Report: Bernie’s Chief Strategist Contacted Former Russian Spy Right Before Joining Campaign

DC:

Evidence in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian collusion in the 2016 election reveals that former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’s chief strategist was in contact with a former Russian intelligence agent before joining the campaign.

Tad Devine joined Sanders’s campaign in 2014 before it officially launched. Communications between Devine, Paul Manafort, Ukrainian diplomats and Russian intelligence agents began as early as Jan. 3, 2006, and continued until no earlier than June 19, 2014, according to a list of exhibits filed in a Virginia federal court Wednesday.

“If he runs, I’m going to help him,” Devine said in November 2014, The Washington Post reported. “He is not only a longtime client but a friend. I believe he could deliver an enormously powerful message that the country is waiting to hear right now and do it in a way that succeeds.”

Manafort, then-candidate Donald Trump’s campaign chairman during the 2016 presidential election, was indicted on several charges in Mueller’s investigation. He pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to money-laundering and failing to register as a foreign agent for his lobbying work.

Manafort’s lobbying effort was done on behalf of the Party of Regions, the pro-Russian political party led by former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.

Devine worked with Manafort in an effort to win Yanukovych — a former Communist Party member — the presidency in Ukraine, National Review reported. Their efforts, apparently, paid off. Yanukovych’s presidential term began on Feb. 25, 2010.   more here