Thread by @j2dumfounded

I am sharpening the knives before tackling my very favorite villain of all, Paul John Manafort, former Trump campaign manager, former Yanukovych campaign manager, and current inmate at a Pennsylvania prison.

My currently open windows of indictments range from A to U: Assange Butina Cohen Concord Corsi Deripaska Epstein Firtash Gates Internet-research-agency Kilimnik Khusyznova Manafort NRA Papadapolous Patten Stone Trump Unknown-defendant.
Like Arya, I like lists.

Eff me, always with the legion typos, which in this case involves me not even being able to read my own handwriting.
It’s KHUSYANOVA not KhusyZnova.
😤
justice.gov/usao-edva/pres…

When I began to learn the Cyrillic alphabet I started writing the letter A differently in my everyday script and now they look like the English Zed. Oy vey.
It’s hard to believe I actually used to win contests for handwriting.

Yo gusto mucho.

Sorry kids! I have been so busy this week reading court documents. First was the Mehta decision, then Julian Assange & Paul Manafort’s banker Steve Calk whom the court calkblocked.
Good times! Also Nancy Pelosi is Queen of Orange Slayers, first of her name, all in due time.

Perhaps one or two or even three of you wondered why I was nattering on about Dana Rohrabacher this Thursday. The fact of the matter is that Dana fits into Paul Manafort’s story very closely.

& believe me that info on Dana is currently just the beginning of that thread ,a work in progress,so his timeline & role will be clear to everybody.
Short path is Rohrabacher-Manafort-Kremlin
As well as Vanetik, inaugural, cannabis, Colombia, картелс. Let’s not forget Balochistan

Indispensable.

Enough with the interstitial observations.

Let us turn our attention to Volume One, Section IV, A-8.
RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT LINKS To AND CONTACTS WITH THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN ...

Paul J. Manafort

We are on Page 127 of the #MuellerReport (redacted), page 139 of the PDF.

These first two paragraphs are loaded with #WheresManafort malfeasance.

The Russian-connected Trump campaign manager was sending polling data to Russia during the campaign.

Manafort expected his GRU-trained translator & all-around henchman, Konstantin (Kostya) Kilimnik to send information to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska (OVD), a man so powerful he can tell the deputy prime minister (of Russia) what to do.

Russian opposition leader Navalny uncovered a video of Deripaska on a yacht in August 2016 telling the at-the-time Deputy PM, Prikhodko, what he wanted done.
This is a very amusing video if you want some distraction from the grim reality. Ducky, tbh. 🦆

Do watch the last few minutes, starting at 19:00 when Navalny gets to #WheresManafort.

🚨 DERIPASKA IS THE BACK-CHANNEL 🚨

While naughty Nastya recorded Deripaska & “Daddy” Sergei Eduardovich Prikhodko on the Elden in Norway, it was August 2016 — the height of the American presidential campaign.

Whatever Manafort told Kostya to tell Deripaska was going to the “grey eminence” a man > Lavrov ❗️

Well, it’s probably time to hit the footnotes of Page 127, now that we have established the Campaign’s back-channel to Putin.

“Paul Manafort served on the Trump Campaign, including a period as campaign chairman, from March to August 2016”

Footnote 833 😈😈😈

Please indulge an interruption to this thread while I gloat, having questioned on July 28, 2016 why it was that Manafort did not have any FARA filings & subsequently predicting he would go to jail for it.

#ForeignAgent #WheresManafort is in jail.

#PeakSchadenfreude 😈🍾

Page 130 #MuellerReport (redacted)

Let’s just take this one paragraph at a time.

Kilimnik came to NYC in August 2016 to deliver a message from ousted Ukrainian president Yanukovych.
If Manafort could start the “peace process” he would be handsomely rewarded.

THIS IS A BRIBE

Here’s a story from one of my favorite news sources about Kostya Kilimnik and Paul Manafort meeting in NYC at a cigar bar. Those places must have wonderful HVAC systems. Also, a very rare photo of Kostya…almost like hen’s teeth.

rferl.org/a/mueller-prob…

Unfortunately, you get a 404 clicking through for the transcript of 1:17-cr-00201-ABJ for the February 4 hearing, so here it is in all it glory, assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5731…

Sealed Breach of Plea. Bad Paulie.
Kostya is on pp 14-15, 47, 50-82, 85, 87, 88, 96,97, 111
So it will be sec.

Let’s highlight some of that transcript regarding whether or not Kostya knew the Hapsburg Group (HG) project was limited to Europe or extended to USA [it did] & how Manafort could not remember what he had said, getting himself caught up in his lies.
Pp 52, 63, 64.

This story in Newsweek discusses Manafort’s lies over Kilimnik, the Hapsburg Group, & the plans for peace in Ukraine backed by Manafort’s old boss, Yanukovych.
newsweek.com/trump-paul-man…
It mentions “liquidity issues” and that was a very existential threat to #WheresManafort.

