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Friday, July 20, 2018

Mueller Examining Sanders Chief Strategis



Mueller Examining Emails between Manafort and Former Sanders Chief Strategist

By Jack Crowe

July 19, 2018 1:58 PM


Sen. Bernie Sanders is interviewed by Reuters reporters at his office on Capitol Hill, October 17, 2017. (Eric Thayer/Reuters)

A list of exhibits filed in a Virginia federal court Wednesday by Special Counsel Robert Mueller includes emails between Paul Manafort and former Bernie Sanders aide Tad Devine.

Devine, Sanders’s chief strategist during his 2016 presidential run, is a former business partner in Manafort’s lobbying operation, which is at the center of the case. 
Manafort is charged with lobbying on behalf of Ukraine’s former pro-Russian government without registering as a foreign agent in Washington D.C. 

His defense team has argued his lobbying activities were confined to European affairs and, as a result, he should be exempted from the federal law requiring foreign agents to register.

submitted Wednesday night, lists a number of emails and other communications between Devine and Manafort sent between February 2010 and June 2014. 
Also included in the filing are email exchanges between Devine and Konstantin Kilimnik, a Soviet-born Ukrainian who managed Manafort’s business in Kiev for years, and who is also under indictment by Mueller.

Mueller is likely relying on the communications to provide information about the nature of the lobbying work Manafort was performing at the time.

Manafort has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy, money-laundering, and tax- and bank-fraud charges related to his lobbying work, much of which was done on behalf of the Party of Regions, the pro-Russian political party led by former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. 
Devine was heavily involved in Manafort’s effort to  win Yanukovych the presidency, but reportedly stepped away after Yanukovych began cracking down on domestic dissent.

Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, is currently in jail awaiting trial, after his bail was revoked due to alleged witness tampering. 
His spokesman declined to comment when contacted by National Review.

Jack Crowe — Jack Crowe is a news writer at National Review Online.

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