John Moore/Getty Images
Donald Trump Jr.
“A PAC run anti-Trump site putintrump.org is about to launch,” Wikileaks wrote, according to a series of private messages obtained by The Atlantic and published on Monday.
“The PAC is a recycled pro-Iraq war PAC,” WikiLeaks continued. “We have guessed the password. It is ‘putintrump.’ See ‘About’ for who is behind it. Any comments?”
Trump Jr. responded: “Officially, I don’t know who it is, but I’ll ask around. Thank you. “
Trump Jr. then passed along WikiLeaks’ message to high-level campaign officials, including his brother-in-law and senior campaign adviser Jared Kushner; campaign manager Kellyanne Conway; digital director Brad Parscale; and senior strategist Steve Bannon, a source familiar with the congressional investigations into Russia’s election interference told The Atlantic. Kushner forwarded the email to the campaign’s communications director, Hope Hicks.
Trump Jr. is under scrutiny by special counsel Robert Mueller, according to NBC. Kushner has reportedly turned over documents to Mueller, and Hope Hicks is scheduled to meet with Mueller’s team later this month.
Trump praised WikiLeaks hundreds of times along the campaign trail for publishing emails that had been stolen from the Democratic National Committee by hackers linked to Russia.
On October 10, Trump told a crowd of supporters: “I love WikiLeaks!
Two days later, WikiLeaks sent Trump Jr. another private Twitter message: “Hey Donald, great to see you and your dad talking about our publications.”
Trump Jr. ‘s lawyer questioned the accuracy of the personal messages.
“Leaving aside why or through whom such documents, provided to Congress under a promise of confidentiality, were selectively disclosed, we can say with certainty that we have no regard for those documents and that any questions raised about them were answered without issue in the appropriate forum,” he told The Atlantic.
But the revelation that Trump Jr. informed other high-level members of the crusade about the first WikiLeaks message raises questions about whether there is high-level coordination between WikiLeaks and the crusade.
The correspondence began about two weeks before WikiLeaks published emails stolen from Crusade President Clinton John Podesta that Trump Jr. sold on his Twitter account (two days after WikiLeaks asked him to do so, according to The Atlantic).
The U. S. intelligence network concluded in January that Russia had used WikiLeaks as a tool to interfere in the election. In April, CIA Director Mike Pompeo called WikiLeaks “a hostile, non-state intelligence service, encouraged through state actors like Russia. “that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was “an impostor” and “a coward. “
The WikiLeaks disclosure crusade follows two meetings between members of the crusade and officials linked to Russia.
Trump Jr. , Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner met with a Russian lawyer on June 9 with a promise to obtain negative information about Hillary Clinton. Another junior member of the campaign, George Papadopoulos, met in London in late April with a professor of ties to Russia who told him that the Kremlin had “filth” on Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails. “
Advertisement
Advert
Advertisement
POPULAR CATEGORIES