Konstantin Kilimnik

Konstantin Kilimnik
Konstantin Kilimnik
	Russian: Константин Килимник ; Ukrainian: Костянтин Килимник
Born	27 April 1970; Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, Soviet Union
Citizenship	Ukraine, Russia[1]
Occupation	Political consultant
Known for	Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections

Konstantin V. Kilimnik (Russian: Константин Килимник; Ukrainian: Костянтин Килимник; born 27 April 1970) is a Russian/Ukrainian[1] political consultant. In the United States, he has become a person of interest in the 2017 Special Counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, particularly due to his ties with Paul Manafort, an American political consultant, who served as a campaign chairman for Donald Trump.

Kilimnik is believed by CNN and The New York Times to be "Person A" listed in court documents filed by the Special Counsel against Manafort. He is also believed to be Person A in court documents filed in the criminal indictment of Alex van der Zwaan. The claim that Kilimnik has ties to Russian intelligence agencies, or is a Russian intelligence operative, was a central part of the theory of the Mueller Report. In 2017 Kilimnik denied having ties to Russian intelligence agencies.[2] Kilimnik was indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's grand jury on 8 June 2018 on charges of obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice by attempting to tamper with a witness on behalf of Manafort.[3][4]

Early life

Kilimnik was born on 27 April 1970[5] at Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, Soviet Union.[6] Fluent in Russian and Ukrainian before his service in the Soviet Army,[6] he became fluent in Swedish and English as a linguist[6] at the Military University of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation,[7][8] which trained interpreters for the Soviet Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU).[9] He served in the Soviet Army as a translator and worked closely with the Soviet Army's GRU.[6] He took Russian citizenship after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.[9] He worked in Sweden as an interpreter for a Russian arms dealer.[9] In Moscow, Kilimnik then worked for the International Republican Institute (IRI) from 1995 to early 2005.[6][9] According to anonymous sources, when applying for his position with the IRI, he responded to the question about how he learned English by stating that the "Russian military intelligence" taught him and he became known among Moscow political operatives as "Kostya, the guy from the GRU".[6] In 1997, he traveled to the United States using a Russian diplomatic passport.[5] He claims he was dismissed in the early 2000s after the Federal Security Service's chief gave a speech discussing internal private meetings at the Institute.[9] A former colleague told the FBI that Kilimnik was fired because of his strong links to Russian intelligence services.[5]

Employment by Manafort

Recruited by Philip M. Griffin as a translator for oligarch Rinat Akhmetov and seeking better pay than at IRI, Kilimnik met Paul Manafort in 2005 and became an employee of Manafort's consulting firm.[6][10] After leaving IRI in April 2005, he lived and worked in Kiev and Moscow while his wife and two children remained in Moscow living in a modest house near the Sheremetyevo International Airport.[6] Some reports say Kilimnik ran the Kyiv office of Manafort's firm, Davis Manafort International, and was Manafort's right-hand man in Kyiv.[6][11] They began working for Viktor Yanukovych after the 2004 Orange Revolution cost him the Presidency. With help from Manafort and Kilimnik, Yanukovych became President in 2010. Kilimnik then spent 90% of his time inside the Presidential administration.[10] From 2011 to 2013 with liaison to Viktor Yanukovych's chief of staff Serhiy Lyovochkin, Kilimnik, Manafort, Alan Friedman, Eckart Sager, who was a one time CNN producer, and Rick Gates advised on an international public relations strategy.[12] This effort supported the administration of President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych.[12] Yanukovych hired Manafort's company Global Endeavour, a St. Vincent and Grenadines based consulting and lobbying company, which during the end of Yanukovych's presidency transferred $750,000 out of Ukraine and also paid Kilimnik $53,000 during November and December 2013.[13][14] When Yanukovych fled the country, Manafort and Kilimnik gained employment with the Ukrainian party Opposition Bloc which is backed by the same oligarchs who backed Yanukovych.[6] At some point Opposition Bloc stopped paying Manafort's firm but even though the non-payment forced Manafort's firm to shut down their Kiev office, Kilimnik continued to advise the party while working to collect unpaid fees for Manafort's firm.[6]

Around 2010, Kilimnik collaborated with Rinat Akhmetshin when the Washington-based lobbyist was trying to sell a book disparaging one of Yanukovych's opponents.[9]

Kilimnik and Manafort actively assisted Ukrainian oligarchs and Russian oligarchs that are close to the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin.[15] Also, they worked to ensure that Viktor Yanukovych and his Party of Regions would reduce and eventually sever Ukraine's ties to the United States and Europe so that Ukraine would become much closer to Russia, the Kremlin, and Vladimir Putin.[15]

In 2017 Kilimnik helped Manafort write an op-ed for a Kiev newspaper. A journalist in Ukraine, Oleg Voloshyn, has disputed this, stating that he and Manafort wrote the op-ed and that he e-mailed the rough draft to Kilimnik.[16] The op-ed may have violated a gag order issued against Manafort by a US court and may have been a breach of Manafort's bail conditions.[2]

In 2018, media reported Kilimnik to be variously "described as a fixer, translator or office manager to President Donald Trump’s ex-campaign chairman Paul Manafort.[17]

In June 2019, John Solomon claimed in an opinion piece at The Hill' that he had reviewed State Department e-mails and conducted two interviews that established Kilimnik had worked as an intel source for the United States Department of State since at least 2013.[18]

