Former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone had a phone conversation with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in which he was told about John Podesta’s leaked emails months before the hack was reported, according to an unnamed Stone associate.
That associate told the Washington Post that Stone claimed to have contact with Assange in 2016, before the hacks of Podesta and the Democratic National Committee emails were publicly disclosed.
The source said Stone believed the emails would “torment” Podesta, who was Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman at the time.
The claim is important because Stone has denied having any advance notice of the hacked emails or any contact with Assange.
WikiLeaks released the emails in late July and October, and the U.S. intelligence community later determined that Russia had hacked the Democrats’ emails.
The unnamed source is the second associate to claim Stone had contact with Assange in 2016. Former Trump adviser Sam Nunberg said Monday that Stone met with Assange.
Stone rejected the allegations in an interview with the Post, and said again he had no advance knowledge of what WikiLeaks was preparing to release. He also said he joked with Nunberg about meeting with Assange directly just to “get him off the phone.”
