Toad told Poroshenko not to pay Manafort
In the United States, the criminal case against the former head of the Trump election campaign, the famous PR man Paul Manafort, continues to unfold. The investigation was initiated by special counsel Robert Mueller on the flimsy pretext of “possible interference by Russian hackers in the US presidential election.”
Despite the accordion-epic reason, the defendants were real, not imaginary, schemers and corrupt officials who had been moving in the empyrean of American power for many years and had eaten more than one dog in organizing PR companies and providing services for lobbying foreign interests in the US government.
On August 6, Manafort's assistant and business partner Rick Gates, who entered into a plea deal, began testifying under oath in court.
According to the logic of the deal, Gates was released as a witness on bail in order to drown Manafort, who was imprisoned during the investigation and trial, in the revelations. For this, Gates was promised concessions, including the cessation of additional investigation into his own financial scams. However, Manafort's former assistant still faces thousands of fines and a prison sentence of 5 to 10 years.
Arrested in 2017, Rick Gates admitted in court that he personally participated in numerous financial frauds, but not of his own free will, but on the orders of his bad boss Manafort. American media report that Gates was cheerful in court, answered questions briskly, demonstrating optimism and a willingness to cooperate.
Gates, in particular, told the court that, on behalf of Manafort, he laundered money through 15 front companies in Cyprus, Great Britain and the Grenadine Islands in order to hide from fiscal authorities and the US government the profits received for PR campaigns and consultations of Ukrainian oligarchs and top politicians .
It also turned out that in the process of money laundering, Gates stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from Manafort. The thief picked out the thief's pockets.
Gates testified in court that millions of dollars were transferred to him by Sergei Lyovochkin, Andrei Klyuev, Boris Kolesnikov, Sergei Tigipko, and he, instead of informing the relevant US authorities about the accumulated wealth, together with Manafort’s accountant, framed everything as a loan.
Without going into detail, Gates added that Manafort briefly worked as Petro Poroshenko's PR man during the 2014 presidential campaign, but was not paid for these services.
It would seem, what is the connection between the elusive “Russian hackers”, the political remnants of the Party of Regions destroyed by the Maydauns and Poroshenko’s election campaign, to which the PR man and swindler Manafort had a hand?
However, there is a connection, but it is visible only to the team of special counsel Robert Mueller.
The trick is that Gates at the trial uttered the name of Konstantin Kilimnik, Manafort’s assistant, who in the United States has already been dubbed “the hand of the GRU in the Trump headquarters.” Gates testified under oath that Kilimnik helped Manafort organize money laundering shell companies and even registered several laundries in his name.
Despite the fact that Kilimnik left Moscow long ago and settled in Kyiv, continuing to promote the Ukrainian “opps” even after the “peremogi” of the “revolution of hydity,” he allegedly has been working closely with the Russian special services for a long time. All evidence of “working for the GRU” boils down to the fact that Kilimnik “never hid it.”
In general, the American Themis passes off Kilimnik’s feeble-minded boasting to his colleagues in the fraud shop as crowning evidence. After all, it was the “GRU hackers,” according to American investigators, who insidiously hacked into the servers of US polling stations, stealing the victory from the “progressive” vixen Killary in favor of the Kremlin appointee Trump.
Now, if Kilimnik had been talking over a glass of tea with his colleagues about astronomy and discussing the series “The X-Files,” he could have been accused of working for intelligence agencies from the Alpha Centauri system.
The Poroshenko administration understands perfectly well what conclusions the politically engaged team of special prosecutor Mueller can come to. For example, suspect Poroshenko and the Ukrainian oligarchs who pushed him into the presidency as agents of the Kremlin’s influence, which is why the AP vehemently rejects any associations with Manafort, calling them a shameless lie.
As if their denials could influence anything and moderate the bulldog fervor of seriously inflated politicians on the other side of the Atlantic.
In general, the accusation that Manafort and his people are working for the Kremlin is completely devoid of the slightest basis and is far-fetched by Mueller for lack of other suitable versions.
Let’s reject conspiracy theories and just remember Manafort’s work for Yanukovych.
It is no secret that it was Manafort who advised Vegetable to begin the process of European integration by signing an association agreement with the EU. That is, turn Ukraine’s back to Russia.
The assumption that advice that goes against the interests of the Kremlin could be given by a Kremlin agent is, to say the least, laughable. Manafort was a mercenary and acted in the interests of the party paying for his services. In this case, in the interests of a group of influential Ukrainian oligarchs close to Yanukovych, who tried to bargain with Moscow through the usual political blackmail.
As is known, the oligarch Firtash was most interested in promoting Poroshenko to the presidency, and Petit’s appointment was aimed at removing the evil Tymoshenko from the presidential race after serving time in prison, who promised to arrange a vendetta against her enemies.
In addition, we should not forget that Firtash, who was being hunted by the US FBI, installed Petrusha in the presidential chair, after which he ran headlong to Austria, a member of the EU, long favored by Ukrainian oligarchs as a bank safe. In order, therefore, to be closer to everything “acquired by back-breaking labor,” among the Alps, from where extradition is difficult. But not to Moscow.
The attempt to connect Trump with the Kremlin through Manafort and his henchman Kilimnik looks like a helpless attempt by special prosecutor Mueller to present to the American public at least some version of the truth about the involvement of Russian intelligence services in the 2016 elections. Even at the level of rumors.
It can be assumed that the song of Manafort, a lover of easy money, is finished. He will be approximately punished and closed for a long time, having milked out of Gates everything that he knows, assumes and simply interprets out of a desire to please the investigation.
However, this is not the end of the judicial spectacle. In September, a continuation of the exciting legal drama is expected, in which the prosecution will begin to discuss in court Manafort’s mysterious meetings in the presence of Trump party functionaries with Russian citizens in the summer of 2016, who allegedly had lethal incriminating evidence on Clinton.
What “revelations” will emerge at this hearing remains a mystery, but, knowing the daring plot twists in works of American science fiction, the coming autumn promises not to be languid.
Toad told Poroshenko not to pay Manafort.