WTF, Was Paul Manafort Spying ON THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN For Russia? WE HAVE NO IDEA

The Washington Post has murdered our poor little human brains with its new SCOOP O'CLOCK story about former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who is in a whole Trainspotting's worth of human shit, offering to give "briefings" on the Trump campaign to his old boss, Russian oligarch and Putin BFF Oleg Deripaska. Is it ... is it possible Paul Manafort was actually spying ON DONALD TRUMP for Russia, and Trump is just his idiot dupe? Or were his offers to give campaign "briefings" to Deripaska Trump-approved and just another backchannel/ spy shoe phone? Let us read and ponder, together!

Less than two weeks before Donald Trump accepted the Republican presidential nomination, his campaign chairman offered to provide briefings on the race to a Russian billionaire closely aligned with the Kremlin, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Paul Manafort made the offer in an email to an overseas intermediary, asking that a message be sent to Oleg Deripaska, an aluminum magnate with whom Manafort had done business in the past, these people said.

“If he needs private briefings we can accommodate,” Manafort wrote in the July 7, 2016, email, portions of which were read to The Washington Post along with other Manafort correspondence from that time.

So we're stuck between Paul Manafort either a) spying on Trump, in which case they are weird coincidences that every Russian mobster who ever lived has an apartment in Trump Tower, and that his idiot son and idiot son-in-law kept accidentally meeting with Russian spies, or b) Manafort backchanneling on Trump's behalf, in which case they are not. 

Several of the exchanges, which took place between Manafort and a Kiev-based employee of his international political consulting practice, focused on money that Manafort believed he was owed by Eastern European clients. [...]

In one April exchange days after Trump named Manafort as a campaign strategist, Manafort referred to his positive press and growing reputation and asked, “How do we use to get whole?”

It's odd that Manafort claims Deripaska owes him money, since these banks in Cypress showed he owed Deripaska $17 million when he started running Donald Trump's campaign! Could the Fibbies have misunderstood who's wholing who?

Manafort and Deripaska have both confirmed they had a business relationship in whichManafort was paid as an investment consultant.In 2014, Deripaska accused Manafort in a Cayman Islands court of taking nearly $19 million intended for investments, then failing to account for the funds, return them or respond to numerous inquiries about exactly how the money was used. There are no signs in court documents that the case has been closed.

Investments? Is that what we're calling a plan to “influence politics, business dealings and news coverage inside the United States, Europe and the former Soviet republics to benefit the Putin government,” as the AP put it? A refresher:

“We are now of the belief that this model can greatly benefit the Putin Government if employed at the correct levels with the appropriate commitment to success,” Manafort wrote in the 2005 memo to Deripaska. The effort, Manafort wrote, “will be offering a great service that can re-focus, both internally and externally, the policies of the Putin government.”

But then Paul Manafort made off with $19 million of Russian oligarch and Putin pal Deripaska's hard-stolen money -- or else he didn't! First, what kind of idiot steals $19 million from a mobbed up Russian oligarch? Second, a fun way to launder money is to say someone took off with it, and then sue them for it. There's a record that you "lost" your money, and then ... something. I am not a criminal, so I don't understand it very well! Explain it to me in the comments!

I will not be able to read them, because my brains sploded all over my computer screen, and I have no more brains. It is sad.

Manafort wrote in an April 2016 email to Trump press aide Hope Hicks that she should disregard a list of questions from The Post about his relationships with Deripaska and a Ukrainian businessman [Dmitri Firtash, possibly, who is also tied to Steve Bannon's Cambridge Analytica? or are we getting ahead of ourselves? SEE WHAT WE MEAN ABOUT ALL THE RUSSIAN SHIT?], according to people familiar with the email.

When another news organization asked questions in June, Manafort wrote Hicks that he never had any ties to the Russian government, according to people familiar with the email.

Hicks, now the White House communications director, declined to comment.

Oh, she's commenting all right. But it's to Bob Mueller, not the Washington Post.

 GIVE US MONEY SO WE CAN BUY MORE BRAINS. K thx bai.

[ WaPo ]