Ever since Attorney General William Barr announced the “no collusion, no obstruction” narrative around the Robert Mueller investigation, which wasn’t even close to true, Trump has touted his “innocence” on Twitter and in public. Most importantly, he’s said that he had absolutely nothing to do with Russia’s hacking of the DNC email servers and that he was unaware that it was happening.
As usual, Trump is lying.
Newly released portions of Mueller Report support his conclusion that Trump knew about, welcomed, and benefitted from Russia’s help on campaign. https://t.co/KJPffFIuEk
— Barb McQuade (@BarbMcQuade) June 20, 2020
Buzzfeed News released an explosive report on Friday, based on conversations with Trump aides, who say that Roger Stone, a longtime Trump friend and unofficial Trump campaign aide, told Trump well in advance that Wikileaks was planning to release disparaging information about Trump’s 2016 political rival, Hillary Clinton. This flies in the face of every statement has made to date about the illegal hacking.
Buzzfeed reports that:
‘In July 2016, political consultant Roger Stone told Trump as well as several campaign advisors that he had spoken with Julian Assange and that WikiLeaks would be publishing the documents in a matter of days. Stone told the then-candidate via speakerphone that he “did not know what the content of the materials was,” according to the newly unveiled portions of the report, and Trump responded “oh good, alright” upon hearing the news. WikiLeaks published a trove of some 20,000 emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee on July 22 of that year.’
In my opinion, the most intriguing revelation in today's Mueller release is that Roger Stone was telling the Trump campaign that WikiLeaks releases were coming – even before Assange made his first announcement. pic.twitter.com/mx5qLd6bLr
— Scott Stedman (@ScottMStedman) June 20, 2020
The information had been made public before by Trump’s former attorney and “fixer,” Michael Cohen, but Trump repeatedly called him a liar. Now, other Trump campaign aides are admitting to the press that Cohen’s account of a phone call over speakerphone between Trump and Stone in which Trump was informed about Wikileaks in front of Cohen and others in the room was absolutely true.
‘Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen told federal investigators that he overheard the phone call between Stone and Trump. Agents were also told by former campaign officials Paul Manafort and Rick Gates that Stone had spoken several times in early June of something “big” coming from WikiLeaks. Assange first mentioned having emails related to Clinton on June 12.’
Mueller investigation indicted 34 individuals and 3 Russian businesses. With Trump’s buddy Roger Stone heading to prison by the end of this month. Benghazi came up with nothing. Which investigation was a political sham/waste of money? 🤷🏼♂️
— Just A Guy (@RichardMilikin) June 18, 2020
Despite Barr’s attempt at spinning a narrative, Mueller’s report did find that Trump had participated in phone calls to gather information about the illegal hacking of the DNC servers and that he encouraged them. Stone first admitted at a campaign event, then denied to Congress, then denied it to the FBI, and was eventually charged with both lying to investigators and six other offenses, including threatening to kill a witness in his court case and the witness’s dog.
‘Based on the interviews it conducted with those three men and other officials, special counsel Robert Mueller’s report concluded it had “established that the Trump Campaign displayed interest in the WikiLeaks releases, and that former Campaign member Roger Stone was in contact with the Campaign about those releases, claiming advance knowledge of more to come.”‘
All in all, these lifted redactions confirm that the Mueller investigation left behind a massive unanswered question:
What was the extent of Roger Stone's actual communications, directly or indirectly, with Wikileaks and the GRU/Guccifer 2.0 and what did Trump know about it?
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) June 19, 2020
Featured image screenshot via YouTube