Prosecutor General of Ukraine investigation of Kilimnik

From August until December 2016, Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko conducted an investigation into Konstantin Kilimnik but did not arrest Kilimnik.[11][19][20] Kilimnik managed Davis Manafort International in Kyiv.[11] Kilimnik left Ukraine for Russia in June 2016.[19] Davis Manafort International in Kyiv had been accused of money laundering by Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation.[21] Mueller considered Kilimnik a vital witness in the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.[15][19] The National Anti-Corruption Bureau informed the United States Department of State that Lutsenko had both thwarted Ukraine's investigation into Kilimink and allowed Kilimnik to leave Ukraine for Russia.[15]

Mentions in court filings

Kilimnik has been reported by The New York Times to be the "Person A" in Court filings in December 2017 against Manafort and Rick Gates.[22]

Court filings in late March 2018 allege that he knew that Kilimnik was a former officer with the Russian military intelligence service. These came after Gates reached a plea deal in exchange for cooperation in the investigation.[23] The sentencing memo for Alex van der Zwaan filed by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller states that Gates told van der Zwaan that Person A, believed to be Kilimnik,[24] was a former intelligence officer with the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU).[25]

Kilimnik also featured in the documents filed by Mueller in early December 2018 that explained why he believed Manafort had lied to investigators during the investigation conducted by Mueller's team.[26][27]

Indictment

On 8 June 2018, Kilimnik was indicted by Mueller on charges of obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice, in conjunction with Manafort,[28][4] regarding unregistered lobbying work.[29]

Connection to the Trump campaign

Through numerous regular email exchanges, Kilimnik conferred with Manafort after Manafort became Donald Trump's campaign manager in April 2016 and requested that Manafort give "private briefings" about the Trump campaign to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire and close ally to Vladimir Putin.[14][30][31] On 2 August 2016, Kilimnik met with Manafort and Rick Gates at the Grand Havana Room at 666 Fifth Avenue.[32] The encounter which, according to prosecutor Andrew Weissmann goes “very much to the heart of what the special counsel’s office is investigating,” included a handoff by Manafort of internal polling data from Trump’s presidential campaign to Kilimnik.[33] Gates later testified the three left the premises separately, each using different exits.[33]

According Mueller's court filings, Kilimnik was still working with Russian intelligence when, during September and October 2016, he was known to be communicating with the Trump campaign. Both Rick Gates and Paul Manafort were in contact with him at the time.[10] Manafort has said that he and Kilimnik discussed the Democratic National Committee cyber attack and release of emails, now known to be undertaken by Russian hacker groups known as Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear.[25]

Kilimnik and Manafort had been involved in the Pericles Fund together, an unsuccessful business venture financed by Oleg Deripaska.[9] In July 2016, Manafort told Kilimnik to offer Deripaska private information in exchange for resolving multimillion-dollar disputes about the venture.[9]

Per a 2018 classified State Department assessment Ukraine’s former Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko allowed Kilimnik to escape from Ukraine to Russia after the US federal grand jury charged Kilimnik with obstruction of justice.[15] The New York Times reported on 31 August 2018 that an unnamed Russian political operative and a Ukrainian businessman had illegally purchased four tickets to the inauguration of Donald Trump on behalf of Kilimnik. The tickets, valued at $50,000, were purchased with funds that had flowed through a Cypriot bank account. The transaction was facilitated by Sam Patten, an American lobbyist who had related work with Paul Manafort and pleaded guilty to failing to register as a foreign agent.[34] Kilimnik attended Trump's inauguration.[35]

In January 2019, Manafort's lawyers submitted a filing to the court, in response to the Special Counsel's accusation that he had lied to investigators while supposedly co-operating with them. Through an error in redacting, the document accidentally revealed that while he was campaign chairman, Manafort met with Kilimnik, gave him polling data related to the 2016 campaign,[15] and discussed a Ukrainian peace plan with him. Most of the polling data was reportedly public, although some was private Trump campaign polling data.[lower-alpha 1] Manafort asked Kilimnik to pass the data to Ukrainians Serhiy Lyovochkin and Rinat Akhmetov.[36][37] Manafort also asked Kilimnik to pass polling data to Oleg Deripaska who is close to Putin.[15]

Russian residence

Since at least August 2018, Kilimnik and his wife have been living in a $2 million home located at a heavily guarded elite gated community northwest of the Moscow Region outside the Moscow Ring Road (MKAD).[38]

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Notes

According to the Mueller Report, Manafort shared with Kilimnik, who was to give the private information to Oleg Deripaska, 2016 Trump Campaign's confidential polling data from Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota in which states many Russian GRU agents were covertly targeting in support of Trump's campaign especially during the final days of the 2016 campaign.[15]

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Жолобова, Мария (Zholobova, Maria); Баданин, Роман (Badanin, Roman) (22 August 2018). "Абсолютно советский человек. Портрет Константина Килимника, российского патриота, работавшего на окружение Дональда Трампа. «Проект» разыскал в Подмосковье Константина Килимника, таинственного россиянина из дела о вмешательстве России в американские выборы. Оказалось, что Килимник работал с Полом Манафортом не только на Украине, но и в Киргизии. И там, и там они отстаивали внешнеполитические интересы России, а часть этой работы могла оплачиваться в компании миллиардера Олега Дерипаски" [Absolutely Soviet people. Portrait of Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian patriot who worked for Donald Trump's entourage. “Project” found in the suburbs of Moscow, Konstantin Kilimnik, a mysterious Russian from the case of Russian interference in the US election. It turned out that Kilimnik worked with Paul Manafort not only in Ukraine, but also in Kyrgyzstan. Again and again they defended Russia's foreign policy interests, and part of this work was paid by the company of billionaire Oleg Deripaska.]. Проект Медиа (Proekt) (in Russian). Retrieved 2 January 2020.