Stone implied in email he knew about WikiLeaks’ plans
Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to President Donald Trump, sent an email to Trump’s chief campaign strategist in October 2016 that implied he had information about WikiLeaks’ plans to release material that would be damaging to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
In an email to Stephen Bannon on Oct. 4— days before WikiLeaks began releasing emails hacked from the account of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta — Stone said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange feared for his personal safety but would nevertheless be releasing “a load everyweek going forward.”
Stone posted the exchange with Bannon on Thursday in a column on the Daily Caller website, shortly before The New York Times published a story describing the message.
The 2016 email suggests that Stone — long known for a tendency to exaggerate and hype — was nevertheless viewed by Bannon and the Trump campaign as a source to consult for information about WikiLeaks.
The group’s release of documents allegedly hacked by Russian operatives in the final months of the 2016 White House race is being investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller. Mueller’s team has been intently focused on the question of whether Stone had knowledge of WikiLeaks’ activities.
Stone has long insisted he did not knowwhat WikiLeaks planned to release and that predictions hemade were based on public information and tips from associates.
His newly revealed exchange with Bannon undercuts Stone’s insistence this week that he never communicated with Trump campaign officials about WikiLeaks.
“There are no such communications, and if Bannon says there are he would be dissembling,” Stone told The Washington Post, which reported Tuesday that Bannon had been asked about Stone’s interactions with the campaign in a recent interview with the Mueller team.