Mueller Probes WikiLeaks’ Contacts With Conservative Activists (WSJ)
Ties between the website and Roger Stone, Peter W. Smith get a closer look
By Byron Tau, Shelby Holliday and Dustin Volz
WASHINGTON—Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is scrutinizing how a collection of activists and pundits intersected with WikiLeaks, the website that U.S. officials say was the primary conduit for publishing materials stolen by Russia, according to people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Mueller’s team has recently questioned witnesses about the activities of longtime Trump confidante Roger Stone, including his contacts with WikiLeaks, and has obtained telephone records, according to the people familiar with the matter.
Investigators also have evidence that the late GOP activist Peter W. Smith may have had advance knowledge of details about the release of emails from a top Hillary Clinton campaign official by WikiLeaks, one person familiar with the matter said. They have questioned Mr. Smith’s associates, the person said.
Right-wing pundit Jerome Corsi was also questioned by investigators about his interactions with Mr. Stone and WikiLeaks before a grand jury in September, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Corsi declined to comment. A lawyer for Mr. Stone said he hasn’t been contacted by the special counsel. Mr. Smith died last year.
Mr. Mueller’s office declined to comment.
Throughout 2016, Messrs. Stone, Smith and Corsi, who long worked on the margins of Republican politics, tried to dig up incriminating information about Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president, according to emails and some public comments. A lawyer for President Trump didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Sam Nunberg, a former Trump campaign staffer who interacted with Mr. Stone, said he also was questioned by Mr. Mueller’s team about communications he had with Mr. Stone regarding WikiLeaks. New York radio host Randy Credico also said the special counsel asked about his communications with Mr. Stone and WikiLeaks. Mr. Credico interviewed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in 2016 and has known Mr. Stone for years.
The role WikiLeaks and Mr. Assange played during the 2016 election as the chief publisher of stolen Democratic emails has been of enduring interest to investigators probing Russian election interference in 2016 and whether there was collusion with Trump associates. President Trump has denied collusion, and Moscow has denied meddling in the election. The Mueller probe has resulted in more than two dozen indictments as well as guilty pleas by five Trump associates.
Mr. Mueller’s office has begun shedding staff and has indicated that key witnesses are ready to be sentenced, a sign that their cooperation is no longer needed.
It couldn’t be determined whether WikiLeaks or Mr. Assange are targets of the probe or if investigators are primarily interested in those who interacted with the organization. As Mr. Mueller focuses on hacking and Russian interference, individuals or groups who may have been involved could be exposed to charges such as conspiracy to aid in a hacking operation.
A July indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence officers that derived from the special counsel’s investigation alleged that WikiLeaks obtained stolen material from Russian military intelligence through an online persona known as Guccifer 2.0. Much of that material was hacked in the spring of 2016, according to the special counsel.
WikiLeaks didn’t respond to a request for comment. Mr. Assange has said that Russia wasn’t the source of the emails.
The scrutiny of activities related to WikiLeaks suggests investigators believe the organization’s importance to the Russia probe may extend beyond its dealings with Guccifer 2.0. A list of questions Mr. Mueller wanted Mr. Trump to answer and gave to the president’s legal team earlier this year included one about the president’s knowledge of communication between Mr. Stone, his associates and WikiLeaks, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
According to the July indictment, WikiLeaks received an encrypted attachment from Guccifer 2.0 on July 14, 2016, that held “instructions on how to access an online archive of stolen DNC documents.” More than a month earlier, on June 12, Mr. Assange said during an interview with a British television station that he had obtained Clinton-related emails that were pending publication.
That claim came three days before the Guccifer 2.0 persona appeared online, raising the possibility that there may have been another channel that served as a conduit for Clinton-related emails. In the weeks before the election, WikiLeaks released emails belonging to John Podesta, the chairman of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.
The person familiar with Mr. Smith recalled him repeatedly implying that he knew ahead of time about leaks of Mr. Podesta’s emails. The Journal previously reported that in the fall of 2016, Mr. Smith told friends and wrote in an email that he directed hackers to give emails from Mrs. Clinton’s private server to WikiLeaks. It is unclear whether hackers ever obtained the emails belonging to Mrs. Clinton, which she had said were deleted because they were deemed personal. Those emails have never been made public.
In August 2016, Mr. Stone told Alex Jones, a right-wing provocateur who runs the website InfoWars, that he had a “foreshadowing” of the material that would be released by WikiLeaks. Days later, Mr. Stone tweeted that it would soon be “the Podesta’s [sic] time in the barrel.” Several days before WikiLeaks began to post the hacked material from Mr. Podesta’s email account, Mr. Stone tweeted that he had “total confidence” that WikiLeaks would “educate the American people soon.”
Mr. Stone has since said the messages were “benign” and that he had no advance notice of the website’s plans. He also has said his tweet referencing “the Podesta’s” was about the lobbying activities of Mr. Podesta and his brother, Tony.
It isn’t clear to what degree, if any, Mr. Stone’s and Mr. Smith’s efforts were connected. Messrs. Smith and Stone had mutual associates in Mr. Corsi as well as former Wall Street financier Charles Ortel, who was researching the Clinton Family Foundation, emails and public comments show. Mr. Stone said he wasn’t aware of Mr. Smith’s work. Mr. Ortel said he wasn’t aware of a relationship between Mr. Stone and Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith referred to his project as the “Clinton Email Reconnaissance Initiative.” He compiled a long list of businessmen, activists, lawyers, researchers and Trump campaign officials who he wanted to work with to obtain Mrs. Clinton’s 33,000 emails. While many people on that list say they never gave Mr. Smith permission to use their names, some were copied or named in emails circulated by Mr. Smith in 2016. Others got unsolicited approaches from Mr. Smith they say they never responded to.
—Drew FitzGerald and Rebecca Ballhaus contributed to this article.
