Trump’s Campaign Manager Gave Polling Data To Russian Agent

Manafort. Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The idea that Donald Trump’s campaign did not collude with Russia always rested on an implausible scenario, in which every single one of the many trails connecting Trump Tower to Moscow ended short of contact. A court document shared today by Paul Manafort’s lawyers inadvertently spills a detail that makes the no-collusion scenario even more remote.

The document by Manafort’s lawyers attempts to redact several key details, but mistakenly left them legible. The most important detail is that Manafort, who served as Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, shared polling data with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian intelligence agent. The detail comes up because the special counsel is charging Manafort with omitting this fact when he cooperated with them, while Manafort’s lawyers maintain he merely forgot about it. But the real significance of this event is not why he failed to share it but that it happened at all.

Why was Trump’s campaign manager sharing polling data with a Russian intelligence agent? Kilimnik was of course an employee of Manafort’s, and the two cooperated in other political work on behalf of pro-Russian candidates in Ukraine. Manafort also appears to have been in debt to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch close to Moscow, during the Trump campaign. Most importantly, Russia carried out social-media attacks on the American electorate in 2016, which have already featured in previous indictments by Robert Mueller.

One question about Russian social-media messages, and a key potential avenue for collusion between Trump’s campaign and Moscow, is how Russia targeted its messaging so precisely. The Russians may have studied the American electorate closely on their own. But it seems more likely that they tapped their contacts for data to help them figure out what messages to use, and where.

The New York Times reported that Manafort asked Kilimnik to pass on the polling data to Deripaska (which means to the Russian government.) It also reports that most of the data was public but some of it “was developed by a private polling firm working for the campaign.” The Times updated its reporting to note that Manafort actually asked for the data to be shared with different Russian oligarchs, for whom he had also previously worked:

CORRECTION: PAUL MANAFORT asked KONSTANTIN KILIMNIK to pass TRUMP polling to the Ukrainian oligarchs SERHIY LYOVOCHKIN & RINAT AKHMETOV, & not to OLEG DERIPASKA, as originally reported. We have corrected the story & I deleted a tweet repeating the error. https://t.co/xfnnr5KNQR

— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) January 9, 2019

LYOVOCHKIN & AKHMETOV had funded Russia-aligned political parties for which MANAFORT had worked. Manafort believed he was still owed $$$ for the work. Passing along polling data to the oligarchs could be a way to try to collect by proving continued value. https://t.co/xfnnr5KNQR

— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) January 9, 2019

So the fact that Manafort apparently “lied about sharing polling data with Mr. Kilimnik related to the 2016 presidential campaign” is quite important. It’s possible the polling had nothing to do with any of Russia’s political operation, and was nothing more than gossip. But the fact that Manafort shared the information suggests he was offering information that Kilimnik couldn’t just find from public polls. And the fact Manafort lied about it, and is being charged with the lie, raises the very strong possibility he was painting the target for Moscow.

*This story has been updated throughout.

Trump’s Campaign Manager Gave Polling Data to Russian Agent

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7:27 a.m.

Come on, what presidential campaign hasn’t had more than 100 contacts with a foreign adversary? All of them? Oh, okay …

Members of President Donald Trump’s campaign and transition team had more than 100 contacts with Russian-linked officials, according to a new report. 

The milestone illustrates the deep ties between members of Trump’s circle and the Kremlin. The findings, tracked by the Center for American Progress and its Moscow Project, come amid reports that special counsel Robert Mueller is nearing the conclusion of the two-year investigation into Russian collusion in the 2016 election and possible obstruction of justice by the president.

“This wasn’t just one email or call, or one this or that,” said Talia Dessel, a research analyst for the left-leaning organization. “Over 100 contacts is really significant because you don’t just have 100 contacts with a foreign power if there’s nothing going on there.”

7:25 a.m.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed The Daily Caller for posting an already-debunked photo purported to be her nude selfie

GOP have been losing their mind + frothing at the mouth all week, so this was just a matter of time.

There is also a Daily Mail reporter (Ruth Styles) going to my boyfriend’s relative’s homes+offering them cash for “stories.”

