timelets

Manafort lost all his "consulting" business in Ukraine when Yanukovich got ousted in 2014; there was no love left between him and the new Ukrainian government. At the same time, Trump was still trying to get his hotel project going in Moscow, which made him more receptive to Manafort's idea that "the Ukrainians, not the Russians, did it."

Mr. Manafort, who had previously worked for a Ukrainian president who later fled to Russia, also said the hack “was likely carried out by the Ukranians, not the Russians,” Mr. Gates told investigators, according to the same memo. That viewpoint “parroted” a theory from Mr. Manafort’s Russian business associate, Konstantin Kilimnik, whom the FBI has assessed to have ties to Russian intelligence.

“Flynn was adamant the Russians did not carry out the hack,” former Trump campaign official Richard Gates last year told the office of then-special counsel Robert Mueller, which was examining Russian interference in the 2016 election and any links to the Trump campaign.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-advisers-pushed-unproven-theory-on-ukraine-mueller-documents-show-11572799280