Paul Manafort was 'a grave counterintelligence threat,' Republican-led Senate panel finds

WASHINGTON – Paul Manafort's role as chairman of the Trump campaign, his longstanding ties to people affiliated with Russian intelligence services and his willingness to share information with them "represented a grave counterintelligence threat" during the 2016 presidential race, according to a new report from the Senate Intelligence Committee. 

"The Committee found that Manafort's presence on the Campaign and proximity to Trump created opportunities for Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump campaign," according to the nearly 1,000-page report released Tuesday.

The wide-ranging, bipartisan report gives a comprehensive account of contacts between Russian actors and Trump associates, including Manafort and Donald Trump Jr., the president's eldest son. It confirms the findings by former special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation that Russia sought to sway the 2016 race in Trump's favor and that members of the president's campaign were eager beneficiaries of the effort, although there was no evidence of a conspiracy with the Kremlin.

READ IT YOURSELF: The 966-page report from the Senate Intelligence Committee

Manafort was released to home confinement in May because of the risk posed by the spread of the coronavirus in federal prison after being sentenced to more than seven years. 

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Manafort's attorney, Kevin Downing, didn't respond to a request for comment from USA TODAY, but he told the Associated Press that information kept under seal at the request of Mueller's team "completely refutes" the Senate panel's findings, which he called "complete conjecture."

The heavily redacted report, released just three months before the presidential election, is the final installment from the Republican-led committee's three-year probe into Russian election meddling.

"We can say, without any hesitation, that the Committee found absolutely no evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump or his campaign colluded with the Russian government to meddle in the 2016 election," said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the committee's acting chairman. "What the Committee did find, however, is very troubling. We found irrefutable evidence of Russian meddling."

The Trump campaign cast the Senate panel's findings as yet more proof that there was no conspiracy with Russia. "The Russia Collusion Hoax is the greatest political scandal in the history of this country," Tim Murtaugh, Trump 2020 communications director, said in a statement.

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., the committee's former chair who oversaw much of the investigation, struck a more neutral tone.

"One of the Committee’s most important – and overlooked – findings is that much of Russia’s activities weren’t related to producing a specific electoral outcome, but attempted to undermine our faith in the democratic process itself. Their aim is to sow chaos, discord, and distrust. Their efforts are not limited to elections. The threat is ongoing," Burr said.

Democrats, meanwhile, highlighted findings about Trump campaign officials' contacts with Russian actors.

The committee's vice chairman, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said the "breathtaking level of contacts between Trump officials and Russian government operatives" is a "very real counterintelligence threat to our elections."

"This is what collusion looks like," said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., chair of the House Intelligence Committee, echoing Senate Democrats.

Kilimnik, 'a Russian intelligence officer'

The report delves deeply into Manafort's ties with Konstantin Kilimnik, a longtime business associate with whom Manafort worked as part of his lobbying efforts in Ukraine.

While Mueller's investigators described Kilimnik as someone with ties to Russian intelligence, the committee called him "a Russian intelligence officer" with whom Manafort "sought to secretly share" sensitive internal polling data from the Trump campaign. The committee, however, was unable to determine why Manafort did so or with whom Kilimnik shared the information.

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"The Committee assesses that Kilimnik likely served as a channel to Manafort for Russian intelligence services, and that those services likely sought to exploit Manafort's access to gain insight in to the Campaign," the panel's report said. 

During and after the 2016 campaign, Manafort and Kilimnik spoke and met multiple times. The two talked about strategies to defeat Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, according to the report, citing a conversation Kilimnik had with an associate in which he said Manafort had a "clever plan of screwing Clinton." The two also talked about how Trump might win, the report said, noting that Manafort expected Kilimnik to share the information to people in Ukraine and elsewhere.

The report said Kilimnik sought to leverage his relationship with Manafort and use him to influence the Trump administration and the Russian government "to effect a certain political outcome."

