The Mueller Investigation Closes in on Manafort

The squeeze is on Paul Manafort, the former chairman of Donald Trump’s campaign who has become a major target of special counsel Robert Mueller’s aggressive investigation. The latest details from the Washington Post describe email evidence that Manafort offered “private briefings” about the Trump campaign to a Kremlin-backed billionaire.

According to the Post’s sources, Manafort sent an email in July 2016 to an intermediary of Oleg Deripaska, the Russian oligarch. “If he needs private briefings we can accommodate,” the Trump campaign chairman wrote.

Among other emails the Mueller investigation is examining, Manafort and a Kiev-based employee appear to reference Deripaska without mentioning him by name.

Investigators believe that key passages refer to Deripaska. The billionaire is referenced in some places by his initials, “OVD,” and one email invokes an expensive Russian delicacy in what investigators believe is a veiled reference to Manafort’s past work with Deripaska.

In one April exchange days after Trump named Manafort as a campaign strategist, Manafort referred to his positive press and growing reputation and asked, “How do we use to get whole?”