Also, I know a lot of my readers follow me for my work debunking Ukraine nonsense. Don’t worry—we will get back to it in due course!

/End

If you enjoyed this piece on the Trump campaign’s collusion with Russia, do know we’ve got plenty more coming on the subject over the next few weeks. So if you don’t want to miss out, be sure to subscribe to The Detox: https://www.readthedetox.com

Here’s a link to the essay: https://www.readthedetox.com/p/propaganda-and-collusion-in-the-trump-913

Next time, we’ll look beyond Manafort’s attempted collusion with Deripaska to explore what exactly made the billionaire such a threat to begin with. For that, we need to examine his roots in Russia’s criminal underworld along with his unique relationship with the Kremlin.

These exceptions aside, Manafort’s vulnerability to Deripaska along with his and Kilimnik’s efforts to steer the Trump campaign/administration to the Kremlin’s benefit got a fraction of the coverage other parts of Russiagate did—despite being the pivotal episode of the story.

Others who covered the Deripaska angle included @thamburger, @PostRoz, @CarolLeonnig, and Adam Entous for the Washington Post and Matt Apuzzo, @esullivannyt, and @SharonLNYT for the New York Times.

There were some notable exceptions. Among those who did report on the Deripaska connection were @SethHettena, @juliaioffe, @FranklinFoer, @shustry, @attackerman, @lachlan, and, especially, @emptywheel.

(Those are Twitter handles, BTW, as are the ones in the next reply)

Considering the stakes, the attempt by Manafort and Kilimnik to direct the incoming Trump administration to Deripaska’s advantage was probably the most significant chapter of the entire Trump-Russia affair. It was also one of the most ignored.

In sum: Trump’s campaign manager was deeply-compromised by his ties to a billionaire Kremlin proxy. He sought to influence the presidency in a way that benefited both the proxy and the Kremlin. He was thwarted from doing so only because of his early exit from the campaign.

They might well have succeeded in all of this had circumstances not forced Manafort to resign in disgrace months before the 2016 election. His departure from the campaign eliminated any clout he once had, thereby averting a potential counterintelligence catastrophe.

Given how exposed Manafort was to Deripaska’s leverage and, by extension, that of the Kremlin, it is reasonable to believe that he and Kilimnik intended to shape the Trump administration to the advantage of both.

During and after Manafort’s time on the campaign, he and Kilimnik provided regular updates to Deripaska’s team. They also worked with it to advance Deripaska’s agenda along with that of the Kremlin. The goal, again, was to settle Manafort’s debt and restore the relationship.

So Manafort’s vulnerability to foreign influence was a real threat—not least because he and Kilimnik openly acknowledged in their communications with each other their intention to guide the foreign policy of a future Trump administration.

From a counterintelligence standpoint, this was…a problem. Managing a presidential campaign lends one significant leverage over a candidate’s platform. If the candidate wins, it puts one in a position to influence policy and staffing in the next administration.

At the time, Manafort owed Deripaska millions of dollars. The problem was, he was broke. So the plan was to exploit his campaign role to repay Deripaska in the form of political access—and maybe even restore his once-lucrative relationship with the Russian businessman.

Deripaska is no ordinary billionaire; he is a known-proxy of Vladimir Putin. That is, he carries out projects on the Kremlin’s behalf all over the world. So when Manafort was running the Trump campaign to benefit Deripaska, he was—quite knowingly—working to benefit Putin, too.

Private communications between Manafort and Kilimnik from 2016, while Manafort worked on the Trump campaign, reveal that Manafort’s main priority was not the campaign itself. Rather, it was to advance the interests of a Russian businessman named Oleg Deripaska.

Contra Taibbi and Maté, the evidence that Kilimnik is a spy is pretty compelling. Nevertheless, it can’t be proven.

But you know what? It’s irrelevant. Far more important than Manafort and Kilimnik’s relationship with each other are the links both had with another guy.

Parts 2 and 3 of our series looked at allegations that Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort colluded with a reputed Russian spy, Konstantin Kilimnik. We also examined the fumbling, dishonest efforts of longtime collusion-deniers @mtaibbi and @aaronjmate to put the story to bed.

Part 2: https://www.readthedetox.com/p/propaganda-and-collusion-in-the-trump-806

Part 3: https://open.substack.com/pub/thedetox/p/propaganda-and-collusion-in-the-trump-32b?r=fnbr&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Today we continue our examination of Russiagate. As usual, we will draw mostly upon Volume 5 of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Report into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Notably, when the report was released in 2020, the committee was led by Republicans.