Deripaska Didn't Receive Polling Data or Briefings: Spokeswoman
Deripaska Didn't Receive Polling Data or Briefings: Spokeswoman
(Bloomberg) -- Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska didn’t receive U.S. polling data or briefings on then-candidate Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential run, according to his spokeswoman.
His statement came a week after the public release of U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian election interference, which laid out additional threads about battleground-state polling data that Paul Manafort, a Trump campaign chairman, shared with a Russian associate, Konstantin Kilimnik.
Mueller’s team cites a former Manafort associate, Rick Gates, as saying that Manafort ordered information shared with Kilimnik that could then be passed to Deripaska. But the prosecutors were unable to determine what became of the data or if Deripaska received it.
“Mr. Deripaska did not receive any polling data from Mr. Kilimnik” nor any offers for such data, the spokeswoman wrote on April 26, following the publication of a Bloomberg News report about the matter. “Mr. Deripaska did not receive any private briefings about the campaign. Not from Mr. Manafort, not from Mr. Kilimnik, and not from anyone else. Neither did Mr. Deripaska receive any offers of such briefings.”
Kilimnik has also denied receiving in-depth polling data or sharing any data with anyone.
Deripaska, who founded the aluminum producer United Co. Rusal and power producer En+ Group, paid Manafort tens of millions of dollars for consulting work more than a decade ago, according to Mueller. Deripaska later sued Manafort over a failed investment deal.
The spokeswoman said Deripaska last saw Manafort in around 2011 and the two had no contact since.
Deripaska was among the most prominent tycoons hit with Trump administration sanctions to retaliate against Moscow for its election interference. He’s suing the Treasury Department and Secretary Steven Mnuchin, saying he’s a victim of U.S. political infighting.
The spokeswoman dismissed Mueller’s report as a “product of American internal political divisions” that has nothing to do with Deripaska’s business or philanthropy.
--With assistance from Stephanie Baker and David Voreacos.
To contact the reporter on this story: Yuliya Fedorinova in Moscow at yfedorinova@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jeffrey D Grocott at jgrocott2@bloomberg.net
©2019 Bloomberg L.P.