Paul Manafort, who served as chairman of the Trump campaign in 2016, gave polling data to a Russian businessman believed to have ties to the Kremlin, he conceded in an interview.
Manafort admitted to handing over campaign polling data to Konstantin Kilimnik, according to an interview with Business Insider. Kilimnik is believed to have later relayed “sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy” related to the Trump campaign over to Russian spies, the Treasury Department said.
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“The data that I shared with him was a combination of public information and stuff for the spring that was. It was old,” Manafort told the outlet.
Manafort instructed Rick Gates, a campaign official, to print out several pages of campaign data about then-candidate Donald Trump’s polling strength in 18 competitive states, an email reviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry revealed. The data were accumulated by the Trump campaign in mid-July, shortly before Manafort met with Kilimnik.
Manafort rejected assertions that the printout was turned over to Kilimnik and contended that he had ordered Gates to send Kilimnik campaign data via email. The former campaign official insisted his divulging of campaign data was intended to help him obtain future business deals.
“It was meant to show how Clinton was vulnerable,” he told the outlet.
Still, his recent remarks seemingly contradict his prior comments on the data. During the Mueller investigation, Manafort denied that he was involved with the disclosure of sensitive campaign data and claimed in his memoir Political Prisoners that he only gave Kilimnik talking points on polling data, the outlet reported.
Kilimnik worked with Manafort for years and had done work on behalf of then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was widely regarded as sympathetic to Russia during his tenure in office. Yanukovych was later ousted from power following the 2014 “Revolution of Dignity.”
The FBI believed Kilimnik had ties to Russian intelligence, and the Senate Intelligence Committee described him as “a Russian intelligence officer.” He later faced sanctions for allegedly turning over Trump 2016 campaign data to the Russians.
“None of us believed KK worked for Russian intelligence,” Manafort said during the interview.
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Gates claimed he began sending internal campaign data to Kilimnik in the spring via WhatsApp and deleted those messages daily, according to the outlet. He is reportedly believed to have sent over 75 pages worth of internal data to Kilimnik.
Manafort was sentenced to 47 months behind bars in 2019 for fraud and tax charges. Trump subsequently pardoned him. His business dealings and lobbying efforts overseas have been subject to scrutiny from federal law enforcement, including in April, when the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against him for his alleged undeclared foreign bank accounts.
