What possible value would a Russian industrial oligarch find in U.S. political campaign polling data? Give me a reason other than, passing it on for the Russian election interference op? Deripaska himself would have more use for Arby's BBQ sauce recipe.
nytimes.com/2019/01/08/us/…
nytimes.com/2019/01/08/us/…
Seriously, Manafort thought "internal polling data" would be worth big money to Deripaska, big in aluminum smelting, locomotives, sugar beets. If nothing behind the scenes going on, what use would that data be for Deripaska's business interests? 2/
If Manafort offered insight on Trump's trade policy, who influences Trump, dirt that could be used against Trump's influencers, sure, obvious value to a Russian industrialist. But voter-level analytics from Eau Claire, WI? Deripaska enjoys poking around with ggplot??? 3/
Manafort, who knows Deripaska very well and isn't a total idiot, thought internal campaign data was worth real money to the oligarch (i.e., to count against Manafort's debt). That only makes sense if Deripaska was passing on to others -- and that Manafort KNEW he was 4/
Whether a U.S. Presidential campaign mgr knowingly helped the Kremlin by sending compromising photos or datasets is criminal either way, but the data isn't worth much unless intended to help the online influence operations. And Manafort would have understood that 5/
Hard to see a way to read now other than" "President Trump's campaign manager knowingly colluded with a Russian covert operation against the United States". One could still argue Manafort went rogue, motivated by personal debt, but damn that's a mind-boggling sentence. 6/6
