NedNotes (not blog): Stone & Assange; 'Lawfare' Summary of Senate Intel Reprort (Volume #5)
https://www.lawfareblog.com/collusion-reading-diary-what-did-senate-intelligence-committee-find
A Collusion Reading Diary:
What Did the Senate Intelligence Committee Find?
By Todd Carney, Samantha Fry, Quinta Jurecic, Jacob Schulz, Tia Sewell, Margaret Taylor, Benjamin Wittes
Friday, August 21, 2020, 4:41 PM
The fifth and final volume of the
Select Intelligence Committee’s bipartisan report on Russian interference in the
2016 election is an incredibly long and detailed document. At a whopping 966
pages, volume 5 alone is more than twice the length of the Mueller report, and
it covers a great deal more ground.
It is important for another reason:
Along with the shorter volumes 1-4, the Senate’s report is the only
credible account of the events of 2016 to which Republican elected officials
have signed their names. McConnell, in the same press release, echoes the
statements of Acting Committee Chairman Marco Rubio, stating that “[t]heir
report reaffirms Special Counsel Mueller’s finding that President Trump did not
collude with Russia.”
It
is a bit of a mug’s game at this point to fight over whether what either
Mueller or the Intelligence Committee found constitutes collusion and, if so,
in what sense. The question turns almost entirely
on what one means by the term “collusion”—a word without any precise meaning in
the context of campaign engagement with foreign actors interfering with an
election.
So rather than engaging over whether
the Intelligence Committee found collusion, we decided to read the document with a focus on
identifying precisely what the committee found about the engagement over
a long period of time between Trump and his campaign and Russian government or
intelligence actors and their cut-outs.
Whether one describes this activity
as collusion or not, there’s a lot of it: The report describes hundreds of
actions by Trump, his campaign, and his associates in the run-up to the 2016
election that involve some degree of participation by Trump or his associates
in Russian activity.
One overarching note: There is a fair
amount of overlap between this document and the Mueller report. But the Senate report covers a
fair bit more ground for a few reasons. For one thing, it was not limited to
information it could prove beyond a reasonable doubt in court, as Mueller was.
Just as important, the committee included counterintelligence questions
in its investigative remit—whereas Mueller limited himself to a review of
criminal activity. So the document reads less like a prosecution memo and more
like an investigative report addressing risk assessment questions. This volume
is an attempt to describe comprehensively the counterintelligence threats and
vulnerabilities associated with Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. So
it’s inherently a little more free-wheeling and speculative.
As we read, we summarized each
section of the report in the order in which it appears. As of Sept. 3, the
summary is now complete.
C. The Agalarovs
and the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower Meeting
G. Trump's
Foreign Policy Speech at the Mayflower Hotel
H. Maria Butina
and Alexander Torshin
I. Allegations,
and Potential Misinformation, About Compromising Information
L. Other
Incidents and Persons of Interest
B. Hack and Leak, pp. 170-256
The section
entitled “Hack and Leak” contains perhaps the frankest statements describing efforts by the Trump campaign
institutionally—and Trump personally—to take advantage of Russia’s efforts,
through WikiLeaks, to damage Hillary Clinton’s candidacy:
While the GRU and WikiLeaks
were releasing hacked documents, the Trump Campaign sought to maximize the
impact of those materials to aid Trump's electoral prospects. To do so, the Trump Campaign
took actions to obtain advance notice about WikiLeaks releases of Clinton
emails; took steps to obtain inside information about the content of
releases once WikiLeaks began to publish stolen information; created messaging strategies to
promote and share the materials in anticipation of and following their
release; and encouraged further theft of information and continued leaks.
The report
summarizes the key role of
Roger Stone in these efforts:
Trump and senior Campaign officials sought to obtain advance information about WikiLeaks through Roger Stone. In spring 2016, prior to Assange's public announcements, Stone advised the Campaign that WikiLeaks would be releasing materials harmful to Clinton. Following the July 22 DNC release, Trump and the Campaign believed that Roger Stone had known of the release and had inside access to WikiLeaks, and repeatedly communicated with Stone about WikiLeaks throughout the summer and fall of 2016.
Trump and other senior Campaign officials specifically directed
Stone to obtain information about upcoming document releases relating to
Clinton and report back. At their direction, Stone took action to gain inside
knowledge for the Campaign and shared his purported knowledge directly with
Trump and senior Campaign officials on multiple occasions. Trump and the
Campaign believed that Stone had inside information and expressed satisfaction
that Stone's information suggested more releases would be forthcoming.
