Right-wing conspiracy website Infowars rebutted an alleged claim that special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether it hired radio host Jerome Corsi to keep him quiet about outreach to WikiLeaks.
Corsi says in a forthcoming book that he told a Mueller grand jury that political operative Roger Stone asked him to get in touch with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange about when to release Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s stolen emails.
Stone, a confidant of President Trump, denies he asked Corsi to make any such contact with Assange.
Infowars published a story Friday claiming that Washington Post reporter Rosalind Helderman contacted lawyer Marc Randazza via email about Mueller’s investigation into the Corsi hiring. Randazza has provided counsel for Infowars in legal cases.
Mueller, it was claimed Helderman said, is investigating whether Stone helped Corsi to get hired by Infowars so that Corsi would keep quiet about Stone’s request.
“Mueller seems to be exploring that the job was hush money in some way,” Helderman reportedly told the Infowars attorney in an email. The Washington Post had not published a story on the matter as of Friday evening.
Stone appeared often on Infowars broadcasts during the 2016 presidential campaign and appeared publicly with Infowars host Alex Jones at the 2016 Republican National Convention.
“The idea that Alex Jones and his father, Dr. David Jones, would be engaged in such a scheme is completely ludicrous,” Infowars wrote Friday.
Helderman declined to comment on whether the quotes attributed to her on Infowars.com were accurate.
Infowars hired Corsi in January 2017 to establish a bureau in Washington, D.C. The site said Friday that it renewed his contract a year later before firing him in June 2018 with an agreement that he receive six months’ severance pay.
“Corsi was fired because of his failure to adequately establish a Washington bureau, his failure to maintain White House press credentials, and his generally poor work performance,” Infowars wrote.
“Infowars hiring Corsi had nothing whatsoever to do with Wikileaks or any kind of ‘hush money’ operation, which is an absurd claim,” the site continued.
Corsi alleges in his book, to be published in March, that Stone wanted him to tell Assange to wait until after the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape to publish a batch of Podesta’s emails. After the Washington Post published a story on the “Access Hollywood” tape, WikiLeaks did release a portion of the Podesta emails. Stone told the Daily Caller News Foundation in November that Corsi’s claim is “completely false.”
Corsi rejected a plea deal from Mueller on one count of perjury in November and has complained about the special counsel’s office interviewing members of his family.
