Indictment hints of link between Trump campaign, Wikileaks
WASHINGTON — The special counsel, Robert Mueller, revealed Friday the most direct link yet between the parallel efforts of the Trump campaign and Wikileaks to use Democratic Party material stolen by Russians to damage the election campaign of Hillary Clinton.
In the indictment unsealed Friday, the special counsel disclosed evidence that a top campaign official in 2016 dispatched Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to President Donald Trump, to get information from Wikileaks about the thousands of hacked Democratic emails. The effort began well after it was widely reported that Russian intelligence operatives were behind the theft, which was part of Moscow’s broad campaign to sabotage the 2016 president election.
The indictment makes no mention of whether Trump played a role in the coordination, though Mueller did leave a curious clue about how high in the campaign the effort reached: A senior campaign official “was directed” by an unnamed person to contact Stone about additional Wikileaks releases that might damage the Clinton campaign, according to the court document.
Stone was charged with seven counts, including obstruction of an official proceeding, making false statements and witness tampering. Mueller did not say that Stone’s interactions with Wikileaks were illegal, nor that the Trump campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy with the organization.
Stone appeared briefly in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale on Friday morning, his ankles and waist shackled in front of a packed courtroom. He posted a $250,000 bond, was ordered to surrender his passport and agreed to appear in federal court in Washington later.
FBI agents were seen carting hard drives and other evidence from Stone’s apartment in New York City, and his recording studio in South Florida was also raided Friday.
The White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, sought to broadly distance Trump from the charges. “The charges brought against Mr. Stone have nothing to do with the president,” she told CNN.
Jay Sekulow, one of the president’s personal lawyers, dismissed any ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. “The indictment today does not allege Russian collusion by Roger Stone or anyone else. Rather, the indictment focuses on alleged false statements Mr. Stone made to Congress,” he said in a statement.
On Friday, Trump tweeted in defense of his friend. “Border Coyotes, Drug Dealers and Human Traffickers are treated better. Who alerted CNN to be there?” Trump wrote.
The indictment does not mention whether Stone or any other Trump associate knew about the Russian operatives’ plans before they hacked the Democrats. Mueller’s investigators sought to answer that question, according to two people briefed on the inquiry. To make a case that Trump’s associates conspired with the Russians, the investigators indicated, they needed to show that the associates knew about the hacking in advance, the people said.
Three senior Trump campaign officials have told Mueller’s team that Stone created the impression that he was a conduit for inside information from Wikileaks, according to people familiar with their witness interviews. One of them told investigators that Stone not only seemed to predict Wikileaks’ actions but also took credit afterward for the timing of its disclosures.
In October, Stone exchanged emails with Steve Bannon, then the chief executive of Trump’s campaign. In one exchange, Stone wrote that more Wikileaks disclosures were forthcoming, “a load every week going forward,” according to the indictment. Bannon appears to be the official described in the court document as “the high-ranking Trump Campaign official,” based on previous disclosures about the email exchange.