Longtime Trump associate Roger Stone and New York radio host Randy Credico reportedly discussed WikiLeaks just before the secrets-leaking website published stolen emails from Democratic officials during the 2016 campaign.
Stone has denied that he had prior knowledge of WikiLeaks’ plan to release the emails. But in a series of conversations via text message provided to NBC News by Stone, Credico told Stone in August 2016 that “Julian Assange has kryptonite on Hillary.”
Several weeks later on Oct. 1, Credico texted Stone that “big news” would occur several days later on Wednesday.
“Big news Wednesday,” said Credico, whom Stone has said was his intermediary with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. “Now pretend u don’t know me.”
“U died 5 years ago,” Stone said.
“Great,” Credico responded. “Hillary’s campaign will die this week.”
On Oct. 3, Credico sent Stone a text message saying, “I think it’s on for tomorrow.” The message came the same day Stone tweeted he had “total confidence” that Assange would “educate the American people soon #LockHerUp.”
It remains uncertain whether Stone received Credico’s text message before sharing his tweet — time zone differences make it unclear — or whether he had other motives.
Though Credico pointed to Oct. 4 or 5, it wasn’t until Friday, Oct. 7, that WikiLeaks published its first tranche of stolen emails from Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.
Credico, who has met with a grand jury as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, said the texts do not suggest he had any advance knowledge of Assange’s actions.
“There’s absolutely nothing there that I had any knowledge of anything that Assange was going to do because I didn’t,” Credico said, per NBC.
Stone’s attorney Grant Smith said that the texts also back up Stone’s version of events.
“The texts provided to NBC News demonstrate that my client, Roger Stone, has been consistent for the past two years in his assertion that Randy Credico was the person who was providing him what limited information Mr. Stone had regarding WikiLeaks,” Smith said.
Stone, whose dealings during the 2016 election are being examined by investigators, has claims that he only predicted Podesta and his brother’s “time in the barrel” based off his own investigation rather than from advance knowledge of WikiLeaks’ actions.
The U.S. intelligence community determined with “high confidence” last year that WikiLeaks was used to published information to help elect President Trump, although WikiLeaks has denied that this was the case.
