The parties are releasing less redacted versions of filings related to Paul Manafort’s breach determination. Virtually all reveal things I covered closely in real time.
One thing that’s new — and newsworthy — is a passage of Rick Gates’ February 7, 2018 proffer in which he describes how he came to integrate Tony Fabrizio’s polling with Cambridge Analytica and Data Trust.
This means that the polling data that would have been shared with Kilimnik involved a polling company that he was working with Sam Patten on, on top of the Fabrizio polling he had worked with for years with Paul Manafort.
As it happens I’m working on some other Cambridge Analytica issues that make this more interesting.
The same proffer also notes that the campaign decided to focus on Pennsylvania in mid-August (even though Manafort reportedly raised it with Kilimnik in their August 2, 2016 meeting), and that at that point, “Pennsylvania … was ‘fool’s gold’ and Trump was unlikely to win there.” Which would suggest that Kilimnik “knew” that the Trump campaign was going to win Pennsylvania before the campaign itself.
Update: I see I wrote this too quickly and need to clarify two things. First, when I say that Kilimnik “knew” the campaign was going to win Pennsylvania before the campaign itself, I’m referencing the report in the Mueller Report that at this August 2 briefing, Manafort included PA among the states that he believed the campaign would win. Per Gates’ explanation, that was at a time when the campaign believed they couldn’t win PA.
As for the CA claim, it is both contrary to a lot of claims made by other witnesses to Mueller, and probably early enough to present all sorts of legal problems for Trump.