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The FBI has said that there is no evidence to date that Trump ever met with a Russian figure banned from the United States.

Yet, Trump fired Paul Manafort on Aug. 18, 2016, when he heard that a New York Times report revealed that Trump’s campaign chairman was designated to receive potentially illegal cash payments from a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. 1

John McCain’s drama involved Paul Manafort’s law partner Rick Davis and one of the same Russian oligarchs, Oleg Deripaska; the same Russian diplomat, Sergey Kislyak, and the same wily Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, that now dominate the current Trump controversy. 2

Behind the scenes McCain’s top advisers had cultivated deep ties with Russia’s oligarchy and promoted the Kremlin’s geopolitical and economic interests. Davis Manafort’s work was considered so detrimental to U.S. interests that a National Security Council official called McCain’s office to complain, according to the New York Times. The McCain campaign denies receiving the NSC complaint. 3

McCain actually met twice with Deripaska, a Russian businessman and Putin ally whose visa was blocked by the United States amidst intelligence community concerns about his ties to Moscow. The meetings were arranged by Rick Davis, Manafort’s partner in the law partner, who later would become McCain’s campaign manager.

Either McCain was utterly clueless while his top advisers and political allies ran around the former Soviet domain promoting the Kremlin’s interests for cash, or he was aware of it and didn’t care. 4 Nonetheless, McCain didn’t fire Rick Davis (Manafort’s business partner).

A person might wonder why in McCain’s campaign, being informed by the FBI of the potential for espionage, he did nothing. Where, in Trump’s campaign, with only the potential for contact, the decision by the FBI was to insert spies into Trump’s campaign.

MAUREEN PATERSON

Sandpoint

1. nytimes.com/2016/08/16/us/politics/trump-campaign-paul-manafort-ukraine-cash-payments-russia.html

2. circa.com/story/2017/06/21/heres-the-russia-influence-controversy-that-john-mccain-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about

3. thenation.com/article/mccains-kremlin-ties/

4. thenation.com/article/mccains-kremlin-ties/