role here is nothing like all those basically anonymous russians who were charged in the indictment back in february for having been part of that russian social media effort to sway american public opinion. we didn t know the names of any of those people. we didn t have any direct association with any of those folks other than the putin-connected oligarch who supposedly headed up that operation. but kilimnik we know a lot about. from 1995 to 2005 he worked at the international republican institute, this u.s. government-funded entity in moscow. he started off as a translator for them. he worked his way up. his language skills, we know, were acquired at least in part at a russian military intelligence training school. kilimnik became friendly or at least known to a lot of u.s. political operatives over the years he was working with i.r.i., certainly became known to a lot of journalists. after ten years at i.r.i. and getting fired under bad circumstances, he started translating for paul m
those basically anonymous russians who were charged in the indictment back in february for having been part of that russian social media effort to sway american public opinion. we didn t know the names of any of those people. we didn t have any direct association with any of those folks other than the putin-connected oligarch who supposedly headed up that operation. but kilimnik we know a lot about. from 1995 to 2005 he worked at the international republican institute, this u.s. government-funded entity in moscow. he started off as a translator for them. he worked his way up. his language skills, we know, were acquired at least in part at a russian military intelligence training school. kilimnik became friendly or at least known to a lot of u.s. political operatives over the years he was working with i.r.i., certainly became known to a lot of journalists. after ten years at i.r.i. and getting fired under bad circumstances, he started translating for paul manafort and manafort s politic
american public opinion. we didn t know the names of those people. didn t have the direct association with the folks other than the putin connected oligarch who headed up the operation. but kilimnik we know a lot about. from 1995 to 2005 he worked at the international republican institute, the u.s. government funded entity in moscow. he started off as a translator for them worked his way up. . his language skillsy acquired as a russian intelligence training school. he became friendly and known to u.s. political operatives over the years working with iri. certainly became known to journalists. after ten years at iri and getting fired under bad circumstances, he translated for paul manafort in manafort s political consulting business. that s what got him fired from i are i. with manafort he rose up from being translator starting as a translator to becoming a second in command to paul manafort. he ended up running the ukraine
paul, alex van der zwaan is really the first figure in this russia investigation expected to be sentenced. how does this play into the larger russian investigation? of course, he s a young lawyer, who got jammed up in this case because he lied to federal investigators. of course, mueller likes to send that message out repeatedly. you lie, to one of my investigators. and you may go to prison. but he s important as well, because he s really central to this russian connection that seems to run out of the ukraine. and, remember, manafort s political consulting business was focused on a russian supported ukrainian government, but had ties to this individual who was actually a russian intelligence officer. and, in fact, manafort got himself into trouble even more recently, almost at his bail revoked, because he was still talking about how to create a favorable view of himself, manafort, overseas.