The Mueller Report: Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election

by Robert S. Mueller III

Manafort remained in contact with Kilimnik throughout 2017 and into the spring of 2018. Those contacts included matters pertaining to the criminal charges brought by the Office,959 and the Ukraine peace plan. In early 2018, Manafort retained his longtime polling firm to craft a draft poll in Ukraine, sent the pollsters a three-page primer on the plan sent by Kilimnik, and worked with Kilimnik to formulate the polling questions.960 The primer sent to the pollsters specifically called for the United States and President Trump to support the Autonomous Republic of Donbas with Yanukovych as Prime Minister,961 and a series of questions in the draft poll asked for opinions on Yanukovych’s role in resolving the conflict in Donbas.962 (The poll was not solely about Donbas; it also sought participants’ views on leaders apart from Yanukovych as they pertained to the 2019 Ukraine presidential election.)