It's starting to look more and more like right-wing operative Roger Stone is the link between Russian intelligence actions to influence the 2016 contest and the Trump campaign, and that he's most likely going to prison for the rest of his life.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office has obtained communications suggesting that a right-wing conspiracy theorist might have had advance knowledge that the emails of Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman had been stolen and handed to WikiLeaks, a source familiar with the investigation told NBC News.
Mueller's team has spent months investigating whether the conspiracy theorist, Jerome Corsi, learned before the public did that WikiLeaks had obtained emails hacked by Russian intelligence officers — and whether he passed information about the stolen emails to Donald Trump associate Roger Stone, multiple sources said.
Mueller's investigators have reviewed messages to members of the Trump team in which Stone and Corsi seem to take credit for the release of Democratic emails, said a person with direct knowledge of the emails.
The source and other people familiar with the matter say they have seen no evidence suggesting either man played any role in the hacking or release of the emails. Stone adamantly denies doing anything but passing on information already in the public domain.
Mueller's spokesman, Peter Carr, said the office had no comment. Corsi and his lawyer, David Gray, declined to comment.
There is zero doubt at this point that WikiLeaks was used by Putin's merry band of saboteurs as a clearing house for Russian intelligence operations and information. There is zero doubt at this point that the Russians stole DNC emails through phishing. There is zero doubt at this point that WikiLeaks was given those emails to distribute in order to cost Hillary Clinton the election.
If Jerome Corsi and Roger Stone knew these stolen DNC emails were coming from WikiLeaks beforehand, then they are the connection between Russian intelligence and the Trump campaign.
We also now know that Stone wanted to reward WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with a Trump pardon, and that Stone was pushing Trump to give Assange one in direct exchange for WikiLeaks' help in winning the election.
In early January, Roger Stone, the longtime Republican operative and adviser to Donald Trump, sent a text message to an associate stating that he was actively seeking a presidential pardon for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange—and felt optimistic about his chances. “I am working with others to get JA a blanket pardon,” Stone wrote, in a January 6 exchange of text messages obtained by Mother Jones. “It’s very real and very possible. Don’t fuck it up.” Thirty-five minutes later Stone added: “Something very big about to go down.”
The recipient of the messages was Randy Credico, a New York-based comedian and left-leaning political activist who Stone has identified as his backchannel to WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign—a claim Credico strongly denies. During the election, Stone, a political provocateur who got his start working for Richard Nixon’s presidential campaign, made statements that suggested he had knowledge of WikiLeaks’ plans to publish emails stolen from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, and other Democrats, and his interactions with WikiLeaks have become an intense focus of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation into Russian election interference. As Mueller’s team zeroes in on Stone, they have examined his push for an Assange pardon—which could be seen as an attempt to interfere with the Russia probe—and have questioned at least one of Stone’s associates about the effort.
Assange has not been publicly charged with a crime in the United States, though the Justice Department has investigated WikiLeaks over its publication of classified material and and role in releasing emails pilfered from Democratic targets by hackers working for Russian intelligence. Last year, Attorney General Jeff Sessions described arresting Assange, who for the last six years has taken refuge in Ecuador’s London embassy to evade criminal charges in Sweden stemming from a rape allegation, as a “priority.” Justice Department prosecutors have considered charges against Assange since 2010, when WikiLeaks released more than a quarter million diplomatic cables.
Credico says that Stone repeatedly discussed his effort to win a pardon for Assange. At one point, he notes, Stone claimed that he was working with Andrew Napolitano, a Fox News personality and former New Jersey Superior Court judge, on a plan in which Napolitano would float the idea on his show or directly to President Donald Trump. Napolitano said in a statement that he “categorically denies” working with Stone to secure a pardon for Assange.
Stone confirmed the pardon effort, though declined to answer specific questions. “I most definitely advocated a pardon for Assange,” he said in an email. He also said that he had “most certainly urged my friend Andrew Napolitano” to support an Assange pardon.
This is about as obvious as a conspiracy gets: Russia steals DNC (and RNC!) emails, they give the emails to WikiLeaks, they inform Stone what's coming, Stone tells Trump. When the Access Hollywood tapes drop, within hours the counterattack is the DNC email leak that wipes the story of Trump's massive history of criminal sexual assault off the front page. Trump goes on to win the election, and in return Stone works to get WikiLeaks founder Assange a pardon.
That's just part of the huge mess, but a big part. And Mueller has all this evidence on Stone, Corsi, and WikiLeaks. Obstruction of justice abounds, Stone is in the middle of it all.
Stay tuned.
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