Special counsel Robert Mueller raised the possibility that President Trump lied to him during the Russia investigation.
Newly disclosed sections of Mueller’s 448-page report, unveiled Friday thanks to a legal challenge to redactions littered across the tome, showed the former FBI director’s assessment of Trump’s written answer about his conversations with longtime confidant Roger Stone and others about WikiLeaks.
“[Former Trump lawyer Michael] Cohen recalled a conversation in which Roger Stone told Trump that WikiLeaks planned to release information soon, and [former Trump campaign manager Paul] Manafort recalled that Trump had asked him to stay in touch with Stone about WikiLeaks,” a freshly divulged passage said.
“It is possible that, by the time the President submitted his written answers two years after the relevant events had occurred, he no longer had clear recollections of his discussions with Stone or his knowledge of Stone’s asserted communications with WikiLeaks,” Mueller’s report continued. “But the President’s conduct could also be viewed as reflecting his awareness that Stone could provide evidence that would run counter to the President’s denials and would link the President to Stone’s efforts to reach out to WikiLeaks.”
Elsewhere in the report, it is written that Cohen recalled hearing Stone tell Trump about an upcoming WikiLeaks dump in the summer of 2016 when the secrets-leaking organization was disclosing emails stolen from Democratic officials.
In his written answers, which had already been visible to the public, Trump said he did not recall being aware of Stone or others being in contact with WikiLeaks or other entities that the U.S. government alleges to have been used or operated by Russian intelligence during the 2016 campaign.
Mueller’s report, released by the Justice Department with redactions in April, concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election but did not establish that any members of the Trump campaign criminally conspired with the Russians in these efforts. Mueller did not reach a conclusion on obstruction of justice, but Attorney General William Barr and then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded there was insufficient evidence for such a crime.
The new disclosures could give added fuel to Democrats in the Senate who have been pushing to hear more testimony from the former special counsel about his investigation. Democrats in the House are fighting in court to obtain secret grand jury materials from Mueller’s investigation that they claim could form the basis for new articles of impeachment against Trump.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff says Mueller’s “cardinal mistake” was “not demanding to interview the president.” The California Democrat has insisted there is “significant evidence” uncovered by his panel’s own Russia investigation exposing the “Trump campaign efforts to seek, make use of, and cover-up Russian help in the 2016 presidential election.”
Stone, a GOP political consultant, was arrested in January 2019 and found guilty in November on five separate counts of lying to the House Intelligence Committee during its investigation into Russian interference about his alleged outreach to WikiLeaks, one count that he “corruptly obstructed” the congressional investigation, and another for attempting to intimidate a possible congressional witness, radio host Randy Credico.
“Stone has publicly denied having any direct contact with Assange and claimed not to have had any discussions with an intermediary connected to Assange until July or August 2016,” Mueller wrote in one section that was previously almost entirely redacted. “Other members and associates of the Trump Campaign, however, told the Office that Stone claimed to the Campaign as early as June 2016 — before any announcement by Assange or WikiLeaks — that he had learned that WikiLeaks would release documents damaging to the Clinton campaign.”
Mueller wrote Rick Gates, a deputy campaign chairman of Trump’s 2016 campaign, told federal investigators that before WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange announced on June 12, 2016, that his organization would publish more emails from Hillary Clinton, he “and Stone had a phone conversation in which Stone said something ‘big’ was coming and had to do with a leak of information.”
According to Mueller’s report, “Stone also said to Gates that he thought Assange had Clinton emails.” Mueller said when Gates asked Stone when the information would be released, “Stone said the release would happen very soon.”
Manafort “provided similar information about the timing of Stone’s statements about WikiLeaks,” Mueller wrote, adding that “sometime in June 2016, Stone told Manafort that he was dealing with someone who was in contact with WikiLeaks and believed that there would be an imminent release of emails by WikiLeaks.”
Both Gates and Manafort “called to ask Stone when the release would happen, and Gates recalled candidate Trump being generally frustrated that the Clinton emails had not been found.”
The Justice Department released 33 search warrants stemming from the investigation of Stone back in April, showing the searches began in the fall of 2017 and focused on Stone’s alleged outreach to WikiLeaks and Russia-linked accounts.
The search warrants show Stone and Assange conversed with each other online in 2017.
Stone told an account dubbed “Target Account 1” in April 2017 that “I am [Julian Assange’s] only hope for a pardon.” Assange wrote back using “Target Account 2,” thanking Stone for an “ace article in InfoWars” and telling him that “U.S. intel engages in slight of hand.”
Stone responded in June 2017, saying, “if the US government moves on you I will bring down the entire house of cards” and “with the trumped-up sexual assault charges dropped I don’t know of any crime you need to be pardoned for.”
In his reply, Assange said, “between CIA and DOJ they’re doing quite a lot” and “the DoJ side that’s coming most strongly from those obsessed with taking down Trump trying to squeeze us into a deal.”
Stone wrote back: “I am doing everything possible to address the issues at the highest level of Government.”
The U.S. government is seeking Assange’s extradition from the United Kingdom on 17 charges, including under the Espionage Act. The WikiLeaks founder’s extradition hearing has been delayed due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Stone has been sentenced to more than three years in prison, a term which he is scheduled to start on June 30. Trump has not said whether he will pardon Stone, who said he is leaving his fate “in God’s hands.”
