# Paul Manafort — "private briefings we can accommodate" > [!quote] "If he needs private briefings we can accommodate." > — Paul Manafort, email to Konstantin Kilimnik, July 7, 2016 ## Context While serving as chairman of Trump's 2016 campaign, [[Paul Manafort]] sent this to his longtime associate [[Konstantin Kilimnik]] — whom the [[Senate Intelligence Committee]] later assessed to be a Russian intelligence officer — offering campaign briefings to [[Oleg Deripaska]], the Putin-aligned oligarch to whom Manafort owed money. Weeks later, on August 2, 2016, Manafort met Kilimnik in person and handed over internal campaign polling data. Manafort lied to investigators about these contacts before the truth emerged in court filings. ## Why this matters This is the 2016 hinge of the Manafort-Russia story, in his own words: a sitting Trump campaign chairman offering "private briefings" to a Kremlin-connected oligarch he was financially indebted to. Paired with the polling-data handoff, it is the most concrete documented channel by which sensitive campaign information could flow toward Russian-aligned actors during the [[Russian Election Interference]] operation — what Mueller's team called a possible effort by Manafort to "get whole" on his debts by trading on his campaign role. A primary-source receipt that turns the abstract collusion question into a specific, dated offer. ## Verification - **Source:** Manafort emails described in [Washington Post, March 2018](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/manafort-associate-had-russian-intelligence-ties-during-2016-campaign-prosecutors-say/2018/03/28/473228e8-3231-11e8-8bdd-cdb33a5eef83_story.html) and documented in the [Mueller Report](https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/download). - **Status:** Verbatim from quoted emails; the contacts are undisputed (Manafort's prosecution established them), though Deripaska's spokesperson denies briefings were received. ## Related quotes - [[Paul Manafort - greatly benefit the Putin Government]] — the 2005 origin of the same Deripaska relationship.