(OPEN THREAD) I'm the author of 3 books on the counterintelligence threat posed to the U.S. by Trump and his aides and associates. The most recent—Proof of Corruption—is out in 21 days. I hope you'll read and retweet this long open thread detailing my read of today's SSCI report.

(TEXT) Here—at the link below—is the text of the report. It's long (900+ pages) which is why I call this an "open thread." It'll probably be slow, and go on for a while. I will try to give page numbers when I encounter something I especially want to flag. https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/18/politics/fifth-senate-russia-intel-report/index.html?sr=twCNN081820fifth-senate-russia-intel-report1212PMStory

1/ Early on, on pg. 3, the SSCI establishes how difficult it was to access the evidence it wanted—and how much of that evidence it couldn't get because of executive-branch (i.e. Trump-directed) obstruction in the form of specious resistance to subpoenas.

2/ This was a counterintelligence (hereinafter "CI") investigation, not a criminal one. The SSCI confirms that the Mueller Report had to *leave out* all CI content. Here, if criminal conduct seemed present the SSCI issued a DOJ referral and did not make such claims in the report.

3/ We know at least 7 Trump aides were subjected to criminal referrals as a result of this report, suggesting the SSCI believed criminal conduct had occurred as to 6 *additional* people—not counting Manafort—already charged by Mueller. We don't know if DOJ acted on the referrals.

4/ The first *25* pages of the report detail a *massive, systemic* effort to stymie the CI investigation of the SSCI. It is *staggering* how much information the SSCI couldn't get because of obstruction coordinated from *inside the White House*. This matters—more than I can say.

5/ It matters because it *precludes* any Trump defenders from reading this incredibly damning 1,000-page report and saying, "That's all they had!" First, as I said, the report *is* damning. Second, this report appears to be a *fraction* of the evidence the SSCI wanted and needed.

6/ I'll offer one example. Trump's legal team created a giant, secret joint-defense agreement (JDA) so ludicrously overboard that it wreaked havoc to the SSCI getting evidence from key Trump collaborators like Don Jr., Jared, Ivanka, Manafort, Flynn, Sater, Schiller, and Hicks.

7/ The JDA was so big the *Senate Intelligence Committee* couldn't figure out everyone in it. But we know this: *many* of those the SSCI thinks committed crimes were in the JDA, which suggests they lied to cover up crimes and Trump's legal team believed they had material to hide.

8/ And guess what: almost every unethical, illegal, and/or oath-violative act of obstruction Trump used to hide, stall, mislead about, make unavailable or otherwise thwart relevant inculpatory evidence *worked*. For instance, look at how perfectly the JDA worked to hide evidence:

9/ Some Trump aides, allies, agents, advisers, and associates *asserted their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination*. They have that right, of course—but it removes the ability of Trumpists to say his team had nothing to hide and there was no sign of criminal activity.

10/ Okay, I'm back. Here we go.

11/ I can't underscore just how *long* the section explaining all the ways this probe was obstructed is. I mean... it goes on and on and on and on. Trump used DOJ to obstruct, the White House Counsel's Office (WHCO), his private attorneys... it's *unending*. All to hide.... what?

12/ One of the most contentious issues in the production of this report—much argued about by me and others—was how much access SSCI would get to IC (intelligence community) files. Pp. 24-26 describe that saga, and frankly we *still* don't know if SSCI saw *everything* the IC had.

13/ Reading between the lines, the IC was able to *delay* the SSCI getting the data it wanted for a *year*—then *negotiated* what it could see. It remains unclear if SSCI was happy with the access (what seems clearly to still be partial access to IC files) that it had at the end.

14/ Okay, now I'm beginning the report proper. It's pg. 27.

15/ Chapter 1 of the report is about Manafort. A coincidence! Below is the title of Chapter 1 of my book Proof of Corruption, out in 21 days. I will say, and I understand it seems self-aggrandizing, that my discussion of Manafort's history is a lot more detailed than this one.

16/ I mention this just because I'm surprised—perhaps there'll be more material later—that Manafort's history in Ukraine (which actually *involves Trump*) is given such short shrift in the SSCI report. There is *way* more to say about it than I am seeing here, so I'm taken aback.