These summaries
are supported by detailed factual accounts that specify the roles different
members of the campaign and other Trump associates played in the efforts. The
report shows, in detail, that Roger Stone did not act in a vacuum or without the knowledge of the
campaign or Donald Trump himself. In August 2016, following a tasking
from the campaign, Stone obtained information indicating that John Podesta
would be a target of an upcoming release, prior to WikiLeaks releasing
Podesta's emails. Stone communicated this information to Trump and other senior
campaign officials and affiliates, including Paul Manafort and Rick Gates.
Indeed, the report specifies that “[w]hile it was seeking advance information about potential WikiLeaks releases, the Campaign created a messaging strategy to promote the stolen materials.” And crucially, the report makes clear that both Trump and the campaign continued these efforts even after it was well understood that Russia was behind them:
Trump and the Campaign continued to promote and disseminate the hacked
WikiLeaks documents, even after the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence [ODNI] and the Department of Homeland Security [DHS] released a
joint statement officially attributing the hack-and-leak campaign to Russia as
part of its interference in the U.S. presidential election. The Trump Campaign publicly
undermined the attribution of the hack-and-leak campaign to Russia, and was
indifferent to whether it and WikiLeaks were furthering a Russian election
interference effort.
Specifically, the
report states that “[t]he Campaign tried to cast doubt on the October 7 joint
DHS/ODNI assessment formally attributing the activity to Russia, and was
indifferent to the significance of acquiring, promoting, or disseminating
materials from a Russian intelligence services hack-and-leak campaign.” It
reiterates again that “[t]he Trump Campaign strategically monitored and
promoted the WikiLeaks releases of John Podesta's emails from October 7 until
the election.”
The report also
tracks a second, related effort to obtain emails: Trump’s obsession with the "missing"
emails from Hillary Clinton's server. It repeats what was already
revealed in the Mueller report and widely reported in the press: that Trump
publicly requested (“Russia,
if you’re listening…”) that Russia find and release those emails and, hours
later, that GRU hackers spear-phished nonpublic email accounts of Clinton's
personal office for the first time and targeted seventy-six email
accounts hosted by the Clinton campaign's domain.
But the report
goes into many more specifics about the effort, the broad range of campaign
officials and associates that were involved, and the willingness of campaign
officials to engage with foreign actors to obtain them. According to Rick
Gates, the report states, Donald Trump Jr. would ask where the Clinton emails
were during "family meetings." Other senior advisers—including
campaign adviser Michael Flynn, Kushner, Manafort, campaign manager Corey
Lewandowski, then-Sen. Jeff Sessions and campaign policy adviser Sam
Clovis—also expressed interest in obtaining the emails:
Manafort also recalled hearing from Stone sometime in June 2016 that
"a source close to WikiLeaks confirmed that WikiLeaks had the emails from Clinton's server."
Like Gates, Manafort recalled Stone telling him that the emails would be
released "soon," but Stone "did not know when." Manafort,
who was not convinced that the documents were coming out, directed Gates to
check in with Stone "from time to time" to see if his WikiLeaks
information remained "real and viable."
The report takes
pains to corroborate telephonic and in-person conversations discussing the
topic, including with phone logs, calendars of members of the campaign and
other detailed sources.
It shows that key members of the campaign—including Trump himself—knew of WikiLeaks’s potential Russia connection long before the intelligence community’s assessment of the issue in October 2016. On June 12, Julian Assange gave an interview in which he said that WikiLeaks was planning to release information on Hillary Clinton.
The
report finds that the “Trump Campaign was elated by the news about WikiLeaks's
plans, which it considered an unexpected ‘gift.’” When, two days later, the
Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced it had been compromised by
Russian government hackers, the report documents a flurry of phone calls
between Trump and Stone:
That evening, at 9:03 p.m.,
Stone called Trump at Trump's home number. Trump returned Stone’s call from his
cell phone two times, at 9:53 p.m. and 9:56 p.m.: the calls lasted about
two-and-a-half minutes and two minutes, respectively. The Committee does not
know the substance of these conversations, but the pattern and timing of
Stone’s calls with Trump and others during this period suggest that they could
have discussed the DNC hack and WikiLeaks.
And then there’s
this:
Campaign leadership reacted
positively to the news that the DNC had been hacked by the Russians. Gates
described the reaction in part as "disbelief," but also given
"what we were told that information might be about," the Campaign
"felt it would give [them] a leg up" if released.
