Manafort pushed Ukraine theory
Details disclosed in Mueller documents released after suit
During the 2016 United States presidential campaign, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort pushed the idea that Ukraine, not Russia, was behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee’s servers, his deputy told investigators during the special counsel’s Russia probe. The unsubstantiated theory, advanced by President Donald Trump, would help trigger the impeachment inquiry now consuming the White House.
Notes from an FBI interview were released yesterday after a lawsuit by BuzzFeed News that led to public access to hundreds of pages of documents from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
Information related to Ukraine took on renewed interest after calls for impeachment based on efforts by the president and his administration to pressure Ukraine to investigate Democrat Joe Biden. Trump, speaking with Ukraine’s new president in July, asked about the server in the phone call in which he pushed for an investigation into Biden.
Manafort speculated about Ukraine’s responsibility as the campaign sought to capitalise on DNC email disclosures and as associates discussed how they could get the material, deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates told investigators, according to a summary of his interview.
Gates said Manafort’s assertion Ukraine might have done it echoed the position of Konstantin Kilimnik, a Manafort business associate, who US authorities say has ties to Russian intelligence.
Gates said the campaign believed Michael Flynn, who later became Trump’s first national security adviser, was in the best position to obtain Hillary Clinton’s missing emails because of his Russia and intelligence connections.
During his interviews with investigators, Gates told the FBI Trump, Donald Trump jnr and other key campaign aides, including future Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and Flynn, also “expressed interest in obtaining the emails”.
Gates said the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, later White House chief of staff, and the RNC were energised by the emails and “the WikiLeaks issue was a turning point”.
Manafort, meanwhile, was trying to advise the Trump campaign even after severing ties with it, causing alarm among senior advisers.
Steve Bannon said in an email to Kushner and Trump associate David Bossie: “We need to avoid this guy like the plague. They are going to try and say the Russians worked with WikiLeaks leaks to give this victory to us.
“Paul is nice guy but can’t let word get out he is advising us.”