Could an Ex-Russian Operative and an Imprisoned Escort Crack Open the Trump-Russia Case?

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An ex-Russian intelligence officer who worked with Paul Manafort
and a Russian escort currently locked up in a Thai jail could be
key to answering the question of whether the Trump campaign
coordinated with Russia.

On Tuesday night, Special Counsel Robert Mueller filed court
documents that raised new questions about contacts between Trump
associates and Russia. The memo he submitted related to the
impending sentencing of Alex van der Zwaan, a London attorney and
Dutch citizen who pleaded guilty to lying to
Mueller’s office in November. Van der Zwaan admitted that he misled
Mueller’s investigators about his contacts during the fall of 2016
with Rick Gates, Trump’s former deputy campaign manager, and with a
Ukrainian business associate working with Gates and Manafort who
has been identified in court documents as “Person A.” As Mother
Jones reported last month, Person A matches the
description of Konstantin Kilimnik, Manafort and Gates’ longtime
Ukrainian business partner. On Tuesday, citing a “person with
knowledge of the matter,” the New York Times identified Person A as Kilimnik.

Tuesday’s court filing includes major disclosures about Person
A. Prosecutors previously asserted he had ties to a Russian intelligence
service. But the new filing states that he retained these ties
in 2016—that is, during the presidential election—and alleges that
Gates was well aware of his associate’s intelligence background.
According to van der Zwaan’s sentencing memo, Gates told the Dutch
lawyer that Person A was a former intelligence officer with
the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence directorate.

That is significant. It means Person A provided represented a
possible connection between the Trump campaign and the Russian
intelligence agencies that interfered in the 2016 election. According to the
new filing, Gates communicated with Person A in September and
October 2016, while Gates held a top position on the Trump
campaign.

Assuming that Person A is Kilimnik, Gates wasn’t the only
one in contact with him. In the spring and summer of 2016,
Manafort and Kilimnik exchanged a series of cryptic emails, since
turned over to investigators. The emails appear to relate to a
large debt that Manafort owed to Russian aluminum tycoon Oleg Deripaska
from a failed joint investment. (Manafort denies owing Deripaska
money and claims Deripaska owed him money. Their dispute is the
subject of litigation in the Cayman Islands and the United States.)
In the emails, Manafort asked Kilimnik if Deripaska had seen press
reports on his work for Trump. “How do we use to get whole?”
Manafort asked. His question appears to have implied that he hoped
to use his ties to the presidential candidate to settle his dispute
with Deripaska. He also offered to privately brief Deripaska on the
presidential contest.

On July 29, the week after Republican National Convention, where
the Trump campaign altered the GOP platform to remove
language calling for providing “lethal defensive weapons” to
Ukranian troops fighting Russian-backed soldiers, Kilimnik told Manafort he wanted to meet in person,
according to emails first published by the Atlantic. He
said he wanted to discuss “several important messages” from a
person he implied was Deripaska, “about the future of his country.”
The men met on August 2 at the Grand Havana Room, a cigar bar in
New York.

Kilimnik, who has said he has “no relation to the Russian
or any other intelligence service,” told the Washington Post last year
that his contacts with Manafort in 2016 were private and “in no way
related to politics or the presidential campaign in the U.S.,”
though he also acknowledged their talks “related to the perception
of the U.S. presidential campaign in Ukraine.” A Manafort spokesman
suggested their chat was business-related, but Manafort told Politico they discussed the
cyberattack on the Democratic National Committee and the release of
its emails.

It’s unclear whether Kilimnik conveyed any information from
their meeting back to Deripaska, who has
denied having any contact with Kilimnik. But three days after
the meeting, Deripaska met on his yacht, off the coast of Norway, with
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Prikhodko, a top foreign
policy official for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Also on board
was a Russian model and escort named Nastya Rybka.

The Deripaska-Prikhodko meeting was recently revealed in a
video by Russian opposition activist Alexei
Navalny, who relied on Rybka’s autobiography and Instagram
posts. Rybka, who claims to be Deripaska’s
former mistress, posted video and audio that show her,
Deripaska, and Prikhodko on a yacht while the two men audibly
discuss US-Russia relations.

Drawing on flight logs, yacht-docking records, photos from
Rybka’s Instagram account, and other evidence, Navalny suggests
that Prikhodko spent several days on the yacht with Deripaska and
Rybka in August 2016. Citing US reports on Manafort’s offer to brief Deripaska,
Navalny argues that Deripaska used Prikhodko to pass messages he
received from Manafort via Kilimnik on to Putin.

In an odd twist, Rybka was arrested on February 26, along with
nine other Russians, in Pattaya, Thailand, and charged with running
“sex training” sessions without a license to work. Since then, she
has issued pleas to US government officials and journalists
offering to provide information on Trump and Russia in exchange for
help securing her release.

“I’m ready to give you all the missing puzzle pieces, support
them with videos and audios, regarding the connections of our
respected lawmakers with Trump, Manafort and the rest,” she says in a video she made on her way to prison.
“I know a lot.”

Deripaska, Manafort, and Kilimnik have all denied any
involvement in coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Rybka’s account is credible enough that it reportedly drew interest from FBI agents, who earlier this
month attempted to meet with her. They were rejected by Thailand’s immigration bureau,
according to CNN. But the FBI apparently wants to find out if Rybka
has information that could crack open the Trump-Russia collusion
case.

Read the van der Zwaan sentencing memo here:

DV.load(“https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4425618-Van-Der-Zwaan.js”,
{ width: 630, height: 454, sidebar: false, text: false, container:
“#DV-viewer-4425618-Van-Der-Zwaan” });

Read the van der Zwaan sentencing memo here:

DV.load(“https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4425618-Van-Der-Zwaan.js”,
{ width: 630, height: 454, sidebar: false, text: false, container:
“#DV-viewer-4425618-Van-Der-Zwaan” });

Could an Ex-Russian Operative and an Imprisoned Escort Crack Open the Trump-Russia Case?

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