The web of connections between Trump and Putin, visualized
The web of connections between Trump and Putin, visualized
By Philip Bump March 28 at 10:54 AM
A court filing from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s team on Tuesday made explicit what had previously only been suggested: A longtime business partner of former Trump campaign staffers Paul Manafort and Rick Gates had direct links to Russian intelligence.
While the filing doesn’t name the business partner, it’s widely interpreted to refer to Konstantin Kilimnik, who ran Manafort’s office in Kiev, Ukraine, when Manafort was supporting the political efforts of that country’s Russia-allied Party of Regions. When the FBI interviewed lawyer Alex van der Zwaan in the fall, he said that Gates had informed him that the unnamed individual was a former officer with Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU. When Manafort was serving as Trump’s campaign chairman (and Gates as Trump’s deputy campaign chairman), he met on more than one occasion with Kilimnik.
President Trump has repeatedly insisted that there was no collusion between his campaign and the Russian actors believed to have been working to boost his 2016 candidacy at the expense of Hillary Clinton’s. The solidification of a link between Gates, Manafort and the GRU appears to be, as our Aaron Blake explains, a direct connection between Russian intelligence and the campaign.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/03/28/the-web-of-connections-between-trump-and-putin-visualized/?utm_term=.e95fa6d8815e
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