Fired White House staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman claimed President Trump knew ahead of time that hacked emails from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign would be leaked.
In an interview with MSNBC on Tuesday, the former star of “The Apprentice” provided no evidence to back up her claim.
“Absolutely,” she responded to a question about whether Trump knew about the emails before they were leaked.
“He knew what was coming out before WikiLeaks released them?” anchor Katy Tur asked.
“Yes,” Manigault Newman responded.
[Exclusive: Trump campaign seeks ‘millions’ against Omarosa for violating nondisclosure]
.@OMAROSA says Trump ‘absolutely’ knew about Hillary’s emails being stolen before WikiLeaks got them. pic.twitter.com/kxoUDRVNtu
— David Rutz (@DavidRutz) August 14, 2018
WikiLeaks played a role in the dissemination of emails stolen from Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta and other Democratic officials during the campaign. An indictment from special counsel Robert Mueller alleges Russia stole thousands of emails and passed them along to WikiLeaks, who trickled out their release in the weeks leading up to Election Day.
The indictment also states Russian intelligence officials transferred emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee to WikiLeaks, which released them three days before the Democratic National Convention.
When pressed on whether Trump had a backchannel, Manigault Newman said, “I didn’t say that” and refused to give further details, telling MSNBC to ask the White House instead.
Manigault Newman also said she has spoken with Mueller’s team.
