Collusion: How Russia Helped Trump Win the White House

by Luke Harding

[This] deflected media and the Democrats’ attention away from TRUMP’s business dealings in China and other emerging markets. Unlike in Russia, these were substantial and involved the payment of large bribes and kickbacks which, were they to become public, would be potentially very damaging to their campaign.

Given YANUKOVYCH’s (unimpressive) track record in covering up his own corrupt tracks in the past, PUTIN and others in the Russian leadership were sceptical about the ex-Ukrainian president’s reassurances on this relating to MANAFORT. They therefore feared the scandal still had legs, especially as MANAFORT had been commercially active in Ukraine right up to the time (in March 2016) when he joined TRUMP’s campaign team. For them it therefore remained a point of potential vulnerability and embarrassment.

In addition, Manafort and Kilimnik swapped a large number of private emails. In one, sent two weeks before Trump accepted the nomination, Manafort delivered a message via Kilimnik to Deripaska. It made an offer: Manafort was willing to give the oligarch the inside track on Trump’s election campaign. “If he [Deripaska] needs private briefings we can accommodate,” Manafort wrote on July 7. Deripaska’s close relationship with Putin meant that any such briefing would reach the Kremlin.