Wyden Requests DNI Haines Declassify Information Related to Paul Manafort’s Relationship with Russian Government Operatives
Wyden Renews 2020 Request To Make Public Information from Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Russian Interference in the 2016 Election To Benefit Donald Trump
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., today called on the Biden Administration to declassify information concerning Paul Manafort’s involvement with Russian government operatives, following news reports that Manafort may soon join Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Manafort served as Trump’s campaign chairman for portions of the 2016 presidential campaign. He later was convicted of multiple crimes, including tax and bank fraud related to his work for a Ukrainian oligarch allied with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and tampering with witnesses.
The public version of the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election identified Manafort as a conduit for connections between the Trump Campaign and Russia:
“The Committee found that Manafort’s presence on the [2016] Campaign and proximity to Trump created opportunities for Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump Campaign. Taken as a whole, Manafort’s high-level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services, particularly [Konstantin] Kilimnik and associates of Oleg Deripaska, represented a grave counterintelligence threat.”
However, as Wyden pointed out in his additional views to the report at the time, important details concerning Manafort’s interactions with Konstantin Kilimnik and Oleg Deripaska, both closely linked to the Russian security services, were redacted and kept from the public.
“It is critical that these details be made public to the greatest extent possible,” Wyden wrote to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines. “As the Committee recommended, the public should be informed as soon as a foreign influence campaign is detected. In this case, a known ‘grave counterintelligence threat’ is reportedly joining a presidential campaign. Only by understanding the details of that threat can the public guard against a malign foreign influence effort that could once again threaten an American election.”
Read the full letter to DNI Haines here.
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