Manafort's Collusion, Post-Soviet Machinations & Merger of Mafia
The "No Collusion, No Obstruction" Denial Obscures a Criminal Attack on US Sovereignty
After 3 years of spy stories and palace intrigue, the Mueller report landed in the Spring of 2019. Putin’s Russia had made a strategy to manipulate our 2016 Presidential campaign with espionage and propaganda to tinker the results and turn us against each other. At the time, this much was widely agreed upon. But were Americans involved, and were any on the Trump campaign implicated?
After reports of horribly suspicious behavior and connection (The Trump Tower meeting, Kushner and the Russian banker’s clandestine meeting, Papadopoulous giving Greeks a bad name) slowly offloaded to the press and public, the Mueller report had some fresh bombshells too. Still, most had already exploded in isolation earlier in the investigation. Critically, Mueller failed to make a criminal case for collusion or for Trump’s clear obstruction of justice. Perhaps Mueller would not have won in court, and this might have presented difficult problems also. But Mueller absolutely should have charged Manafort all the same because the evidence clearly indicates he should be tried in public for grave, treasonous offenses against our nation as I will explain here.
Today, because no charges of collusion have been brought, there is widespread denial both that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia and that Russia’s influence operations were effective. These are both dangerously false and have led to new conflict over similar activity in the 2020 elections (with Hunter Biden’s laptop.) Perhaps a public accounting, a trial, might not have resulted in conviction, but it likely would have exposed the public to the real links between the Trump’s campaign and both Russian intelligence and organized crime as they related to the 2016 elections.
The evidence of Manafort’s lite-treason is astounding and complete, still shocking it remains unpunished. The best, concise introduction can be found in the final volume of the US Senate’s assessment of “Russian Active Measure Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 US Election.” Here, the opening of the executive summary begins with a summary of Manafort’s role:
(U) Paul Manafort's connections to Russia and Ukraine began in approximately late
2004 with the start of his work for Oleg Deripaska and other Russia-aligned oligarchs in Ukraine. The Committee found that Deripaska conducts influence operations, frequently in countries where he has a significant economic interest. The Russian government coordinates with and directs Deripaska on many of his influence operations.(U) From approximately 2004 to 2009, Manafort implemented these influence operations on behalf of Deripaska, including a broad, multi-million dollar political influence campaign directed at numerous countries of interest to Deripaska and the Russian government. Pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarchs with deep economic ties to Russia also paid Manafort tens of millions of dollars and formed strong ties with Manafort independent of Deripaska.
(U) Manafort hired and worked increasingly closely with a Russian national, Konstantin Kilimnik. Kilimnik is a Russian intelligence officer. Kilimnik became an integral part of Manafort's operations in Ukraine and Russia, serving as Manafort's primary liaison to Deripaska and eventually managing Manafort's office in Kyiv. Kilimnik and Manafort formed a close and lasting relationship that endured to the 2016 U.S. elections. and beyond.(U) Prior to joining the Trump Campaign in March 2016 and continuing throughout his time on the Campaign, Manafort directly and indirectly communicated with Kilimnik, Deripaska, and the pro-Russian oligarchs in Ukraine. On numerous occasions, Manafort sought to secretly share internal Campaign information with Kilimnik. The Committee was unable to reliably determine why Manafort shared sensitive internal polling data or Campaign strategy with Kilimnik or with whom Kilimnik further shared that information. The Committee had limited insight into Kilimnik's communications with Manafort and into Kilimnik's communications with other individuals connected to Russian influence operations, all of whom used communications security practices. The Committee obtained some information suggesting Kilimnik may have been connected to the GRU's hack and leak operation targeting the 2016 U.S. election.
(authors note: the ‘U’ in the above refers to Unclassified)
Reading the assessment above, it is clear the ONLY factor holding back widespread recognition of his collusion (and prosecution for it) was the purpose of his sharing this data, that is, Manafort’s intent. Democrats would write in their partisan appendix to the section: “This is what collusion looks like.” Apparently, committee Republicans refused this language in the main body of the report.
Detailed polling and campaign strategy is exactly the information required for a foreign intelligence agency to assist in on-line influence campaigning that is also difficult to procure without someone on the inside. Information warfare needs ammunition, weaponry, targets, timing, misdirection analogous to conventional. Benedict Manafort provided targeting and timing/coordination to Russia to focus their political warfare on the USA to maximally help elect their mutual ally, Donald Trump. Same as he had done for Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine a few years earlier.
The Mueller Report concluded strangely “The investigation did not establish that Manafort otherwise coordinated with the Russian government on its election-interference efforts.” (emphasis added)…meaning MANAFORT COORDINATED with the Russian government here.
Is it possible for a seasoned political consultant like Manafort making millions of dollars from the worst leadership around the globe “legitimately” AND millions criminally under the table in Ukraine still NOT understand what he was doing? Of course he knew the polling data and campaign strategy he passed to a Russian intelligence officer would be used to conduct influence operations — that this would serve both the goals of the Trump campaign, and the post-Soviet mafia he had been serving for a decade already.
Manafort had helped Putin-puppet Yanukovych spread Putin’s claws over Ukraine and even used the same polling firm he did in Ukraine as he did in the USA. The continuity of this work is complete, with the same actors Kilimnik below and Deripaska above Manafort on the post-Soviet side, and the same pollster, Fabrizio and the same commisar, er I mean political consultant on the inside, Paul Manafort. Could Manafort just be some idiotic bumpkin that didn’t realize his passing this critical information would result in enhancing illicit foreign interference in our campaigns as it had obviously in Ukraine and elsewhere?
