Americans’ collective judgment is so clouded by hyperpartisan lenses that we are missing a potential national security threat right before our very eyes.
Former President Donald Trump is apparently considering reenlisting someone onto his campaign who the Senate Intelligence Committee once dubbed “a grave counterintelligence threat” because of ties to a Russian oligarch.
On March 18, The Washington Post reported that “Four people close to Trump said he was expected to hire (Paul) Manafort as a campaign adviser later this year, with potential jobs centering on the Republican National Convention and/or fundraising.”
The following thread is only a partial list of the actions and history of Paul Manafort:
Trump hired Manafort as his unpaid campaign manager from March until August 2016. Trump asked Manafort to resign after the Associated Press revealed that Manafort had orchestrated a covert Washington lobbying operation until 2014 on behalf of Ukraine’s ruling pro-Russian political party and was being investigated by the FBI.
During the 2016 campaign, Manafort allegedly shared Trump campaign polling data with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian citizen who the U.S. government said had ties to Russian intelligence.
In 2018, as a result of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections — interference the investigation concluded was “sweeping and systemic” — Manafort was found guilty of hiding millions of dollars he’d made lobbying on behalf of pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians in overseas bank accounts and then falsifying his finances to get loans.
Trump’s first impeachment trial was triggered after a call Trump had with the President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine in which Trump asked Zelenskyy to announce two investigations: one involving his potential opponent, Joe Biden, in the upcoming 2020 presidential election, and a second into unsubstantiated allegations that Ukraine had interfered in the 2016 presidential election. At the time of the call, the Office of Management and Budget had frozen $400 million in military aid to Ukraine at the direction of Trump.
In August 2020, the bipartisan U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released its report on Russian Active Measures, Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election. The committee’s acting chairman at the time was Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. From the heavily redacted report:
“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.”
Now, apparently, Trump is considering bringing back Manafort as a close adviser to the campaign. This is happening against the backdrop of Trump potentially receiving intelligence briefings again as a major-party nominee, despite the fact that he faces criminal charges that he mishandled classified info after he left office.
While the following quote from the Senate Intelligence Committee report speaks to the 2020 election, it could easily apply to 2024:
“The counterintelligence lessons contained in this report regarding what happened to the United States in 2016 should be an alarm bell for the nation, and for those preparing to defend the nation against current and evolving threats targeting the upcoming U.S. elections. Indeed, Russia is actively interfering again in the 2020 U.S. election to assist Donald Trump, and some of the President’s associates are amplifying those efforts. It is vitally important that the country be ready.”
Americans need to be clear on the threats at hand by viewing them through fully opened, undarkened and nonpartisan eyes.
Lynn Schmidt is a columnist and Editorial Board member of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