17/ Past major-media reporting had Manafort's original approach to the Trump campaign in February 2016. The SSCI dates it to "January" (pg. 28). Fascinating.

18/ It could be, now that I think of it, that the SSCI is treating Thomas Barrack as part of "the campaign" and Manafort's first email to him—*not* his first meeting with Barrack about the campaign—as Manafort's "first approach," which then would be, I guess, yes, January.

19/ We already knew this, but it bears underscoring: Manafort worked for years as a Kremlin agent. His partner Kiliminik was still a Kremlin agent—and Manafort may have been also—in January '16. So Manafort knew he was *directly* aiding the Kremlin *throughout* the 2016 campaign.

20/ This is one of the limited number of major revelations in the report: that Manafort may have been working—from spring 2016 on—with someone *part* of the Kremlin hacking campaign. Alas, Trump's ODNI demanded that all the rest of the info on this be redacted. More obstruction.

21/ Pg. 30 is bigger than many realize. Proof of Corruption (the upcoming book) is about—in part—how the Trump-Ukraine plot is bigger than known, and started in 2016, not 2019. This paragraph confirms that major-media reporting. Manafort wanted to pin Russia's attack on Ukraine.

22/ But this paragraph also whitewashes a bit, as the discussion about pinning the Russian attack on Russia's enemy, Ukraine—an idea that came to the Trump campaign from Kilimnik to Manafort—began *during* the campaign. It is incorrect to even imply it began *after* the campaign.

23/ More huge p. 30 headlines:

1. The Kremlin "exert[ed] influence over...the Trump campaign." All it'd take for that to be collusion would be Manafort (campaign mgr.) knowing it was happening. And guess what—the report says he did.
2. Manafort was a "grave intelligence threat."

24/ So by p. 30 of a 900+ page report, you have COLLUSION confirmed and you have the Trump campaign functioning—through Manafort—as a NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT confirmed. It's almost beyond our ability to comprehend how scary and insane this is. Especially as Trump is still POTUS.

25/ Fixing a typo here: Manafort was a "grave counterintelligence threat" (I accidentally just wrote "intelligence").

26/ The signs of consciousness of guilt from Manafort are endless (pp. 30-31). He lied to the SSCI. He hid information. He used a burner phone. He used encrypted messaging services. He used "foldering" to hide a shared email account. In short, Manafort knew he was criming *hard*.

27/ Indeed Kilimnik (indicted) bragged to Patten (indicted and convicted) that even if federal investigators got access to emails by Manafort (indicted and convicted) it wouldn't matter because the two men knew how to hide evidence electronically (including using code). Amazing.

28/ *Just* reading about Manafort's practices confirms that from the moment he joined the campaign it was an enterprise *led* by a criminal who was in the *midst* of using it for criminal activity.

It is hard to say anything but that the Trump campaign was a criminal enterprise.

29/ But it wasn't Manafort alone. It was also his deputy on the campaign, Gates (indicted and convicted) and of course Kilimnik (indicted and now a fugitive), who acted as a campaign adviser.

So you've got *three* Trump campaign guys at the heart of the operation criming *hard*.

30/ Kilimnik was the only side of the Trump-Manafort-Kilimnik-Deripaska-Putin pipeline of info—and it *was* a pipeline—that Manafort had to lie about, because he knew Trump (a) wouldn't break, (b) wouldn't tell the truth, (c) couldn't be effectively investigated (as we've seen).

31/ There's no evidence Manafort has *ever* told *anyone* the truth of his conversations with Trump. But we *do* know that—per NBC News—Trump told friends in January 2018 that he would be fine with respect to investigations of him so long as Manafort stayed quiet. (Which he did.)

32/ So when I say there was a criminal cabal at the heart of the Trump campaign—Manafort, Gates, Kilimnik—there is *every* reason to say that, per NBC News, at least *Trump* believed himself to be part of that criminal cabal, as he believed Manafort could say things to harm him.

33/ To give an example from p. 32. Putin passed a Russia-Ukraine peace deal to Trump via multiple channels—one involving Cohen (Putin-Artemenko-Sater-Cohen-Flynn-Trump) and one involving Manafort (Putin-Deripaska-Kilimnik-Manafort-Trump). Trump was the endpoint of both pipelines.

