The testimony of Michael Cohen, former attorney and fixer for President Trump, is more bad news for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
Cohen says Assange shared his plans to publish the Democratic National Committee emails with Roger Stone, political dirty trickster and confidante of Trump, before the document dump occurred.
In his prepared testimony for the House Intelligence Committee, Cohen recalled a conversation in early October 2016.
“I was in Mr. Trump’s office when his secretary announced that Roger Stone was on the phone. Mr. Trump put Mr. Stone on the speakerphone. Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that, within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Mr. Trump responded by stating to the effect of “wouldn’t that be great.””
Cohen’s testimony comes amid revelations of the last few days which show in new detail how the Trump campaign collaborated with Russians.
The Heart of the Matter
At the excellent Empty Wheel blog, Marcy Wheeler shows how Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort shared 75 pages of voter data with Konstantin Kilimnik, his aide and Russian translator, in early August 2016.
Kilimnik has been indicted for conspiring with Manafor to obstruct justice.
In court filings, Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller has said Kilminik is at “the heart” of his investigation. highlighted Kilimnik’s connection to Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU. In the words of the judge hearing the case, Manafort “is understood by the FBI to have a relationship with Russian intelligence.”
What remains uncertain is whether Russian intelligence operative were in communication with Wikileaks at the same time Stone was. A much-hyped story in The Guardian claiming Manafort met with Assange has not been confirmed and may not be true.
The U.S. intelligence community has concluded that a hacking group connected to the GRU hacked the DNC and shared the emails with Assange, a claim that Assange’s defenders deny. The factual basis for the government’s claim is classified so the finding is impossible to confirm.
Assange himself says he doesn’t talk about his sources.
His defenders tell me that Stone’s claims of a connection to Assange are overblown. Michael Cohen’s testimony undermines that argument by illuminating how Stone conveyed Assange’s plans to Trump
Read what Michael Cohen had to say about Wikileaks here.
