Feds should declassify dirt on Manafort if Trump brings him back on campaign: Dem senator

Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign manager who shared internal polling data to a suspected Russian intelligence asset back in 2016, is reportedly in the mix to rejoin Donald Trump's 2024 campaign despite being convicted in 2019 on charges ranging from tax fraud to witness tampering to conspiracy to defraud the United States.

However, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) thinks that the American public should get the full story about Manafort should Trump actually pull the trigger on bringing him back into the fold.

"After last week's news that convicted felon Paul Manafort may rejoin Donald Trump's campaign, I'm asking the DNI to declassify details about Manafort's connections to Russian operatives from a Senate Intel report on Russian interference in the 2016 election to benefit Trump," he wrote on Twitter Wednesday.

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The Senate Intelligence Committee report in question cited Manafort's decision to slip internal polling data to Konstantin Kilimnik, as well as his foreign lobbying work in general on behalf of Kremlin allies in Ukraine, as justification to describe him as a security risk.

READ MORE: We asked a government agency about AI. They sent us 62 blacked out pages.

"Manafort’s high-level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services, particularly Kilimnik, represented a grave counter-intelligence threat," the bipartisan report stated.

Trump in 2018 attacked his own Department of Justice for prosecuting Manafort and praised him for not flipping on him by providing incriminating information to federal investigators.

"'Justice' took a 12 year old tax case, among other things, applied tremendous pressure on him and, unlike Michael Cohen, he refused to 'break' — make up stories in order to get a 'deal,'" said Trump. "Such respect for a brave man!"

Trump would go on to pardon Manafort in December 2020, with just one month to go during his first term in office.

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