And campaign officials made sure they were well positioned to take full advantage of the fruits of the Russian hacking: The campaign planned a "press strategy, a communications campaign, and messaging based on the possibility the emails existed" and conversations were held "about what the campaign could plan for in the way of emails."
Members of the campaign communicated frequently with each other and
with Stone. Hours after the GRU released stolen DNC documents through its Guccifer
2.0 persona in June, Stone and Gates discussed the DNC hack by phone. Stone
told Gates that "more information would be coming out of the DNC
hack."
The report found that witness testimony and documentary evidence “support that Stone spoke to Trump about the WikiLeaks information prior to its release.” Although Manafort claimed that he was reluctant to tell Trump and cautioned Stone against doing so, “Stone could-and did-contact Trump directly, as Stone did on June 14.” And everyone knew Trump would be pleased: “Manafort believed Stone would have told Trump anyway because he ‘wanted the credit for knowing in advance.’”
Trump’s
frequent communications with Stone were no secret: “Gates was aware that Stone
called Trump during the campaign. Cohen similarly noted that ‘Stone called
Trump all the time,’ and ‘could call Trump's cell phone, especially if at
night.’ Trump himself acknowledged that he ‘spoke by telephone with Roger Stone
from time to time during the campaign.’” The report makes this assessment about
Stone’s and Trump’s communications:
Any of these calls would have
provided Stone with an opportunity to share additional information about
WikiLeaks directly with Trump, and given the content of his conversations with
Manafort and Gates combined with Trump's known interest in the issue, the
Committee assesses he likely did.
In one telling
tidbit that speaks to the regard the campaign had for the hacking of the DNC, a campaign staffer posed a
question in an email about whether, in connection with downloading and
distributing the newest batch of Guccifer 2.0 emails, "Senate or campaign
rules preclude us from possessing data that's been hacked from a third
party and distributed via the internet." Tellingly, John Mashburn, the policy director for the
Trump campaign, replied: "I don't see a problem. Just like
WikiLeaks material."
The report
recounts in detail the actions by the committee in the run-up to the July 22,
2016, release by WikiLeaks of 20,000 emails the GRU had stolen from the DNC.
The report states that “a possible WikiLeaks release appeared central to the
Campaign's strategic focus.” Indeed, the hack-and-dump brought the Trump
campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC) in a more trusting relationship:
“Trump and Kushner were reportedly willing to ‘cooperate’ with the RNC's
efforts on this front, overcoming their earlier skepticism of working with the
RNC, and demonstrating that both were focused on the possibility of WikiLeaks
releasing Clinton documents.”
It recounts
in-person conversations in which Donald Trump encouraged Stone’s contact with Julian Assange, and also
potential efforts to mask such conversations. It finds that witness
testimony indicates that Stone may have raised WikiLeaks again to Trump in late
July, shortly before the DNC release occurred. Manafort assumed such a
conversation took place, and Michael Cohen recalled overhearing a phone call
from Stone in Trump's office in which Stone reported that he had talked to
Assange and that there would be a “massive dump” of emails in July. Trump
encouraged him, though Cohen was somewhat skeptical about whether Stone was
telling the truth. The
report suggests that such conversations may have taken place on the phone of
Trump’s bodyguard, Keith Schiller, rather than Trump’s own phone: “Witnesses
said that Trump often used Schiller's phone to hide his communications.”
The campaign
staff, including Gates,
Stephen Miller, and Jason Miller, worked on a “messaging strategy” and had
“brainstorming sessions” in the run-up to the July 22 release. After the
release, the report recounts, “Trump and his Campaign immediately pivoted to
leveraging the WikiLeaks documents. Gates recalled that Manafort 'express[ ed]
excitement' about the release,” and Manafort and Trump discussed how they could
use the DNC emails relating to Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Michael Cohen and
Trump discussed "the usefulness of the released emails," including in
relation to Bernie Sanders, Donna Brazile, and Wasserman Shultz. Gates recalled
that following the email release, the takeoff of Trump’s plane was delayed 30
minutes so that Trump “could work the emails into his next speech.”
The campaign’s
weaponization of the WikiLeaks release to attack and divide the Democratic
Party “mirrored the discussion between WikiLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 about using
the emails to create conflict within the Democratic Party by splitting Clinton
and Sanders supporters” and “echoed social media efforts by Russia to drive a
wedge between supporters of Clinton and Sanders” as described in the second volume of the Senate Intelligence Committee's
report.
