A private jet linked to a Russian oligarch flew to the U.S. at a key time in the 2016 election

By Greg Walters at Vice News

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/paxkpb/paul-manafort-a-mysterious-russian-jet-and-a-secret-meeting

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In August 2016, a private jet linked to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska traveled from Moscow to Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey. The Gulfstream G550 (registration M-ALAY) landed shortly after midnight and, according to publicly available flight records, flew back to Moscow that same afternoon. Deripaska, 50, is the founder of Basic Element, a Russian industrial conglomerate with massive holdings in aluminum, energy, and construction. With an estimated net worth of $6 billion, he can afford to send a private jet across the globe whenever he wants.

Still, according to a source familiar with the matter, that August flight has caught the attention of congressional investigators, in part because of its timing.

The jet arrived within hours of a meeting in nearby Manhattan between Paul Manafort, then chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, and Konstantin Kilimnik. Kilimnik spent over a decade as Manafort’s translator and fixer in Ukraine. Weeks earlier, Manafort had emailed his old associate and told him to extend an offer of "private briefings" to Deripaska, according to The Washington Post.

Congressional investigators looking into Russian meddling in the 2016 election are now probing the relationship between Manafort, Kilimnik, and Deripaska, according to two people familiar with the matter. The jet’s brief trip to New Jersey raises fresh questions about the relationship between the three men during the 2016 presidential campaign. Deripaska is believed to have close ties with the Kremlin. Kilimnik has been widely reported to be the unnamed person identified in court filings by special counsel Robert Mueller's office this week as having ties to Russian intelligence — a relationship Kilimnik has long denied.

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