Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team met with a 2016 Trump campaign pollster in February last year, CNN reported Thursday.
The interview gained new relevance after revelations that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort reportedly had a Ukrainian-born fixer, Konstantin Kilimnik — who Mueller has said has “ties to a Russian intelligence service” — sharing Trump campaign polling data with two pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarchs.
The pollster, Tony Fabrizio, worked with Manafort on Ukrainian elections before performing polling for the Trump campaign after Manafort came on as campaign chairman.
CNN noted that, according to an unnamed source familiar with Mueller’s interest in Fabrizio, the Mueller team’s interview with the pollster “included questions about his polling work for Manafort in Ukraine rather than his internal Trump campaign polling,” in CNN’s words.
An “unnamed source familiar with the situation” told CNN Fabrizio wasn’t aware of with whom Manafort or his deputy Rick Gates had shared polling data.