The July 22 Wikileaks release energized the Trump campaign, and it “began to more actively pursue leads on WikiLeaks activities.” Manafort reminded Trump that Stone had predicted the release and, in response, Trump “directed Manafort to stay in touch with Stone to see if there were more emails coming out.” Manafort spoke with Stone during the week of the 2016 Democratic National Convention, and he agreed to follow up.
Manafort also instructed Gates to follow up with Stone on occasion to find out when additional information might be released. He told Gates that he would be "updating other people on the Campaign, including the candidate." But Manafort was cautious to use Stone, rather than official campaign staffers, advising Gates and others “throughout the Campaign” that no one should "touch’" Assange, even though there was a "growing belief that Assange was, in fact, assisting their effort."
Having received
Trump’s direction through Manafort, Stone channeled his outreach efforts to Assange through right-wing
author Jerome Corsi—but kept in close contact with the campaign. The
report details multiple communications and machinations between Stone, Corsi,
Ted Malloch and others in an effort to get to Assange. Stone stayed in contact with Trump and the
campaign throughout this time period, including a “68-minute call” between Stone and Manafort on
July 30. Stone indicated to Manafort that “additional information would be
coming out down the road” and Manafort "thought that would be great."
Next came the
“October surprise”: the release of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s
emails. In August, Stone asked Corsi for information about the “timing and
content of the Podesta email release,” and Stone told Corsi he was talking to
Trump. Stone was also talking to the campaign staff: He had “at least 25 phone
calls with Manafort, 20 phone calls with Gates, two calls with Bannon and two
calls with Trump in the month of August 2016 alone.”
Enter Steve
Bannon, who recalled discussing WikiLeaks and Assange with Stone “both before
and after taking over as the chief executive officer of the Trump Campaign on
August 13, 2016.” Bannon recalled that, before he joined the campaign,
"Stone told him that he had a connection to Assange" and
"implied that he had inside information about WikiLeaks." After
Bannon became the campaign’s CEO, Stone repeated to him that he "had a
relationship with Assange and said that WikiLeaks was going to dump additional
materials that would be bad for the Clinton Campaign."
Notably, Trump, in written responses to questions from
Mueller's office, stated, "I do not recall discussing WikiLeaks with
[Stone], nor do I recall being aware of Mr. Stone having discussed WikiLeaks with individuals associated
with my campaign." Trump further claimed that he had "no recollection
of the specifics of any conversations I had with Mr. Stone between June 1, 2016
and November 8, 2016."
The Senate report does not directly conclude that Trump
was lying, but it gets pretty close. It draws this conclusion: “Despite Trump's recollection, the
Committee assesses that
Trump did, in fact, speak with Stone about WikiLeaks and with members of
his Campaign about Stone's access to WikiLeaks on multiple occasions.”
The wording is
careful. It does not say that Trump did, contrary to his testimony, recall the
specifics of any of these conversations. It merely says that he had repeated conversations with
Stone and describes them in fashions that would be memorable to any reasonable
person. It thus shows the ridiculousness of Trump’s representations to
the Department of Justice about Stone and WikiLeaks, though it stops short of
accusing him of lying under oath.
The report also describes the sheer volume of communications among members of the campaign, and with Breitbart employees, regarding the hoped-for “October surprise” dump of new Wikileaks documents. Although members of the campaign had grown more hesitant about communicating directly with Stone, the campaign staff tracked Stone’s commentary and the news about WikiLeaks and communicated copiously with each other about it.
Andrew Surabian, who ran the campaign's war room, emailed
Stone's Twitter prediction about a Wednesday release to Bannon, campaign
pollster Kellyanne Conway and the Trump campaign press team. The next day,
campaign staffer Dan Scavino emailed the Oct. 3 WikiLeaks Twitter announcement
to Bannon. Bannon reached out to two editors at Breitbart, where he held a
leadership role, to ask if they would be awake "to get what he [Assange]
has live."
Bannon also
received an email from another Breitbart editor, forwarding Boyle's
correspondence from earlier that day with Stone. But Bannon, for one, seemed less
eager. Boyle had asked Stone, "Assange-what's he got? Hope it's
good." Stone responded, "It is. I'd tell Bannon but he doesn't call
me back." Stone also emailed Trump supporter and associate Erik Prince on
Oct. 3, telling him: "Spoke to my friend in London last night. The payload
is still coming."
