Thanks. Manafort seems to be a dirty player and I wouldn't be surprised if he was involved in some shady businesses with people you shouldn't associate with, however that report is based on one line taken from a press release from the Treasure Department providing zero evidence for that claim. I will keep my skepticism on until more evidence is shown.
Aaron Maté and Glenn Greenwald discusses this on the Grayzone
Interesting that you comment on the part from the Treasury Department, and not the WP piece. The latter references the Senate committee, stating that Kilimnik received highly sensitive campaign data and designated him as a Russian agent. If anything needs skepticism its people like Mate and Greenwald.
What type of information was shared from the Trump campaign? Polling data and strategy to beat Hillary Clinton. Gates has testified that the polling data was non-sensitive and also dated. I think the only real significant claim the Senate report does is when says the DNC leaks of 2016 was done by GRU and then sent to WikiLeaks and report says "Kilimnik may have been connected to the GRU's hack and leak operation targeting the 2016 U.S. election", but that proof builds on speculation based redacted material in the Senate report.
What you think is irrelevant, US intelligence classifies the data as sensitive. The fact is that Manafort lied about sharing the data with Kilimnik, that Barr tried to keep it a secret.
But lets see what the Senate report actually says:
"It is our conclusion, based on the facts detailed in the Committee's Report, that the Russian intelligence services' assault on the integrity of the 2016 U.S. electoral process[,] and Trump and his associates' participation in and enabling of this Russian activity, represents one of the single most grave counterintelligence threats to American national security in the modem era."
Trump and his associates' participation in and enabling of this Russian activity
> US intelligence classifies the data as sensitive.
Where can I read about that classification for this polling data?
That part of the report your are quoting is from the addendum of the senators Heinrich, Feinstein, Wyden, Harris and Bennet, all five are members of the Democratic party, so it is not what the report concludes, it just their viewpoints. Nice try.
What the report does concludes is
"The Committee found that Manafort's presence on the Campaign and proximity to
Trump created opportunities for the Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump Campaign. 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 info the Campaign. Taken as a whole, Manafort's high-level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services, particularly Kilimnik, represented a grave counterintelligence threat."
Likely is something you use when you don't have hard evidence.
> Where can I read about that classification for this polling data?
I see that you get your talking points from Mate. But the fact that he or you don't have access to classified info doesn't mean you get to decide that the data is not sensitive. Manafort lied about it and both he and Kilimnik tried to tamper witnesses, that's not something one does over top-level polling data.
That fact that Mueller didn't get enough hard evidence to secure a conviction doesn't mean that there is no evidence. Clinging to 'Russia hoax' doesn't do justice to the amount of circumstantial evidence there is. Lawfare [1] did a much more honest attempt at discussing the report then Mate/Greenwald will ever do.
As you said it is circumstantial, it could be that that there were more exchanges of (truly) sensitive information between Manafort and Kilimnik (they used encrypted communication) and that Kilimnik does in fact have GRU access (or is GRU himself), or everything could have been orchestrated by Putin himself to put Trump into power, I don't know that, but that needs to proven.
But doesn't X amount circumstantial evidence together prove collusion? Not necessarily, you still need to weigh each circumstantial evidence.
Lets take the WikiLeaks example, assume that it is 100% true that it was the GRU that was feeding WikiLeaks with the stolen documents. Trump campaign benefited from those leaks and Trump encouraged WikiLeaks to do more, does this prove Russian collusion? No. There is no proven coordination between the Trump Campaign and GRU via WikiLeaks. GRU could have played on these events during the 2016 election and used that to benefit the candidate they would prefer, assuming Trump. Putin is on the record for criticizing the US interventionist policies, policies that Clinton represents, and they could have used this opportunity to help the Trump campaign and the Trump campaign gladly accepted this opportunity to get an advantage, but I would say that should be viewed as interference from GRU, not collusion with the campaign.
That is why the claim from the Senate report that "Kilimnik may have been connected the GRU's hack" is interesting, but the report doesn't provide any evidence only speculation on redacted material. That is of course impossible to asses the truthiness of.