Women in leadership face more scrutiny. Period. https://t.co/KuHJ75sdMg

@AOC

7:23 a.m.

Somehow the shutdown prevents Trump’s AG nominee from meeting with senators … but only the Democrats

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn) said Wednesday that she was unable to get a meeting with Attorney General nominee William Barr before his confirmation hearing next week because of the government shutdown.

“I tried (as did Blumenthal) to get meeting w/AG nominee Barr and was told he couldn’t meet until AFTER the hearing,” Klobuchar, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, tweeted, referencing Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal. “The reason given? The shutdown.”

Klobuchar added that the shutdown didn’t prevent Barr from meeting with other senators. Among the senators Barr met with Wednesday were Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and former Committee Chair Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa.)

7:13 a.m.

President Trump, 2019: “Walls work. That’s why rich, powerful, and successful people build them around their homes.” Donald Trump, 2004:

I’ll tell you, to me, the second-most important thing after love what you do is never, ever give up. Don’t give up. Don’t allow it to happen. If there’s a concrete wall in front of you, go through it. Go over it. Go around it. But get to the other side of that wall.

Donald Trump

From his 2004 commencement address at Wagner College

2020 elections

Is the 2020 Dem Presidential Field Finally Shrinking Rather Than Expanding?

By Ed Kilgore

Tom Steyer’s withdrawal is a good sign that everybody in America isn’t running to face Donald Trump.

12:18 a.m.

A big payout in an overlooked, underpaid industry

On Wednesday, 15 of the companies authorized by the State Department to recruit young foreigners to provide low-cost child care in U.S. households reached a $65.5 million settlement in a class-action law suit filed by nearly a dozen au pairs in a Denver federal court.

The lawsuit alleged sponsor agencies kept wages artificially low and denied the workers overtime pay. The case was scheduled to proceed to trial on Feb. 25.

“Our argument was that they colluded together to keep their wages well below state and federal minimum wages, and [prospective au pairs] were being told by sponsor agencies that the wages were set and that there was no room to negotiate,” Peter Skinner, a partner with Boies Schiller Flexner, which represented the au pairs, told NPR.

12:09 a.m.

government shutdown

government shutdown

GOP Leaders Search for a Budget Deal as Trump Fumes, Stonewalls Democrats

By Matt Stieb

Republican senators are reportedly interested in trading wall funding for immigration reform, including protection of DACA and TPS.

1/9/2019

Mysterious Bursts 2020

Astronomers have detected 13 high-speed bursts of radio waves coming from deep space—including one that regularly repeats. While the exact sources remain unknown, the new bevy of mysterious blasts does offer fresh clues to where and why such flashes appear across the cosmos.

Now, a team using the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment, or CHIME, has announced the additional 13 new detections, including an especially rare repeating burst. Until now, only one other repeating fast radio burst was known to exist.

The team also noticed that the structure of the new repeating burst is strikingly similar to the only other repeater ever found.

“The fact that we see these multiple structures in the burst was very similar to the first repeating fast radio burst. This is very uncommon,” [study author Shriharsh Tendulkar] says. “Now there is this tantalizing evidence that these bursts’ structures are seen only in repeaters.” That suggests that if more fast radio bursts are found with that structure, they may be prime candidates for also being repeaters.

1/9/2019

The National Enquirer — run by Trump confidante David Pecker — claims it will publish photos of an affair involving Jeff Bezos, an adversary of the president. Who might be the intended audience?

Given everything we know about how Pecker’s National Enquirer has functioned as essentially an arm of Trumpworld, this prompts some questions:

https://t.co/aZI52OifyV@chrislhayes

1/9/2019

When the White House director of social media accidentally posts a pic with the boom mic showing

1/9/2019

Somehow this 1958 episode of the TV western Trackdown isn’t a fake

What the fresh hell. This is REAL. Filmed in 1958- about a conman who grifts a small town of suckers into building a wall. History not subtle enough for you? GUESS THE GRIFTER’S NAME

(And watch until the end)

pic.twitter.com/6FA3p6KC00@_alexhirsch

1/9/2019

GOP senators think that if they can get a budget proposal to pass in the Senate, Trump may be more likely to acquiesce

After Trump stormed out of a White House meeting with congressional leaders, GOP senators privately gathered in Sen. Lindsey Graham’s office Wednesday to discuss a way out of the logjam. The long-shot idea: propose an immigration deal that would include $5.7 billion for Trump’s border wall along with several provisions that could entice Democrats.

