comment! And, if there was an earlier post that you enjoyed reading, please go back and like that one, too. I really appreciate it.
Fondly, KJ Cartmell
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