How Paul Manafort Turned Trump Against Ukraine
He
was also, as federal investigators later discovered, one of Manafort’s closest
associates during the 2016 campaign—one who Manafort not only passed internal
campaign documents to, but one with whom Manafort went to incredible lengths to
conceal conversations. As that aforementioned GOP-led report detailed, Manafort and
Kilimnik used “sophisticated communications security practices,” including
“encryption, burner phones, and ‘foldering’—writing emails as drafts in a
shared account.” The two further routinely scrubbed their tracks, with some
messages “deleted … daily.”
It
was in this context that Kilimnik, as Gates also recalled, began framing
anti-Ukraine narratives for Manafort and others. As Gates told investigators,
Manafort may have been the first American to push the idea, but he was just
“parrot[ing] a narrative Kilimnik often supported.”
The
exact chain of events from there remain murky. We still don’t know when
Kilimnik initially pitched the idea of Ukraine’s supposed anti-Trump efforts to
Manafort, or exactly when Manafort relayed the idea to Trump. Much of
Manafort’s role—as well as the full details of his relationship with Kilimnik—remains classified. But that could soon change. A recent letter from Senator Ron Wyden to
the U.S. director of national intelligence said it was “critical” that the
details of Manafort’s ties with Kilimnik be declassified, and “be made public
to the greatest extent possible.”