Those items include changes to help those who are a part of the Deferred Action Childhood Arrival program as well as immigrants from El Salvador and other countries impacted by the Temporary Protected Status program — as well as modifications to H2B visas.

GOP senators pitched the idea to senior White House adviser Jared Kushner, who said if they came up with a proposal that got Trump his border wall money and could pass the Senate, the White House would be open to more discussions on the matter, the source said. He did not say Trump would endorse such a plan.

The GOP senators — who include Graham of South Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Rob Portman of Ohio and Lisa Murkowksi of Alaska — discussed the plan in a hastily arranged meeting Wednesday, with several of them now planning to propose the idea to Democrats to see if there’s a enough support to break the logjam.

1/9/2019

A new study shows that pharmaceutical companies spend 70% more on marketing than they did in 1997

Drug makers and other healthcare companies spent almost $30 billion in a single year to influence the medical choices made by Americans and steer them toward treatments that were newer, vastly more expensive and sometimes riskier than their tried-and-true alternatives, new research shows.

The study, published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., offers the most comprehensive accounting of healthcare marketing efforts to date. It traces broad shifts in the media and regulatory environment in which health companies operate, as well as the drugs and services — including erectile dysfunction pills, DNA testing kits and robotic surgery services — they are keen to sell.

And it makes clear that while lawmakers and regulators have tried to counter the impact of healthcare marketing in recent years, the reforms have had little effect on an industry that accounts for nearly 18% of the country’s gross domestic product.

1/9/2019

Massive public offerings like Uber and Lyft won’t take a hit, but the shutdown could have major ramifications for the 2019 IPO market

The partial closure of the Securities and Exchange Commission is forcing companies that were seeking to list shares in January to push back their plans, according to bankers and lawyers.

Some companies that planned to launch IPOs late last year, including plant-based burger maker Beyond Meat Inc., pushed their offerings to early 2019 because of inhospitable markets and are now forced to wait out the shutdown. Gossamer Bio, which filed for an IPO in late December, and Alector, which did so on Monday, are among others in holding patterns. Blackstone had planned to launch an IPO in January for Alight Solutions, but the buyout firm’s plan is on hold too.

Biotech companies, many of which tap public markets earlier to raise cash for drug development, could be put in the most perilous positions. Alan Denenberg, head of Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP’s Northern California office, said many biotech firms and small health-care companies are already looking for alternatives to an IPO in case the shutdown lasts longer than a month.

1/9/2019

At least one self-manufactured crisis seems to be coming to a close

China’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that its trade talks with the United States had concluded, and that results would soon be released.

Asian stocks jumped after the talks were extended for an unscheduled third day, fueling optimism that the world’s largest economies can strike a trade deal to avoid an all-out confrontation that would severely disrupt the global economy.

If no deal is reached by March 2, Trump has said he will proceed with raising tariffs to 25 percent from 10 percent on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports, at a time when China’s economy is slowing significantly. Beijing has retaliated in turn to U.S. tariffs.

1/9/2019

government shutdown

government shutdown

Trump Poised to Declare National Emergency After Failing to Show There Is One

By Ed Kilgore

The president seems to be going through the motions of negotiating, just like he went through the motions with his Oval Office speech.

1/9/2019

Eight Republicans side with Democrats in a House vote to reopen the Treasury without wall funding

The House passed a bill Wednesday evening that would reopen the Treasury Department and ensure that the IRS would remain funded.

The measure passed on a 240 to 188 vote, with eight Republicans breaking ranks to vote in favor of the bill.

A handful of Republicans also joined Democrats last week in voting for the measure as part of a broader package.

