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was revoked due to alleged witness tampering.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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