April 30, 2018

Manafort and Gates were already interviewed by the FBI before they were hired by Trump campaign

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/4/24/1759629/-Manafort-and-Gates-were-already-interviewed-by-the-FBI-before-they-were-hired-by-Trump-campaign
"Before he came on board as first an adviser, then the chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Paul Manafort had at least two meetings with the FBI. The documents filed late Monday by prosecutors in the office of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign, show that the FBI had interviewed Manafort in March 2013 and again in July 2014. Manafort’s deputy, Rick Gates, who also held a top role with Trump’s campaign, was interviewed by the FBI in July 2014, the documents show. They weren’t alone. The FBI had also interviewed Carter Page, who was a known recruitment target for Russia and the world’s least-stealthy would-be double agent. Former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page bragged that he was an adviser to the Kremlin in a letter obtained by TIME that raises new questions about the extent of Page’s contacts with the Russian government over the years. Manafort, Gates, and Page were already on the FBI’s radar well before they were on Trump’s payroll. And it’s not as if the Moscow connection of any of the three was hidden. Manafort played up his Russian connections and the work he had done in Ukraine as the highlight of his consulting work. And still both Donald Trump — and the RNC — hired Paul Manafort."