Tad Devine, who served as senior adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) 2016 campaign for president, got an unwelcome reminder of his political past Thursday: His name appears on numerous exhibits in the prosecution of Paul Manafort, the former chair of President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Devine worked with Manafort on the 2006 and 2010 campaigns of Viktor Yanukovych for president of Ukraine. Yanukovych won in 2010, but he was forced from power in 2014 after concerns about his pro-Russian policies sparked a popular uprising. Yanukovych fled to Russia; he is wanted in Ukraine on charges of high treason.
Manafort faces trial in federal court starting July 24 on bank fraud and tax-related charges. The office of special prosecutor Robert Mueller released a list of more than 500 potential exhibits Thursday; the list includes 16 emails, email chains, memos and invoices involving Devine, Manafort and others in the years 2006, 2010-12 and 2014.
The contents of the documents were not disclosed. The exhibit list includes the names of senders and recipients and subject lines. Two examples: “2010.02.03 Email T. Devine to P. Manafort re Election Night Speech” and “2010.02.15 Email T. Devine to P. Manafort, et al re Job Well Done.”
According to the New York Times, Devine severed ties with Yanukovych in 2012 after the Ukrainian leader jailed a political opponent. Five of the emails included in the exhibit list were sent in 2014 — after Yanukovych’s ouster — by Devine to Manafort associates Rick Gates and Konstantin Kilimnik. (Gates and Kilimnik have also been indicted by Mueller; Gates has reached a plea agreement and is cooperating with the investigation.)
Since the emails’ contents have not been released, it’s unclear why Devine was exchanging Ukraine-related communications long after his supposed departure and less than six months before he joined the Sanders campaign in late 2014.
Devine is a prinicipal in the Washington, D.C., political consulting firm Devine Mulvey Longabaugh, which operates domestically and internationally. He did not return a call from Seven Days.
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Hold the phone! A political operative who worked for Bernie in 2014-16 previously worked with Traitor Manafort to help get a dictator and Russian puppet elected in the Ukraine? Whoda thunk it! Gee, ya mean the very same guy who years ago had come up with the plan for having superdelegates at the Democratic conventions as a check on fringe candidates, which Bernie (not a Democrat) bitterly complained about in 2016 while he was being advised by Devine? What a sad tale.
I think that the high end money crap in politics sucks. These guys are out to make money, and none seem to care where the money comes from. How about we have minimum wage paid to ALL politians. Then you know its because they WANT to serve the people and as an added bonus, you probably wouldnt have to worry about term limits.
Massive corruption in usa politics starting with a president that belongs behind bars. LOCK HIM UP-LOCK HIM UP !! Drain The Swamp !!
Oh, my. Where does Comrade Bernie fit into the equation?
Mmmm me think Socialist Sanders should also be investigated … I mean, after all, he’s supposed to be investigated now for bank fraud that his wife committed. by the FBI.. Yet Sanders like having crooks surround him, he had one from NY with him for a weekend at his summer home on the lake. Hey, Bernie you going to stand by your friend??? Probably not, he’ll pretend he doesn’t know Devine…
It is worth noting that the Ukrainian president that replaced Yanukovych is a fascist pro-nationalist government that had the full backing of the US. As with most US foreign policy, that was not done in the interests of supporting Democracy and human rights, but instead in the interests of US corporate interests, specifically the fracking and gas industry. Shortly after the coup and ouster of Yanukovych, the US oil and gas industry swept in to push fracking in Ukraine. Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, joined the board of directors of Burisma Holdings, Ukraine’s largest private gas producer shortly thereafter, and pushed fracking deals for Chevron and other US gas companies. His involvement on the board was pitched as a way of “helping the people of Ukraine”, when in fact what happened was vast tracts of land in Ukraine were opened up to fracking, and the groundwater pollution and drinking water contamination that comes with it. It was clearly about oligarchy and making money. It’s all part of US Imperialism that both the Democrat and Republican parties are beholden to, and the corporations they have prostituted themselves to. Greed and power has completely corrupted both of these corporate-owned parties.
You can read about Hunter Biden and Burisma Holdings here:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/201…
@ Hotchkiss
None of which excuses Devine from working for a Putin puppet to be President of the Ukraine. And then later recreating himself as the champion of the ultra liberal insurgent U.S. presidential candidate against the Democratic Party establishment, and complaining bitterly about the superdelegate system that he himself created in that Party. The foul stench of Devines complete lack of principle is nauseating.
