Is Obscure GOP Consultant Sam Patten the Missing Link in the Trump-Russia Probe?
By Will Bunch The Philadelphia Inquirer
Politics • September 2018 • Views: 1,790
Who is Sam Patten? That’s what a lot of people were asking on Friday afternoon. Seems there’s a lot to unpack here.
- Sam Patten traveled in the same pro-Russian Ukranian circles as another longtime Republican insider — Paul Manafort, President Trump's campaign manager during the key summer months of 2016, convicted last month of eight felony counts related to money laundering. In the mid-2010s, Patten — like Manafort — worked closely with the network of allies of ousted pro-Vladimir-Putin Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, helping to reelect an ally as mayor of Kiev.
- Sam Patten had a close business and working relationship with a man that Mueller's probe has identified as an active member of Putin's intelligence network — a Russian spy. That man is Konstantin Kilimnik, also a close associate of Manafort and Manafort's ex-partner Rick Gates, who also has pleaded guilty to felony charges and was a witness in Manafort's recent trial. In 2015, as the American presidential campaign was starting to heat up, Patten and Kilimnik incorporated a business called Begemot Ventures International that promised to do political messaging at home and abroad.
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