Wisconsinites should peruse the Mueller report with special interest — even if Attorney General William Barr’s redactions make it a choppy read.

Barr's efforts to protect the president who is his current political benefactor were absurdly aggressive. But the attorney general could not avoid the fundamental revelation. “As the special counsel’s report makes clear," he acknowledged, "the Russian government sought to interfere in our election.”

Special counsel Robert Mueller and his investigators determined that this interference took many forms. And this is where Wisconsin comes into the picture — in a section of the report that recounts discussions during the course of the campaign between Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, longtime Manafort associate and Trump campaign adviser Rick Gates and Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian/Ukrainian political strategist who court documents allege maintained close ties to Russian intelligence agencies.

According to the report: “Manafort briefed Kilimnik on the state of the Trump campaign and Manafort's plan to win the election. That briefing encompassed the campaign's messaging and its internal polling data. According to Gates, it also included discussion of ‘battleground’ states, which Manafort identified as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota.”