Paul Manafort's defense team responded Thursday to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's request to pull their bail agreement based on the discovery that Manafort was coauthoring an editorial about his political work in Ukraine with a Russian associate, Konstantin Kilimnik, that would be published under someone else's name.
Manafort's attorney said in a court filing that Manafort did not seek to influence the ongoing Russia probe as the FBI investigative team claims, but instead wanted to set the record straight in Ukraine where he had previously conducted business.
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His defense team also argued that Manafort never intended to publish the op-ed in the United States, where Mueller's investigation, as well as multiple congressional probes, are looking into possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.
"The op-ed was to appear in a newspaper published, not in the United States, but in Kiev, Ukraine," Manafort's counsel wrote, adding that the draft is now a published article in the Kyviv Post [sic], a Ukrainian newspaper.
"It was intended to be, and has been, published in a Ukrainian newspaper, the Kyviv Post [sic]," his attorney said.
As noted on Twitter by The New York Times' Kenneth Vogel, an editorial published in the Kyiv Post is available worldwide, thanks to the internet. In fact, the op-ed in question, written in English, currently is online and heralds Manafort as a champion of improved Ukrainian relations with the European Union at the risk of upsetting Russia.
While Manafort's attorney argued that not allowing Manafort to speak out in his own defense was a violation of his First Amendment rights, he also said Oleg Voloshin, a former Ukrainian official, wrote the piece. Voloshin says the same:
Voloshin told the Kyiv Post that he wrote the op-ed himself, sending it only to Konstantin Kilimnik, a longtime associate of Manafort in Ukraine, and Manafort for fact-checking. “It is totally mine,” Voloshin said. “Paul has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Manafort defense team denies op-ed violated gag order (The Hill)
Oleg Voloshin: Paul Manafort, European integration’s unknown soldier for Ukraine (Kyviv Post)