Trump Jr. messaged with Wiki Leaks
Private Twitter exchanges happened during, after campaign
WASHINGTON— President Donald Trump’s oldest son on Monday released a series of private Twitter exchanges between himself and Wiki Leaks during and after the 2016 election, including pleas from the website to publicize its leaks.
Donald Trump Jr.’s release of the messages on Twitter cames hours after The Atlantic first reported them. In the exchanges—some of them around the time that the website was releasing the stolen emails from Democrat Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman—Wiki Leaks praises his father’s positive comments about Wiki Leaks and asks Trump Jr. to release his father’s tax returns to the site.
The revelations are sure to increase calls in Congress to have Trump Jr. testify publicly as part of several committee probes into Russian interference in the 2016 election. And they add a new element to the investigations that have been probing for months whether Trump’s campaign colluded in any way with the Russian government.
In an intelligence assessment released last January, the NSA, CIA and FBI concluded that Russian military intelligence provided hacked information from the DNC and “senior Democratic officials” to Wiki Leaks. Wiki Leaks has denied that Russia was the source of emails it released, including those from Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta.
The private messages released by Trump Jr. show him responding to the Wiki Leaks account three times, at one point agreeing to “ask around” about a political action committee Wiki Leaks had mentioned. He also asked the site about a rumor about an upcoming leak. The messages began in September 2016 and ran through July.
Trump Jr. downplayed the exchanges as he released them.
“Here is the entire chain of messages with wikileaks (with my whopping 3 responses) which one of the congressional committees has chosen to selectively leak,” he tweeted. “How ironic!”
Trump Jr.’s lawyers had released the exchanges to three congressional committees that have been investigating Russian intervention in the 2016 election and whether there were any links to Trump’s campaign.
In a statement, Trump Jr.’s lawyer said thousands of documents had been turned over to the committees.
“Putting aside the question as to why or by whom such documents, provided to Congress under promises of confidentiality, have been selectively leaked, we can say with confidence that we have no concerns about these documents and any questions raised about them have been easily answered in the appropriate forum,” said Alan Futerfas.
Futerfas didn’t say which forum he was referring to, but Trump Jr. was interviewed behind closed doors by Senate Judiciary Committee staff in September. A person familiar with that meeting said the private Twitter messages were discussed. The person declined to be identified because the transcript of that interview hasn’t been made public.