EX-TRUMP ADVISER TALKED WITH DNC HACKING SUSPECT
A political consultant and former campaign adviser to President Donald Trump says he communicated last year with an individual involved in hacking Democratic National Committee emails.
But Roger Stone says the conversations were “completely innocuous.” Stone told The Washington Times his private Twitter exchange with “Guccifer 2.0” was “so perfunctory, brief and banal” that he had forgotten about it.
Last summer, emails stolen from Democrats were posted by an online persona known as Guccifer 2.0. U.S. officials believe that individual is linked to Russia.
Stone’s acknowledgement of contact with Guccifer, however brief, could pose fresh problems for Trump, whose administration has been unable to surmount suspicion about campaign-season contacts with Russia.
GERMAN POLICE ORDER MALL TO STAY SHUT AFTER THREAT
Police ordered a shopping mall in the western German city of Essen not to open Saturday after receiving credible tips of an imminent attack.
The shopping center and the adjacent parking lot stayed closed as about 100 police officers — many armed with machine pistols and bulletproof vests — positioned themselves around the compound.
“As police, we are the security authority here and have decided to close the mall,” police spokesman Christoph Wickhorst said.
Essen police said they were questioning a man and had searched his apartment in nearby Oberhausen. A second man was detained in Oberhausen, the German news agency dpa reported.
POLAND NEEDS TO PUT LESS TRUST IN EU, MINISTER SAYS
Poland’s foreign minister says the government needs to have less confidence in the European Union and make its policy more aggressive.
Witold Waszczykowski said, however, that Poland wants to remain in the EU, which it joined in 2004.
He was quoted by the Super Express tabloid Saturday, following an EU summit that was marked by Poland’s ire about the re-election of Donald Tusk, a Pole, as EU president. Warsaw protested against Tusk because of Poland’s internal politics.
Waszczykowski said the EU policy at the summit was of “double standards and deceptions.”