WaPo: Manafort Offered Russian Bigwig ‘Private Briefings’ On Campaign

FILE - In this July 18, 2016, file photo, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort walks around the convention floor before the opening session of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Hillary Clinton’s campaign is questioning Donald Trump’s top political aide’s ties to a pro-Kremlin political party in Ukraine, claiming it is evidence of the Republican nominee’s cozy relationship with Russia. The New York Times reported that handwritten ledgers found in Ukraine show $12.7 million in undisclosed payments to Paul Manafort from the pro-Russia party founded by the country’s former president Viktor Yanukovych. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
FILE - In this July 18, 2016, file photo, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort walks around the convention floor before the opening session of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Manafort resigned in wa... FILE - In this July 18, 2016, file photo, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort walks around the convention floor before the opening session of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Manafort resigned in wake of campaign shakeup and revelations about Ukraine work. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File) MORE LESS
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Paul Manafort offered a Kremlin-linked Russian billionaire private briefings on the Trump campaign while serving as its chairman, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.

Manafort emailed an overseas intermediary requesting that his message be passed along to aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin with whom Manafort had previously done business.

“If he needs private briefings we can accommodate,” Manafort wrote in an email dated July 7, 2016, according to the report.

Post reporters were read part of the email, which Politico reported was sent from his presidential campaign account. It was one of tens of thousands of documents that congressional investigators and special counsel Robert Mueller’s team have received as part of their ongoing probes into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

There is no evidence in the documents to show that Deripaska either received the email or took any briefings from Manafort, according to the newspaper. Representatives for both Deripaska’s company and Manafort denied that there was anything inappropriate about the communications.

Manafort spokesperson Jason Maloni told the Post that no briefings occurred and characterized the email as simply an offer for a “routine” briefing on the state of the campaign.

Vera Kurochkina, a spokeswoman for Deripaska’s company, Rusal, told the Post that its requests for comment “veer into manufactured questions so grossly false and insinuating that I am concerned even responding to these fake connotations provides them the patina of reality.”

Per the Post’s report, the documents turned over to investigators include a number of email exchanges related to Deripaska, some of which focus on money Manafort believed he was owed by Eastern European clients, that appear deliberately vague and that refer to the aluminum magnate only by his initials.

Manafort has reportedly been informed by federal prosecutors that they plan to indict him for possible tax and financial crimes.

Latest Muckraker

Notable Replies

  1. If even an experienced pro like Manafort was dumb enough to put something like this in writing, one wonders what else Mueller has already shaken loose.

  2. Thanks, that guy is so good. This is even better than the T.May ones.

  3. One can only admire Mueller for his thoroughness and doggedness in finding the truth, wherever it takes him. The best is yet to come!

  4. Is there any campaign in the past that has offered or given briefings to people outside the US as part of the campaign? Maybe a meeting with a head of state or ambassador, that might make sense, but to brief a random person? This one really, really stinks…there isn’t an conceivable reason the Trump campaign needed to give briefings on the campaign to a citizen of another nation who wasn’t going to be involved with the possible Trump administration. Which, of course, begs the question exactly how this Russian bigwig was going to be involved with the Trump administration.

    The Mueller investigation just can’t go fast enough, these little tidbits that slip out really look bad…the thing I’m worried about is there wasn’t actually anything illegal and Mueller just says no crimes were committed (which is possible) and the Republican Congress sweeps everything under the rug. Whatever the outcome, we need the non-classified information released for people to read and understand all the things that happened.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

108 more replies

Participants

Avatar for caterpillar Avatar for eggrollian Avatar for clemmers Avatar for george_spiggott Avatar for squirreltown Avatar for teenlaqueefa Avatar for daveyjones64 Avatar for sparrowhawk Avatar for sonsofares Avatar for jurisgal Avatar for geofu54 Avatar for nemo Avatar for thebishop Avatar for serendipitoussomnambulist Avatar for diveguy99 Avatar for tena Avatar for antisachetdethe Avatar for spencersmom Avatar for wintermoon Avatar for tiowally Avatar for khyber900 Avatar for lilyinindy Avatar for ohcomeonnow Avatar for kenga

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: