Whether it was insisting that he fired his ex-employer (and not the other way around) or regaling Alex Jones with tales of attempted assassinations by the “Deep State,” former Trump adviser Roger Stone has claimed a lot of things since he first gained the spotlight during the 2016 presidential election. Chief among these claims, however, was the Nixon and Reagan administration alum’s boast that he was in direct contact with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange — a claim he subsequently, repeatedly denied. But now two recent Robert Mueller interviewees, including Sam Nunberg, are saying these conversations happened.
What’s more, according to the new report in the Washington Post, Stone’s contact with Assange back in the spring of 2016 included a conversation about the hacked DNC emails WikiLeaks had come into possession of — before they were made public later that summer:
Stone… said he had learned from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange that his organization had obtained emails that would torment senior Democrats such as John Podesta, then campaign chairman for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
The conversation occurred before it was publicly known that hackers had obtained the emails of Podesta and of the Democratic National Committee, documents that WikiLeaks released in late July and October. The U.S. intelligence community later concluded the hackers were working for Russia.
Nunberg and another former associate of Stone’s are the two individuals claiming that this conversation took place. The ex-Trump adviser himself, however, denied ever having direct contact with Assange or discussing the DNC email hacks in advance when asked about the matter by the Post. “I wish him no ill will, but Sam can manically and persistently call you,” he explained. “I said, ‘I think I will go to London for the weekend and meet with Julian Assange.’ It was a joke, a throwaway line to get him off the phone. The idea that I would meet with Assange undetected is ridiculous on its face.”
(Via Washington Post)