Who are Robert Mueller’s new “Person D1” and “Person D2” witnesses?
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s court filings against Paul Manafort have long referred to his alleged co-conspirator “Person A” whose identity is almost certainly a Russian spy named Konstantin Kilimnik. Now that Mueller has formally accused Manafort of witness tampering, he’s introduced two other unnamed people into the mix: Person D1 and Person D2. This has led to rampant speculation across social media about the identities of these two individuals. So who are they?
Here’s what we know based on the court filings. Person D1 and Person D2 are witnesses who are expected to testify against Paul Manafort at his trial. This could include any number of people involved in the Trump-Russia scandal and/or Manafort’s various other scandals. But it rules out some key players. For instance, no one in the Trump family is expected to be called as a witness at Manafort’s trial. So no, D1 and D2 are not Donald and Melania Trump, as some have suggested. We can also narrow it down further.
The court filings also state that Paul Manafort hired D1 and D2 while he was working for Russian puppet Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine, which means we’re talking roughly five years ago. D1 and D2 were tasked with bribing European politicians on Yanukovych’s behalf. There are some Trump campaign advisers who were working with Manafort back in his Yanukovych days, including Rick Gates and Roger Stone. But none of them seem to fit the description of what D1 and D2 were allegedly doing for Manafort during the Yanukovych timeframe.
So the bottom line is that “Person D1” and “Person D2” are probably not headlining names. They sound like run of the mill shady political operatives who were hired by Paul Manafort to do dirty work on the other side of the world several years ago. So why is Robert Mueller keeping their names out of it, if they’re nobodies to begin with? We don’t know, but it’s the same reason he still hasn’t confirmed that “Person A” is Konstantin Kilimnik. It’s how Mueller manages to stay one step ahead.