The committee also said Kilimnik may have been tied to the Russian intelligence "hack and leak" operations during the 2016 campaign. The committee said it obtained information suggesting that Kilimnik may have been the channel for Russian intelligence officials to coordinate the hacking operation, although it acknowledged its evidence is limited.

Manafort is one of half a dozen former Trump aides and associates who were indicted as a result of the Mueller investigation. The Senate panel's findings on Manafort and Kilimnik mirrored some of those in Mueller's report.

Manafort had told Mueller's investigators that he did not believe his longtime associate was also working as a Russian spy. Mueller's team noted that Manafort's partner, Rick Gates, had suspected Kilimnik was a "spy" and shared that assessment with Manafort.

In one of two meetings with Kilimnik during his tenure as Trump campaign chairman, "Manafort briefed Kilimnik on the state of the Trump Campaign and Manafort's plan to win the election," the Mueller report concluded. "That briefing encompassed the campaign's messaging and its internal polling data. According to Gates, it also included discussion of 'battleground' states, which Manafort identified as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota."

Early last year, a federal judge found that Manafort had lied repeatedly to federal prosecutors about his contacts with Kilimnik, ultimately upending a plea agreement Manafort had struck with Mueller’s team. Among the contested exchanges, prosecutors asserted that Manafort lied about having provided polling data to Kilimnik.

In 2018, Manafort and Kilimnik were charged together with attempting to obstruct Mueller’s investigation by seeking to block the testimony of at least two witnesses.

The case prompted a judge to revoke Manafort’s bail and order him to jail to await separate trials on a slew of financial fraud charges in Alexandria, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., where he was ultimately convicted. 

Senate panel contradicts Trump on WikiLeaks, Roger Stone

The Senate panel contradicted Trump's statement to Mueller's investigators that he did not recall discussing WikiLeaks with Roger Stone, his longtime ally who, during the 2016 campaign, publicly acknowledged his back-channel efforts to communicate with the anti-secrecy group about stolen emails that were damaging to Clinton and to the Democratic National Committee.

"Despite Trump's recollection, the Committee assesses that Trump did, in fact, speak with Stone about WikiLeaks and with members of his Campaign about Stone's access on multiple occasions," the report said.

Stone was convicted of lying to Congress about his interactions with the Trump campaign and Wikileaks. He was set to begin serving his 40-month sentence when Trump granted him clemency.

Gates testified during Stone's trial last year that he overheard then-candidate Trump talking to Stone on the phone in July 2016, shortly after WikiLeaks began publishing the DNC emails. "More information is coming," Trump told Gates after hanging up, according to Gates' testimony.

Trump Tower meeting and Donald Trump Jr.

The Senate panel found that two attendees in the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Trump Jr. – Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and Russian-American lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin – have "significant connections" to the Kremlin and to Russian intelligence services.

"The connections the Committee uncovered, particularly regarding Veselnitskaya, were far more extensive and concerning than what had been publicly known," the report said, adding that neither of the two were forthcoming about their Russian ties.

The committee echoed Mueller's findings that members of the Trump campaign, including the president's eldest son, met with the Russian actors to receive derogatory information about Clinton. Mueller, however, did not charge the president's son and others, saying it would be hard to prove that the participants knew the conduct was unlawful.

FBI gave Steele dossier 'unjustified credence'

The report also provides an unflattering look at the FBI, which the committee said gave "unjustified credence" on the findings of a former British intelligence officer, or the so-called Steele dossier, as it sought court approvals to wiretap former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. 

A separate report by the Justice Department's inspector general found several errors and misstatements in applications to wiretap Page, although it concluded that the broader Russia investigation was legitimate.

Republicans seized on this finding to criticize the FBI's investigation of the Trump campaign during the early days of the Russia investigation.

"We discovered deeply troubling actions taken by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, particularly their acceptance and willingness to rely on the ‘Steele Dossier’ without verifying its methodology or sourcing," Rubio said.