Manafort’s income had fallen dramatically between 2012 & 2014, because the people of Ukraine in their wisdom had risen up against the corruption of the candidate who he placed in the office. His income fell from over $10 million in 2012 to under $5 million in 2013 to $500K 2014.

Manafort astonished many of us in 2016 saying that he would be Trump’s campaign manager free of charge…but as we all know there is no such thing as a free lunch.
He was eager to get back in oligarch Deripaska’s good graces; Yanuyovych offered him a bribe for the UKR peace plan.

Whether the “peace plan” for Ukraine backed by Yanukovych was similar or identical to the Michael Cohen/Felix Sater “peace plan” several months later may not have been determined.
Fact remains Manafort & Kilimnik discussed at least four times:
August 2, 12/16, 1/17, 2/17, 2018.

Clearly the special counsel’s office wanted to get more information than it was able to obtain. The encrypted data from Manafort’s devices was not accessible to Mueller. The lies Manafort told presumably damaged the investigation’s effectiveness.

Manafort apparently refused to disclose the reason why he was sharing internal polling data with Kilimnik. I believe it is for this reason that the SCO could not reliably determine his purpose.

Had this been revealed, would the investigation’s findings be different?

It is my long-held personal opinion that Manafort was a witting accomplice to the Kremlin.

Footnote 842 Page 130 Volume One speaks volumes.
Manafort intentionally made false statements to the SCO, FBI, and grand jury regarding Kilimnik. He must have really wanted to take that bribe.

Let’s see...Page 130... we resume our tour of the redacted #MuellerReport. Just 17 more pages until we hit George Nader, tweeps! Let’s see if I can get this done.

Page 131 #MuellerReport (redacted) Paragraph One

“Manafort claimed that by sharing campaign information with him, Deripaska might see value in their relationship and resolve a "disagreement.””

OVD had sued PJM over the failed Black Sea Cable deal for $18.9 million.

Let’s turn to Senator Mark Warner, who calls this the closest thing yet that we’ve seen to collusion.

Volume One, Section IV, 8a.
Page 131 #MuellerReport

“A memorandum describing work that Manafort performed for Deripaska in 2005 regarding the post-Soviet republics referenced the need to brief the Kremlin and the benefits that the work could confer on "the Putin Government."

Footnotes, Page 131

From his own hand. The strong hand, “Manafort”.

THE NEED TO BRIEF THE KREMLIN
And the BENEFITS IT WOULD GIVE PUTIN’S GOVERNMENT.

Since Pericles is in these footnotes, allow me to dredge up the root of my obsession with #WheresManfort, his appearance in the Panama Papers, from another old tweet.

That’s a mighty fine thread Caroline did on Roger Stone, there.

It’s all tied in. Stone & Manafort go back a long ways.

Let us note in passing we see from the first stanzas that Shakespeare’s Pericles is a tale of a king and incest with his female heir.
Another coincidence?

shakespeare.mit.edu/pericles/full.…
I

Page 132 #MuellerReport (redacted)

Sue Pauly really blew it with Deripaska. He’s been trying for years to patch things up… well not really… he been in hiding for a couple years. But he did want to make OVD whole to get back in his good graces. Millions of reasons. 💸💸💸

So, Pauly blew it and Deripaska did sue him, so PJM disappeared.

Let’s move on to Paragraph i.
Dug up a Foer story that deals with Akhmetov who hired Manafort in 2005 to improve Yanukovych‘s polling data.
slate.com/articles/news_…

Paragraph ii.

Kilimnik profile from 2016.
I call him Kostya mostly.
meduza.io/en/feature/201…

A GRU-trained translator, he worked at the International Republican Institute before finding employment with Manafort as his aide de camp. Pauly doesn’t speak Russian or Ukrainian.

Footnotes Page 132

855 gives us three sources, so there may be no doubt that Kilimnik worked for Manafort. ZERO.

Kostya had direct ties to Yanukovych & entourage. Gates & Patten agree on that and his ties to Deripaska’s guy, Boyarkin WHO WORKED AS A DEFENSE ATTACHE
👀

Page 133 #MuellerReport (redacted)

Well, we all know how truthful Manafort is. He had a cooperation agreement he could not live up to, so his claim, “Manafort told the Office that he did not believe Kilimnik was working as a Russian "spy ." [859 ] rings hollow.

These details on Kilimnik:
• he was a translator in the Russian army for seven years & later worked in the Russian armament industry selling arms and military equipment
• traveled to DC on diplomatic passport in 1997
• IRI Moscow 98-05
• were RU IC links reason he was fired?

Must be awkward to have an employee showing up in the #MuellerReport when you have 4700 employees & worldwide locations.
fticonsulting.com
Brit Jonathan Hawker completed a DMI contract when Kilimnik offered him a role in propagandizing #RussiaInvadedUkraine.

I was searching for Tulukbaev just now when Ms. Maria pointed out to Wendy that FTI Consulting filed its FARA registration on July 11, 2019.

