| It's possible to parse that quote two ways, but it's pretty easy to find another source (or read the Senate report yourself) To quote The Intercept[1], on Paul Manafort in the Senate report: One of Manafort’s closest aides during his time in Ukraine was Konstantin Kilimnik, who the Senate report identifies as a Russian intelligence officer. Kilimnik also served as Manafort’s liaison with Deripaska. While he was working for Trump during the 2016 campaign, Manafort stayed in contact with Kilimnik and gave him the Trump campaign’s internal polling data, which showed that the key to defeating Clinton was to drive up negative attitudes about her among voters. The Senate report says that the intelligence committee “obtained some information suggesting Kilimnik may have been connected to the GRU’s hack and leak operation targeting the 2016 election.” The report adds that “this information suggests that a channel for coordination on the GRU hack operation may have existed through Kilimnik.” The report adds that in interviews with Mueller’s prosecution team, “Manafort lied consistently about one issue in particular: his interactions with Kilimnik.” Manafort decided to “face more severe criminal penalties rather than provide complete answers about his interactions with Kilimnik.” The Manafort-Kilimnik relationship, the Senate report concludes, represents “the single most direct tie between senior Trump campaign officials and the Russian intelligence services.” To emphasise a direct quote from the Republican-led Senate Committee: "the single most direct tie between senior Trump campaign officials and the Russian intelligence services." Now it's possible that Manafort was doing this because he was greedy and getting money from the Russians (he was getting paid by them), and it's possible to argue that it wasn't collusion because Trump fired him. And of course "collusion" is a messy thing anyway - there is no clear definition, and no crime called "colluding". The whole report is worth reading[2]. [1] https://theintercept.com/2020/09/03/trump-russia-senate-repo... [2] https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu... |