the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence directorate.

That is significant. It means Person A provided a possible connection between the Trump campaign and the Russian intelligence agencies that interfered in the 2016 election. According to the new filing, Gates communicated with Person A in September and October 2016, while Gates held a top position on the Trump campaign.

Assuming that Person A is Kilimnik, Gates wasn’t the only one in contact with him. In the spring and summer of 2016, Manafort and Kilimnik exchanged a series of cryptic emails, since turned over to investigators. The emails appear to relate to a large debt that Manafort owed to Russian aluminum tycoon Oleg Deripaska from a failed joint investment. (Manafort denies owing Deripaska money and claims Deripaska owed him money. Their dispute isthe subject of litigation in the Cayman Islands and the United States.) In the emails, Manafort asked Kilimnik if Deripaska had seen press reports on his work for Trump. “How do we use to get whole?” Manafort asked. His question appears to have implied that he hoped to use his ties to the presidential candidate to settle his dispute with Deripaska. He also offered to privately brief Deripaska on the presidential contest.

On July 29, the week after Republican National Convention, where the Trump campaign altered a proposed amendment to the GOP platform to remove language calling for providing “lethal defensive weapons” to Ukranian troops fighting Russian-backed soldiers, Kilimnik told Manafort he wanted to meet in person, according to emails first published by the Atlantic. He said he wanted