WSJ has an email from Roger Stone to Sam Nunberg, dated August 4, 2016 in which Stone says, "I dined with Julian Assange last night,”https://t.co/ipI2oYeN3G
— Scott Stedman (@ScottMStedman) April 2, 2018
I’ve said before, Murphy the Trickster God probably doesn’t love me that much. But then, even the wiliest Brer Rabbit eventually loses some speed on his evasive tactics…
… Stone, who has worked as an on-again, off-again adviser to President Trump for decades, vehemently denied Monday that Mueller could be building a case against him based on his contacts with WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign.
“The fake news media is in overdrive,” Stone, 65, told the Daily News. “This is a wild goose hunt seeking something that didn’t happen.”
Stone’s name has come up at an increasing rate in relation to Mueller’s probe into Russian election meddling and possible collusion with the Trump campaign, according to reports and witnesses.
Informal ex-Trump campaign adviser Ted Malloch revealed over the weekend that FBI agents arrested him and asked him about Stone and WikiLeaks after he recently returned to the U.S. from London. Malloch, who was once considered to become Trump’s ambassador to the European Union, said in a statement that the agents served him a subpoena to appear before Mueller’s grand jury later this month.
Sam Nunberg, another ex-Trump campaign aide, testified before the Mueller grand jury last month — and many questions focused on Stone and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, according to reports.
Mueller is reportedly interested in whether Stone was aware of or in any way coordinated WikiLeaks’ release of thousands of hacked emails from the Clinton campaign. Sources told the Wall Street Journal Monday that the investigators are particularly interested in an email Stone wrote to Nunberg on Aug. 4, 2016, in which he said that he “dined with Julian Assange last night.”…
In another apparent reversal, Stone said Monday that he has never communicated with Assange.
“This is politics. I’ve said a lot of things,” he said. “At the end of the day, however, it’s what you actually did that’s important.”
The special counsel’s office declined to comment…
I'll go way out on a limb and guess that Mueller knows whether or not Roger Stone had dinner with Assange in 2016. https://t.co/cn0zlhEPTP
— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) April 2, 2018
The Washington Post is skeptical:
… Stone has a carefully cultivated reputation as a “political trickster,” which is a polite way of saying “mudslinger and exaggerator,” which is a polite way of saying “guy who will say untrue things if it advances his agenda.” One of his agendas is his own reputation, and during 2016, he clearly believed that it paid to imply a close relationship with Assange. That was manifested in his public assertions about knowing what WikiLeaks was up to but also apparently in his private conversations with Nunberg and that unidentified aide in the spring of that election year….
The Journal report highlights two key questions, for which we can take a stab at answers.
Russiagate Open Thread: Roger Stone, Soon-to-Be Convict?Post + Comments (60)