U.S. Authorities Investigating Russian National With Close Ties To Paul Manafort
A new report in Politico finds that a Russian-Ukrainian national who has been called “Paul Manafort’s Protege” is being investigated by U.S. authorities for his role in the Russian election interference on Trump’s behalf.
According to the Politico report, “The operative, Konstantin Kilimnik, came under scrutiny from officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the State Department partly because of at least two trips he took to the U.S. during the presidential campaign, according to three international political operatives familiar with the agencies’ interest in Kilimnik.”
Kilimnik met regularly with Manafort while he was running the Trump presidential campaign.
Kilimnik is suspected of being connected to Russian intelligence and trained in the Russian army as a linguist.
The Politico report also noted that Kilimnik “told operatives in Kiev and Washington that he met with Manafort during an April trip to the United States. And, after a late summer trip to the U.S., Kilimnik suggested that he had played a role in gutting a proposed amendment to the Republican Party platform that would have staked out a more adversarial stance towards Russia, according to a Kiev operative.”
“Kilimnik’s relationship with Manafort traces back to 2005,” Politico reports. Manafort and Kilimnik worked together in 2006 to elect Viktor Yanukovych Prime Minister of Ukraine. And four years later the two worked to get Yanukovych elected president as the “leader of the Russia-aligned Party of Regions.”
Kilimnik eventually ran the Kiev office of Manafort’s consulting firm.
Yanukovych later fled Ukraine for Russia amid giant protests in streets.
And when Kilimnik returned to Ukraine after that trip, he suggested to Kiev political operatives that he played a role in a move by Trump’s representatives to dilute a proposed amendment to the GOP platform calling for the U.S. to provide “lethal defensive weapons” for Ukraine to defend itself against Russian incursion.
“He led me to believe that he was involved in the platform fight, but not necessarily through Paul,” said a Kiev-based operative who travels in the same circles as Kilimnik. The operative added that Kilimnik could have been “just bullshitting like political consultants do.”
You can read the full Politico piece here.
