,
11 tweets,
3 min read
Read on Twitter
1/ Let’s look the Mueller Report to see the evidence Mueller used to claim Konstantin Kilimnik is linked to Russian intelligence.
2A/ According to Footnote 867 of the Mueller Report, one Mark Lenzi told the FBI that Konstantin Kilimnik had ties to Russian intelligence. 
2B/ Mark Lenzi had worked with Kilimnik at IRI, but Lenzi left IRI in 2007! More than 10 years ago! How did Mueller even find Lenzi to ask him about Kilimnik. By 2008, Kilimnik was a staffer for John McCain’s presidential campaign in New Hampshire. p2008.org/mccain/mccaing…
2C/ In the critical Spygate scandal month of July 2016, self-described diehard Republican Lenzi announced he was backing Hillary Clinton for president. Lenzi claimed to be concerned that Trump went after McCain and his foreign policy goals. wmur.com/article/update…
2D/ Another IRI official (Stephen Nix) doesn’t remember Kilimnik as having intelligence ties (Footnote 866). Nix is a senior team member at IRI still to this day. Why isn’t Nix’s version of events the more credible narrative for Mueller?
2E/ Why was Lenzi interviewed by Mueller at all? Lenzi hadn’t worked with Kilimnik for over a decade by the time of his interview. It seems Lenzi’s primary credential is that he’s a McCain protégé. Makes me wonder if Lenzi spoke about more topics than appeared in the Mueller Rpt.
3A/ The second piece of evidence is that Rick Gates allegedly told Alex van der Zwaan and Jonathan Hawker that Gates suspected Kilimnik was a “spy”. UK-based VDZ and Hawker had worked with Gates/Kilimnik on Ukraine-related matters.
3B/ Interestingly, Manafort testified to something similar – that Rick Gates had joked that Kilimnik had a handler at the then defunct KGB. Notice, too, that none of this information comes directly from Gates himself.
3C/ Was it all an inside joke that Russian Konstantin Kilimnik was working for Russian intelligence? And if Gates was the source of this information, why were van der Zwann, Hawker, and Manafort questioned about it, but not Gates? The FBI interviewed Gates on multiple occasions.
4/ CONCLUSION: The Mueller Rpt doesn’t even really try to make the case that Kilimnik is linked to Russian intelligence. People joked about it, yes. A McCain protégé who hadn’t worked with Kilimnik in over a decade said it. But people close to Kilimnik don't allege it is true.
** Lenzi was a staffer for McCain's 2008 campaign **