The legislation has no current path to passage. Trump has said he will not sign legislation reopening the government unless it includes taxpayer funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border — and both Trump and Vice President Pence have visited the Capitol this week urging GOP lawmakers to vote down any such Democratic proposals.

1/9/2019

After their divorce, Jeff Bezos could become the second richest man in the world, and MacKenzie Bezos the richest woman in the world

CNBC claims it could be the “most expensive” divorce in history, due in part to Washington state’s divorce laws. Washington is a “community property state,” meaning that any and all property (and debt) amassed over the course of a marriage is evenly divided by the court if the couple can’t negotiate an agreement.

In Bezos’s case, this could mean that MacKenzie is entitled to half his fortune, or $69 billion — but only if the pair can’t agree on a settlement on their own. This would make MacKenzie the world’s richest woman, but Bezos would no longer be the richest person in the world. That title would go back to Bill Gates, whose net worth is an estimated $92.5 billion.

A settlement of that size would require Bezos to sell some of his 80 million Amazon shares, which in turn would dilute his ownership and control of the company. According to Recode, dividing assets in this way would mean that Bezos would own 8.15 percent of the company, but he still would own more than the next-largest shareholder, Vanguard, which owned 5.8 percent of the company’s shares in 2017.

1/9/2019

Maybe it’s the weird joke construction, or just the joke’s glaring tone-deafness, but nobody laughed

“I’ll bring you all up on charges under the Me Too movement.”

—Governor Cuomo, asking a close scrum of reporters to back up

1/9/2019

A House investigation could come for Steve Mnuchin

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has agreed to deliver a classified briefing to U.S. House lawmakers on Thursday on his recent decision to lift sanctions on companies linked to a Russian oligarch and Vladimir Putin ally, marking the start of an aggressive new focus on Mnuchin by newly empowered House Democrats, according to two top Democratic aides.

Because of [Mnuchin’s] role in the campaign — and, most recently, the Dec. 19 announcement easing sanctions on companies aligned with Oleg Deripaska, the Putin ally with ties to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort — House Democrats believe Mnuchin should be a focus of and source of information for several planned investigations both related and unrelated to the Russia probe, according to the aides. These include examinations of Trump’s finances and the business practices of the Trump Organization.

Among the questions Democrats are likely to ask Mnuchin at the briefing, according to aides: How much influence did the White House, and Trump personally, exert in Mnuchin’s decision to lift sanctions?

life in pixels

Zuckerberg’s 2019 Personal Challenge Is to Explain Why Facebook Is Good

By Max Read

Mark Zuckerberg’s series of “public discussions about technology” is more likely to be a series of public defenses of his life’s work.

1/9/2019

The marshals also protect and transport the jurors in the high-profile trial

Among the many federal employees who likely won’t get their paycheck on Friday: the U.S. Marshals guarding El Chapo.

@LeonardGreene https://t.co/5bjcSEe38j@PPVSRB

vision 2020

Progressive 2020 Hopefuls Are Courting Wall Street Cash

By Eric Levitz

But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re secret centrists.

1/9/2019

If Steve King gets ousted from Congress, it is likely to be by someone from his own party

White supremacist Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) will have a Republican primary challenger next year.

Iowa state Sen. Randy Feenstra announced Wednesday that he will challenge King in the race to represent Iowa’s 4th Congressional District in the House of Representatives.

Feenstra, a former emergency medical technician, is currently in his third term in the Iowa state Senate, where he serves as assistant majority leader.

News of his candidacy comes months after King narrowly secured a ninth consecutive term in Congress. King beat his Democratic opponent, J.D. Scholten, by only three percentage points. It was a remarkably close race for the deeply conservative district, which King had routinely won by over 20 points in previous elections, and which President Donald Trump carried by 27 points in 2016.

1/9/2019

A meant-to-be-reassuring tweet from the FDA commissioner is not very reassuring

There’s discussion today that we’ve “stopped” high risk food surveillance inspections. Fact: We’re working to continue those inspections. It’s true in 2013 shutdown, those inspections were stopped. We’ve taken a different posture based on sound public health and legal rationale.

@SGottliebFDA
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/trumps-campaign-manager-gave-polling-data-to-russian-agent.html