Why the latest Paul Manafort news is a very big deal

cnn.

On Tuesday we learned -- thanks to a redaction error in a filing in the special counsel's investigation into Russian interference -- that Paul Manafort met with a Russian-linked operative named Konstantin Kilimnik during the course of the 2016 campaign. And in that meeting, according to special counsel Robert Mueller's office, Manafort discussed policies related to the Russia-Ukraine relationship and shared polling data about the 2016 campaign with Kilimnik.

That. Is. Huge.

You'll remember that President Donald Trump's constant refrain when it comes to Manafort, who has already been convicted of a series of financial crimes related to his dealing with the Ukrainian government, is that any and all charges against him happened well before he entered Trump's orbit.

"Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign," tweeted Trump in October 2017. "But why aren't Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus????"

Which, until we got a look at the accidentally unredacted material on Tuesday, was true! While you could argue -- and many people have -- that Trump should have done his due diligence on Manafort, who had spent years advising foreign governments, before hiring him to run his campaign in the spring of 2016, it was hard to dispute Trump's main point that any and all wrongdoing by Manafort happened prior to his being involved with Trump.

Except, not now.

Manafort, according to the filings, had conversations with Kilimnik, who is suspected to be a member of the Russian intelligence organization, while he was serving as the head of Trump's campaign. (Manafort's official title was "campaign chairman" but functioned as campaign manager during his time with Trump.) Those conversations apparently came even as Russian officials were hacking into the email servers at the Democratic National Committee -- which led to a series of damaging leaks via the website WikiLeaks later in 2016.