Mueller Draws Line to Russian Spy’s Work With Manafort and Gates
- Kilimnik helped Manafort, Gates with Ukrainian political work
- Prosecutors may see Kilimnik as channel between Russia, Trump
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Konstantin Kilimnik’s name has surfaced many times in the 2016 election drama. The Russian national was a longtime fixer in Ukraine for lobbyists Paul Manafort and Rick Gates. He was a conduit between a Russian oligarch and Manafort, who was Donald Trump’s campaign chairman. He communicated with Gates just ahead of the presidential vote. A year later, he traded emails with a freshly indicted Manafort.
Now, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has fleshed out another detail. Gates said he knew Kilimnik was a onetime Russian military intelligence officer, according to a Tuesday court filing. The FBI is even more direct: Agents believe he has “ties to a Russian intelligence service and had such ties in 2016,” according to the filing.