Manafort’s right hand man, Gates, took a plea agreement and confessed Manafort sent him repeatedly to rendez-vous with his GRU handler Konstantin Kilimnik . . . to pass this polling information and strategy (Mueller Report, Pg 136). Gates testified he’d surmised Kilimnik was a Russian spy and that he’d discussed this with Manafort (Mueller Report, Pg 134). Despite Manafort’s denials, both he and Gates were acting the part of spies, covering tracks and using burner phones. Indeed on one occasion, in B-spy-horror-movie fashion, agents Manafort and Kilimnik met at (Kushner-owned) 666 Fifth Ave’s Havana Club smokey cigar bar, passed Trump campaign info on a memory card, waxed about getting their boy Yanukovch back in power in Ukraine, entering/leaving separately using different entry/exit points, all while Manafort was running Trump’s campaign. This is clearly spycraft with intent. Espionage.
Recent reporting detailing this interaction and “the Mauripol Plan” they discussed demonstrates these machinations flow from the same band of post-Soviets now attacking Ukraine so brutally. This plan Kilimnik used to entice Manafort is just so eerily similar to the objectives Russia has demonstrated in their escalated war in Ukraine since February 2022, installing a post-Soviet like Yanukovych to rule over an Eastern Ukrainian province now an ‘independent’ vassal state to Russia.
These are the former Soviet leftovers in Ukraine trying to continue ruling there Soviet-style, even after the Ukrainian people self-organized EuroMaidan, a democratic revolution to buck that toxic influence. Yanukovych, like Trump, is the same sort of narcissistic jerk that loves to ensconce half his audacious home in gold, just the sort of strong-man personality similarity that caused post-Soviet authoritarianism expert Sarah Kendzior to see Trump’s threat so clearly 7 years ago. When Yanukovych fled Ukraine for Russia, Ukraine opened his gaudy home to the public, now a museum of post-Soviet corruption.
Manafort at one point entered into a cooperation agreement himself. But Mueller details suspicions Trump altered Manafort’s testimony with a promise of a pardon, a favor Trump would indeed deliver for Manafort’s time on the ensuing obstruction conviction for having lied to investigators. They would break off the cooperation agreement, having reached an impasse with a newly hardened Manafort. This would effectively end Mueller’s investigation and Barr would demand its closure.
Aligning goonish, abusive tyrant types (Trump and Barr included) to help execute their power plays is exactly the sort of deceptive machinations with which the post-Soviets excel. Using insights into psychologies and power structures, these former-KGB have created an arsenal of techniques to shape and control society, to pit forces against one another, or align forces, as is convenient.
Kamil Galeev, a Wilson- scholar, post-Soviet journalist and cultural specialist reveals telling details surrounding such devices in Russian society through successive Twitter posts, aka threads. One such thread demonstrates a set of horrifying machinations to defuse the threat of military rebellion within Russia:
The mafia in post-Soviet machinations is a feature and not a bug. Crime and corruption rules Russia, as Bill Browder learned and documented in Red Notice. Indeed it is this merger of those two dominant Soviet power structures - the KGB/secret service and organized crime that converged to bring Putin to power as the communist party poison faded. Putin would ovesee the privatization of unfathomable nationalized wealth, sold for pennies on the dollar, to oligarchs, who as Browder details either pay Putin tribute or find themselves jailed or worse. It is a massive protection racket. That remnant of the KGB from where Putin emerged, allied with the Russian mafia, then merged with corporate power, top-heavily managed by various oligarchs to milk them. And this is how Putin created this monstrosity: his new brand of neo-fascist, predatory kleptocracy.
The first exportations of this power structure were to the former Soviet states, with corruption, extortion, blackmail and violence — to Uzbekistan, Chechnya, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. Using force and corruption, Putin would advantage ideologically-aligned strongman leadership under his thumb, hand in hand with allied criminal networks, mostly successfully. When these former Soviet states occasionally defy the toxic influence, Russia simply uses force, steals territory or finds a pretext for interference. (Authors note February 14, 2023: An attempted coup in Moldova primarily executed by criminal elements bears many similarities.)
Putin would develop his political warfare strategy to influence Ukraine specifically as it so large, strategically located and within Europe would mean international attention on free and fair elections.
With former control over these post-Soviet states, Russia could learn to transition from population control through tight internal control of information to exportation of viral cynicism and post-truth confusion to exact population control that would choose strongman leadership under his influence in democratic elections. And fundamentally fixed to that cynicism is disregard for fair play and fair rules, lawlessness. Such attitudes are so intimately tied to abusive, unjust behaviors — so when these power structures are exported, there is necessarily a criminal power structure that must be filled. An opportunity for new mafia power emerges when Liberal government is corrupted. The post-Soviets understand this and seek to create or bolster existing mafias, ally then unite with them.
We must not allow these transnational mafias to merge over us. We won’t. The dark side appears strong, but it is weak because it serves so few (see: the Russian army).
Ukraine is a shining example of resilience and resistance. Putin’s & Yanukovych’s tyranny even against a post-Soviet population deeply conflicted with cynicism, has now wholly backfired and unified Ukraine in opposition. EuroMaidan is now proven to be a successful, durable democratic revolution, having unified and motivated Ukraine to resist and punch above its weight-class. Putin’s aggression backfired even more spectacularly as did the Bush Doctrine, which so hubristically sought to impose democracy on Iraq and Afghanistan. One cannot impose self-determination — that’s a paradox.
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I don't have the background to assess all this but it's interesting & eye opening. The mafia issue is one thing that apparently causes Russians to appreciate Putin. Just like some Iraquis feared the sectarian violence without Hussein, a lot of Russians appear to fear the criminal violence without Putin which makes it all the crueler that he never even bothered to build a state that would function after he dies...just for that little bit of assurance he could not be deposed.