The thing about this story, as evidenced by the comments above, is that it’s a fairly transparent attempt to smear Senator Sanders as being a tool of the Russians to weaken Hillary Clinton and throw the election to Donald Trump. “Oh, see! I knew it! Sanders is linked to Tad Devine, Devine is linked to Manafort and Yanukovych, Yanukovych is linked to Putin, therefore Sanders is practically a GRU agent!”
The story loses a lot of its luster when one realizes that Tad Devine served an identical campaign strategist role to the Gore 2000 campaign and the Kerry 2004 campaign. Though I’m sure some of you will breathlessly lather that the Russians have infiltrated us for 18 years, or something equally ludicrous.
Also worth noting is that Michael Cohen, ex-personal attorney of Donald J Trump (and now under investigation by the Mueller probe), is being personally represented by Lanny J Davis, who was of course the White House Counsel to one William Jefferson Clinton. So I suppose one could equally lather that Hillary Clinton is linked to her husband, who is linked to Lanny Davis, who is linked to Michael Cohen, who is linked to Donald Trump, who is, as of the Horror of Helsinki last week, linked pretty definitively to Vladimir Putin, thus Clinton is a tool of the Russians in an attempt to corrupt the US elections and defeat her own candidacy.
Or one could use one’s brain and conclude that there is, in fact, a Swamp, and the current president is the leader, and would be king of it. For the moment.
I disagree with your premise that the point of this story is to smear Sanders. He already has major issues (temperament, ridiculous ego, hypocrisy, inability to make legislative allies and produce legislation, lack of detailed knowledge of the US economic system much like the current occupant of the WH) that should disqualify him from being president. Bernie doesnt need to be smeared as a Russian tool for people to see him for what he is: a woefully ineffective legislator and an egomaniac who helped get Trump elected.
The point of this story is to point out that documents link Tad Devine, who people know as Saint Sanders campaign adviser, to seriously questionable people. Its part of the swamp. (A swamp that Sanders plays in just as much as anyone else.) Thats a perfectly fair and reasonable story to report. Commenters are free to comment on it as they wish. Commenters dont make the story itself a smear.
I agree with you that US politics is a swamp and that the current infantile corrupt-o-maniac in the White House is not draining it but making it swampier. Its not a smear on Sanders or Devine for commenters to point out that they played a role in giving us this state of affairs.
If the intention of the story is not to link Sanders to Trump and the Russians, why is Sanders even mentioned in the article, or why aren’t Gore and Kerry also mentioned? As I said, Devine played a nearly identical role in all three campaigns, yet the story only mentions Sanders.
Additionally, while Devine comes up in the Manafort exhibits, Sanders does not. Is there any way in which Sanders is more linked to this story than Gore or Kerry?
I’m not blaming John Walters for this story. It’s a story that has been repeated by many news outlets this week. Likely it was seeded by someone with an axe to grind like Peter Daou.
That’s about it for arguments germane to the topic. Now, on to your assertion that
1: Sanders is an ineffective legislator, and
2: Sanders is somehow responsible for Trump getting elected.
If Sanders is so ineffective as a legislator, can you explain to me why his constituents keep electing him by landslides? Can you explain why in the 2016 primary, Sanders won 85% of the vote, versus 12% for Clinton?
Having lost the primary, Sanders campaigned hard for Clinton after the DNC convention. Could you please explain how he cost her the election? I imagine you probably mean that he cost her the election by having the temerity to run against her in the first place.
The fact is, the 2016 election wasn’t even close. Of the eligible electorate, Clinton got 26.5% of the vote to Trump’s 26.3%. The plurality of the electorate- 47.2% was so turned off by both parties that they either voted for third parties with no chance of winning, or simply stayed home. I doubt Sanders had much to do with that.
You all seem to forget that the Patriotic Americans are the ones who voted for Pres Trump. It’s already been proven that Clinton didn’t get the popular vote. Sure maybe old baldy Sanders could have beaten Clinton in the primary but he was paid off to leave the race. Those millions were just too much for him to pass up, plus he knew he had no chance to beat Trump. Socialist sanders like those $$ sign too much. You all believe that Russia interfered with the election, maybe so but what about when Obama interfered with other countries, one was Israel, obama gave money to the opponent who was running against Benjamin Netanyahu
Prime Minister of Israel, because obama hated Netanyahu. When he sold out did he return the money to the donators .. NOPE he kept the money !!! To sanders.. money comes first…
Devine signing up to assist Bernie’s presidential bid because he has a heart of gold and believes in Bernie’s message? Maybe not so much.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/th…
And to suggest that the local media shouldn’t publish this story because its only purpose is to tarnish Bernie is hogwash.