Hold the phone on the Manafort -> Kilimnik -> Deripaska stovepiping. This just went up on NYT article:
Correction: January 8, 2019
A previous version of this article misidentified the people to whom Paul Manafort wanted a Russian associate to send polling data. Mr. Manafort wanted the data sent to two Ukrainian oligarchs, Serhiy Lyovochkin and Rinat Akhmetov, not Oleg V. Deripaska, a Russian oligarch close to the Kremlin.
That’s a hell of a correction! Now I just need to find my program to remember which dodgy dealings the two new players are involved in.
None of this should surprise anyone who’s really been paying attention to this case. The crimes committed by the Trump campaign as well as the Trump administration and the Trump family prior to even running were pretty obvious. This is more about the fact that white collar crimes are rarely prosecuted even when they’re obvious than about solving an actual mystery.
My guess is that, not only will Team Trump be found obviously guilty of every crime we currently suspect they’ve committed, all of our suspicions have only scratched the surface of how bad this is. The full story of the Trump crime syndicate (once revealed to the public) will probably be much worse than even his most jaded critics currently suspect.
I doubt that Trump is actually guilty of having anyone murdered. Beyond that, he’s probably been responsible for most other crimes we could imagine. Certainly he’s committed nearly every type of financial crime possible plus a number of other crimes too numerous to count here. In any case, I’m sure we’ll find out much more over the next few months.
I’m still willing to bet he’ll defect to Russia before this is all over, but we’ll see.
If Manafort was sending info to them you can be sure there’s a Kremlin connection. Manafort only worked for all the best people.
Once the data made it into the hands of a Russian citizen - regardless of the Oligarch’s name or the Oligarch’s minion’s name - I assume it makes little legal difference to US prosecutors. Folks in Russia don’t cross Putin unless they want to dine with Polonium Patty or shake hands with Nikolai Novichok. Putin directed what was to be done with this data.
There is the question of intent on the part of Manafort, but with respect to the Russians obtaining detailed polling information which would allow micro-targeting, we’re now well beyond a smoking gun. The apparent fact that Manafort lied to Mueller about this is extremely telling.
And no, Virginia, I am not surprised.
The new people identified in The NY Times correction are both people with ties to former Ukraine President Yanukovych. Lyovochkin was Yanukovych’s chief of staff who is in the Ukraine parliament now and Akhmetov is an oligarch who is the richest person in the Ukraine who hired Manafort to rehabilitate Yanukovych’s image.
Okay, raise your hands.
How many people think Manafort is screaming for his money back on his lawyers’ fees right now?
And Yanukovych is Putin’s puppet, who is living in exile in Russia and wanted by Ukraine for High Treason. Seems like there might be a highly infectious virus there, because there are folks in the USA who feel similarly about Trump.
Lyovochkin was chief of staff for Putin-backed Ukrainian president Yanukovych; Manafort consulted for steel magnate Akhmetov, who was in parliament at the time. Both are implicated in the murky black-ops payoffs to Manafort, investigated jointly by FBI and Ukrainian authorities: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/22/world/europe/ukraine-prosecutors-manafort-consulting-fees.html
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/05/ex-trump-aide-paul-manafort-approved-black-ops-to-help-ukraine-president
In sharing the polling data, it could be that Manafort intended to tout his continuing relevance & utility to Russia-aligned Crimean factions as part of a viable US presidential campaign far more favorably disposed towards Putin than HRC. Remember the weird Ukraine-specific changes to the GOP convention platform.
Of course, Manafort also lied to Mueller about all this. It may all ultimately point in the same direction, tho Trump may try to disclaim knowledge and toss Manafort under the bus despite all his self-defeating attempts at remaining loyal.
Seem like Manafort and Donald were both trying to drum up a lot of business with Russia and folks from any other country, regardless of their past history, because folks from every decent country were not touching them with ten foot poles.
And now there is this interesting tidbit on the CNN site identifying the law firm representing that mystery company from the mystery country. And guess who it’s directly connected to…
“The Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a business contact of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort whom Mueller’s team has sought information about, paid Alston & Bird $300,000 upfront in 2003 to help him reinstate his US visa, according to public lobbying disclosure filings. Over the next few years, Deripaska paid the firm another $270,000 for their work, the filings say. “
That mystery country is Russia. Done.
If this is true, then the mystery company has to be Sberbank.
Didn’t we have some sort of betting pool for this? As I recall Sberbank was a one of the top contenders. I was sure it was Bank of Cyprus. Which is why I’ve nevet been to Las Vegas 
oops
You think russia would have him?