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Mueller Might Not Be Done With Manafort Yet
The disgraced operative still needs to answer for his ties to a suspected Russian spy.
Natasha Bertrand
6:00 AM ET
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The first clue that Muellers interest in Manafort goes beyond his financial crimes came early last month, when one of the top prosecutors on Muellers 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 counsels office is investigating. (Manaforts deputy Rick Gates was also at the meeting, The Washington Post said, citing court records. A status update for Gates, who has been cooperating with Mueller, is due on Friday.) 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 Trumps campaign, as his appointment memo described it; Jackson agreed that the topic of Manaforts meeting was at the undisputed core of the Office of Special Counsels investigation.
But Weissmanns tantalizing comment wasnt resolved in the governments sentencing memo for Manafort; on the contrary, details about the August 2016 meeting were conspicuously absent from the 800-page document. The episode was briefly brought up in Manaforts sentencing hearing on Wednesday, when Jackson reaffirmed that Manafort had lied to the government about the meeting in his conversations with Muellers team. I still find that the special counsels office proved that Manafort intentionally gave false testimony with respect to that matter, she said. And it was only one of several matters he lied about with regard to Mr. Kilimnik, she added.
The topics discussed during the August 2 meeting might be the closest thing to a smoking gun of collusion that has been revealed so far. A footnote in a court filing submitted by Manaforts 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, Manaforts 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. Its not easily understandable." Jackson shot back: "Thats what makes it significant and unusual.
Still, the content of the 2016 meeting was only revealed by accident due to a redaction error by Manaforts lawyers, and the significance of the episode to Muellers main probe, while hinted at by Weissmann, has yet to be fully explained.
That something else could be anything from a line in Muellers 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.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/03/mueller-might-not-be-done-manafort-over-kilimnik-ties/584995/
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