A Ukrainian businessman
smeared in the Mueller report,
as a link to Russia, was actually
a "sensitive" intelligence source
for the US State Department,
who informed on Ukrainian
and Russian issues -
and passed messages
between the Washington
and Kiev, according to
The Hill's John Solomon.
Konstantin Kilimnik
worked for Trump campaign
chairman Paul Manafort,
and was described on page 6
of the Mueller report as having
"ties to Russian intelligence".
Mueller completely omitted
the fact that Kilimnik
was working as an informant
and intermediary between
America and Ukraine,
and subsequently indicted
him for obstruction of justice.
Kilimnik interacted with the
chief political officer at the
U.S. Embassy in Kiev,
sometimes meeting several
times a week to provide
information on the Ukraine
government.
He relayed messages back to
Ukraine's leaders and
delivered written reports
to U.S. officials via emails
that stretched on for thousands
of words, the memos show.
The FBI knew all of this
before the Mueller
investigation concluded.
What's more, the chief political
officer at the Kiev embassy
from 2014 to 2017, Alan Purcell,
told the FBI that State officials
- including senior embassy
officials Alexander Kasanof
and Eric Schultz, thought
Klimnik was such a valuable
asset that they wouldn't
mention his name in official
cables out of fear that WikiLeaks
would expose him.
Purcell told the FBI that
Kilimnik provided
"detailed
information
about OB
(Ukraine's opposition bloc)
inner workings
that sometimes
was so valuable it was
forwarded immediately
to the ambassador."
Purcell learned that other
Western governments
relied on Kilimnik
as a source, too.
Mueller mentioned none of this
in his report despite knowing
about it since 2018 - more than
a year before the final report.
Instead, they portrayed him as a Russian
sympathizer tied to Moscow intelligence,
or charged Kilimnik with participating
with Manafort in a scheme to obstruct
the Russia investigation.
Kilimnik was described
by Purcell's predecessor,
Alexander Kasanov,
as one of the few reliable
informants spying on former
Ukrainian President Victor
Yanukovych, whose Party
of Regions had hired
Manafort's lobbying firm.
Kilimnik began his relationship
as an informant with the
U.S. deputy chief of mission
in 2012-13, before being
handed off to the embassy's
political office, the records suggest.
"Kilimnik was one of
the only people within
the administration
who was willing to talk
to USEMB,"
referring to
the U.S. embassy,
and he
"provided information about
the inner workings of
Yanukovych's administration,"
Kasanof told the FBI agents.
"Kasanof met with Kilimnik
at least bi-weekly and
occasionally multiple times
in the same week,"
always outside the embassy
to avoid detection, the FBI wrote.
"Kasanof allowed Kilimnik
o take the lead
on operational security"
for their meetings.
Despite the Mueller report
suggesting Kilimnik is
a Russian stooge,
state department officials
told the FBI that he
did not appear to hold
any allegiance to the Kremlin,
and had been "flabbergasted at
the Russian invasion of Crimea."
Contrary to the dire threat
to national security implied
in the Mueller report,
Kilimnik was allowed to enter
the United States twice in 2016
to meet with State Department officials
- meaning he clearly wasn't flagged
in visa databases as
a foreign intelligence threat.
Mueller also painted
a one-sided picture
of Kilimnik's peace plan
for Crimea which he had
presented to the Trump
administration - suggesting
that it was a "backdoor" way
for Russia to control part
of eastern Ukraine.
In fact, Kilimnik had
presented the idea
to the Obama administration
in 2016.
The Mueller report
flagged Kilimnik's delivery
of a peace plan to the
Trump campaign for settling
the two-year-old Crimea conflict
between Russia and Ukraine.
"Kilimnik requested the meeting
to deliver in person a peace plan
for Ukraine that Manafort acknowledged
to the Special Counsel's Office
was a 'backdoor' way for Russia
to control part of eastern Ukraine,"
the Mueller report stated.
But State emails showed
Kilimnik first delivered
a version of his peace plan
in May 2016 to the Obama
administration during a visit
to Washington.
Kilimnik slammed the
"made-up narrative"
about him in a May email
to the Washington Post, adding
"I have no ties to Russian or,
for that matter, any
intelligence operation."
We learned this four days
after deceptive edits were found
in the Mueller report regarding
a phone call between attorneys
for President Trump and
former national security adviser
Mike Flynn designed to
make it appear as though
Trump was attempting
to strongarm Flynn and
possibly obstruct justice
by shaping witness testimony.
