> from the similarly-leaked “black ledger” story implicating Paul Manafort, to its later-debunked “repeated contacts with Russian intelligence” story It's asto

> from the similarly-leaked “black ledger” story implicating Paul Manafort, to its later-debunked “repeated contacts with Russian intelligence” story It's astonishing to me that Taibbi (who's work I've always enjoyed) isn't aware that - far from debunked - this has been confirmed. The Republican led Senate Intelligence committee report[1] was released in September and covered this in extensive detail. It's a long read, so reporting from The Intecept's summary[2]: One of Manafort’s closest aides during his time in Ukraine was Konstantin Kilimnik, who the Senate report identifies as a Russian intelligence officer. Kilimnik also served as Manafort’s liaison with Deripaska. While he was working for Trump during the 2016 campaign, Manafort stayed in contact with Kilimnik and gave him the Trump campaign’s internal polling data, which showed that the key to defeating Clinton was to drive up negative attitudes about her among voters..... The Senate report says that the intelligence committee “obtained some information suggesting Kilimnik may have been connected to the GRU’s hack and leak operation targeting the 2016 election.” The report adds that “this information suggests that a channel for coordination on the GRU hack operation may have existed through Kilimnik.” The report adds that in interviews with Mueller’s prosecution team, “Manafort lied consistently about one issue in particular: his interactions with Kilimnik.” Manafort decided to “face more severe criminal penalties rather than provide complete answers about his interactions with Kilimnik.” In Taibbi defense this report was released in September, and there was a lot of news happening then. Prior to this report, I don't think any official source was willing to call Kilimnik an intel officer. [1] https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu... [2] https://theintercept.com/2020/09/03/trump-russia-senate-report-mueller/ https://theintercept.com/2020/09/03/trump-russia-senate-repo...