Well, you know what they say, better late than never!

For work done SEVEN YEARS AGO. 😣
efile.fara.gov/docs/6569-Exhi…
FTI Consulting helped Skadden Aarps in the campaign to #LockHerUp, her being Yulia Tymoshenko.
Black Sea View is one of Manafort’s LLCs, I believe.
& this Brit, Hawker, comes to USA to lobby aka “distribute” the report. 🚨

Interestingly, FTI has at least three different FARA registraion numbers under three different DBAs but that detail must remain undelved for now as we ponder the question of who is Tulukbaev? My best guess was he was Azamat whose defunct Twitter is mostly Brazilians. Ah, BRICs.

Apologies. Here I’ve been nattering about footnote 868 on page 134 when I hadn’t even posted the footnotes from page 133. 😫

They are pretty 🔥
Public court filings on Kostya & RU IC
FARA guilty pleas ❣️
Visa records.
& Nix…not the #CambridgeAnalytica one, is it?

Who is Nix, @RepAdamSchiff ?

Next up, Page 134 of the (redacted) #MuellerReport in all its glory.
This bit is problematic:
“Gates suspected that Kilimnik was a "spy," a view that he shared with Manafort, Hawker, & Alexander van der Zwaan.”

So did Rick tell them that, or did they all agree.
Unclear wording!

Oh, I see.

Footnote 870
Hawker 6/9/18 302, at 4;
van der Zwaan 11/3/17 302, at 22.

⚠️ Manafort said in an interview that Gates had joked with Kilimnik about Kilimnik's going to meet with his KGB handler. ⚠️

Manafort 10/16/ 18 302, at 7.

Hardy har har.

Volume One Section IV 8bi
Manafort was campaign manager from “late March” to August 19, 2016.
He was recommended by both Tom #GoldFinger Barrack AND #RogerJStoneJrIsASteamingPile. Stone & Manafort had been biz associates in the 1980s.

“Manafort saw Trump at political and social events in New York City and at Stone's wedding, and Trump requested VIP status at the 1988 and 1996 Republican conventions worked by Manafort.”

Footnote 876

Uh, that’s what he said. #WheresManafort gives up almost zilch.

Page 135 (redacted) #MuellerReport

Manafort goes to Mar-a-Lago, seals deal with Trump & such a deal!
He agrees to WORK FOR FREE

All the best people! All Pauly wants is to resuscitate his moribund career the one he killed by screwing OVD & having those Ukrainians oust his guy.

Volume One, Section IV 8 b ii

“Immediately upon joining the Campaign, Manafort directed Gates to prepare for his review separate memoranda addressed to Deripaska, Akhmetov, Serhiy Lyovochkin, & Boris Kolesnikov.”

What you do when you’re running an American presidential campaign

You have your associate email the Ukrainian oligarchs, telling them the GRU-trained guy will be your translator.

“On March 30, 2016, Gates emailed the memoranda and a press release announcing Manafort's appointment to Kilimnik for translation and dissemination. 881”

Might as well put up a billboard saying, “Working on spec for oligarchs.”

It’s abundantly clear that Manafort thought he could get clear of the $18.9 million Pericles/Black Sea Cable lawsuit Deripaska wanted satisfaction on by being Trump’s campaign manager.

Especially if he could get OVD a visa‼️

Let’s just close up Page 135 by noting the extremely well-documented Footnote 880 with SIX sources to support this phrase, “the last three being Ukrainian oligarchs who were senior Opposition Bloc officials.”
Sounds like Mueller cares about this bit, doesn’t it?
🤔

Here’s LaFraniere in the NYT.

nytimes.com/2018/07/30/us/…

Here’s Sneed in Talking Points Memo, also on July 30, 2018
talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/mana…

Here is Vorobiev in Atlantic Council, September 23, 2018.
atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainea…

And this is Sergii Leshchenko back in August 2014, just a few months after the Maidan revolution and #RussiaInvadedUkraine, saying the oligarchs are right back where they started.

foreignpolicy.com/2014/08/14/ukr…

Not Interfax, but Kyiv Post coverage of the story in translation, I think, with a great photo of POR co-chairman Boris Kolesnikov, from June 23, 2018. It‘s the Mueller cite.
Nice suit. Pauly must be proud. 😺

kyivpost.com/ukraine-politi…

Note to travelers: Kyiv’s Opera Hotel is owned by Rinat Akhmetov. Hey, it’s official…he’s the richest oligarch in Ukraine.

kyivpost.com/business/kyiv-…

Finally, we have the clash of Titans, Medvedchuk v. Akhmetov, in this last citation of Footnote 880.

atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainea…
Markian Kuzmowycz,How the Kremlin Can Win Ukraine's Elections, Atlantic Council (Nov. 19, 2018).

OK, that’s a wrap on Page 135 and this thread, for today, Friday, July 18, 2019.
Don’t forget to PAM until later, tweeps.

thinglink.com/scene/65809020…