Bannon unleashes damaging testimony
WASHINGTON • President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign CEO Steve Bannon delivered potentially damaging testimony on Friday against Roger Stone, describing communicating with Trump’s longtime adviser about WikiLeaks despite Stone’s denials and saying he believed Stone “had a relationship” with the website’s founder.
WikiLeaks disclosed numerous stolen Democratic emails in the months before the 2016 election that were damaging to Trump’s opponent Hillary Clinton. U.S. intelligence agencies and former special counsel Robert Mueller determined that the emails were stolen by Russian state-backed hackers as part of Moscow’s efforts to meddle in the election and boost Trump’s candidacy.
“I was led to believe he had a relationship with WikiLeaks and Julian Assange,” Bannon said of Stone in the third day of testimony in federal court in Stone’s trial, referring to the WikiLeaks founder.
Stone has pleaded not guilty to charges of obstructing justice, witness tampering and lying to the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee in its investigation into Russia interference in the 2016 election. The veteran Republican operative faces a possible decades-long sentence if convicted.
Bannon, testifying as a prosecution witness, confirmed that he and Stone had discussed WikiLeaks on several occasions before and after Bannon joined Trump’s campaign in August 2016, including in an Oct. 4, 2016, exchange in which Bannon emailed Stone after an Assange news conference had failed to produce damaging information on Clinton as expected. “He told me he had a relationship” with Assange, Bannon said, when asked by the prosecution why he chose to email Stone to ask why the news conference had been a dud. “It would be natural for me to reach out to him.”
Stone, in sworn testimony to the House committee in its investigation of Russia election meddling, told lawmakers that he had never communicated with any members of Trump’s campaign about WikiLeaks or Julian Assange.
Stone also is accused of denying the existence of certain emails and texts, including email exchanges with Bannon, and falsely telling the committee that a radio host and comedian named Randy Credico was his “intermediary” with Assange in July 2016.