34/ Understand this: Manafort was an active, fully engaged, frenetic Trump-Russia colluder. The idea that the 2016 Trump campaign didn't collude with Russia is gone. It was gone back in 2018, when I wrote Proof of Collusion, but the SSCI report confirms it for the hundredth time.

35/ My book addresses this, as does the SSCI report: Paul Manafort's ongoing contract with the Kremlin—which may or may not have ended before 2016—*specifically* cast him in the role of aiding Kremlin puppets in getting "elected" in their countries by whatever means. I'm serious.

36/ This is worth repeating: Manafort's *specific task* as a Kremlin agent was to get Kremlin puppets elected around the world.

He worked on it in Ukraine, in Georgia (the former Soviet republic), and the SSCI confirms he tried to do it in the United States, with Donald Trump.

37/ P. 38 confirms both that Paul Manafort got millions from the Kremlin in the aughts and possibly after, was the *point-man* for the Kremlin in installing Kremlin puppets worldwide, *and* did so in far more places than just Ukraine, Georgia, and the United States:

38/ I am using "puppets" here informally—politicians the Kremlin believed would be useful to and friendly to them.

39/ The good news here is the SSCI *does* go into a *ton* of detail on Manafort—it just focuses on different topics than Proof of Corruption, as the SSCI was focused on the Trump-Russia case and in the Manafort part of my forthcoming book I'm focused on the Trump-Ukraine scandal.

40/ Got to love this p. 40 footnote:

41/ P. 42: So we have Putin in continuous contact with Deripaska, Deripaska in continuous contact with Kilimnik, Kilimnik in continuous contact with Manafort, Manafort in continuous contact with Trump. Not complicated: a *very* reliable, tight, closely held pre-election pipeline.

42/ Remember, after Trump had to "fire" Manafort in August 2016 due to the heat on the latter over his activities in Ukraine, Trump and Manafort stayed in regular contact. It's not hard to see a possible reason being the maintenance of that reliable, tight, closely held pipeline.

43/ Hmm. On p. 45, we encounter a "Centre" in a neutral European country that was actually a front-group for the Russians.

...

Trump-Russia deep-divers are probably raising their hands right now to name the clearly fake "Centre" that George Papadopoulos "worked with" in London.

44/ P. 46: Dmytro Firtash and organized crime. Remember that when you read Proof of Corruption, in which Firtash is one of the ten primary characters (out of a character list of literally hundreds).

45/ P. 47: we're getting warmer. Firtash was a Manafort "paymaster" as Manafort was doing the Kremlin's bidding. If you're following this...you're going to really find Proof of Corruption illuminating. (There are two ways of spelling Firtash's first name; I use the more popular.)

46/ P. 47: Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort's specialty while working for the Kremlin for *years*?

Helping the Kremlin get people elected... who had made pro-Russia policy promises.

*cough*

Anyone think Manafort *suddenly changed his stripes* (or "paymasters") in 2016?

47/ This is *fascinating*. How close can we *confirm* Paul Manafort was still doing his shady pro-Kremlin work to the time he pitched the Trump campaign? About 45 days. (Wow.) That's right—Manafort was still working on November 29, 2015, and went to Trump's team in January 2016.

48/ And how about this—from pg. 50? Manafort was hanging out with "Russian intelligence officer" Kilimnik in Ukraine as late as October 2015—just 90 days before approaching the Trump campaign. More evidence that his initial pitch may have been compromised by Russian intelligence.

49/ This takes a moment to parse, but the upshot is *in 2016*—as Manafort was on Trump's campaign—his Russian intelligence officer business partner was still earning money for Manafort via work with pro-Kremlin politicians. That puts Manafort *very* close to the Kremlin in 2016.

50/ P. 53 confirms the *very* first Manafort-Trump outreach was on January 17, 2016—under 50 days from a European election Manafort was doing pro-Kremlin work on. I'll end the thread here for now—as 50 tweets covering 53 pp. (of 900+) is a lot! Maybe more sometime anon—we'll see.