When no “leak” was
forthcoming, Trump got frustrated and his advisers immediately reached out to
Stone to see what went wrong. “Trump was frustrated with the absence of a
WikiLeaks release on October 4,” Gates said, recalling that Trump asked:
"When is the other stuff coming out?" Other key Trump advisers were
likewise disappointed. Bannon reached out directly to Stone by email about the
lack of any new releases, asking, "[W]hat was that this morning???"
On Oct. 4, Prince also
asked Stone whether Assange had "chicken[ed] out." Prince texted
Stone, again to ask whether he had "hear[d] anymore from London."
Stone wrote, "Yes-want to talk on a secure line-got Whatsapp?"
and previewed that it was "good.” Prince spoke with Stone, who told him
that “WikiLeaks would release more materials harmful to the Clinton Campaign.”
Prince also described Stone having the equivalent of "insider stock
trading" information about Assange.
On Oct. 6, Stone
tweeted: "Julian
Assange will deliver a devastating expose on Hillary at a time of his
choosing. I stand by my prediction. #handcuffs4hillary." On the afternoon
of Oct. 6, Stone received a call from Keith Schiller's number. The report
states,
Stone returned the call about
20 minutes later, and spoke—almost certainly to Trump—for six minutes. The
substance of that conversation is not known to the Committee. However, at the
time, Stone was focused on the potential for a WikiLeaks release, the Campaign
was following WikiLeaks's announcements, and Trump's prior call with Stone on
September 29, also using Schiller's phone, related to a WikiLeaks release.
Given these facts, it appears quite likely that Stone and Trump spoke about
WikiLeaks.
It seems a new opportunity was brewing for
the use of the Podesta release of emails. After it became clear to Trump
associates that the famous Access Hollywood tape would be coming out, Stone
sought to time the much-sought-after release of Podesta emails by WikiLeaks to
divert attention from the tape. Corsi recalled that Stone "[w]anted the Podesta stuff to balance
the news cycle" either "right then or at least coincident."
And Stone got his
wish: “At approximately 4:32 p.m. on October 7, approximately 32 minutes after
the release of the Access Hollywood tape, WikiLeaks released 2,050 emails that
the GRU had stolen from John Podesta, repeatedly announcing the leak on Twitter
and linking to a searchable archive of the documents.”
You get the
picture. All of the key
figures in the Trump campaign—including Trump himself—knew about, and
anticipated, the Podesta WikiLeaks dump. Stone helped engineer the
timing of it with WikiLeaks through Corsi. Afterward, Stone, Manafort and Gates
all communicated with one another.
So what about
Corsi? Was he really in communication with Assange directly or through another
interlocutor, or was it something he fabricated? Or was it bluster on Stone’s
part? The report provides ample detail regarding communications between Corsi
and Stone that are very specific about both the release, timing and nature of
the emails. And it leaves the reader with the unmistakable impression that
Corsi was in contact with Assange either himself or through Ted Malloch. But
the report also states:
The Committee is uncertain how Corsi determined that Assange had John
Podesta's emails.
Corsi initially explained in an interview with the SCO that during his trip to
Italy, someone told him Assange had the Podesta emails. Corsi also recalled
learning that Assange was going to "release the emails seriatim and not
all at once." However, Corsi claimed not to remember who provided him with
this information, saying he could only recall that "it feels like a
man" who told him.
...
However, during a later
interview with the SCO, Corsi revised how he had learned that Assange would be
releasing Podesta's emails. Corsi claimed that, rather than being told this
information by a source, he had deduced it from Assange's public statements.
And then there’s
this: "The Committee
did not interview Corsi, who asserted his Fifth Amendment rights in
response to a Committee subpoena, and could not determine if either of the two
versions of these events was accurate."
The report also
states, based on an FBI interview report form, that
Corsi recalled that, at the
end of August, Stone grew concerned about having made a statement about the
release of Podesta materials before WikiLeaks had released any documents. On
August 30, Stone and Corsi agreed to fabricate a story that Stone's knowledge and
his August 21 Podesta tweet were both based on a public article and subsequent
memorandum from Corsi. However, Corsi understood that he was Stone's actual
source of information and admitted that this "cover story" was
"bullshit."
The reality is that the information Stone got from Corsi
ended up being both
specific and accurate.
On Aug. 21, a month-and-a-half before WikiLeaks ultimately released its first
batch of stolen John Podesta emails, Stone tweeted, “Trust me, it will soon the
Podesta’s time in the barrel.” The volume and connectedness of the details in
this part of the report leave the reader with the impression that Corsi really
did have some kind of channel to Assange and that Corsi passed that information
back to Stone—though the report never says this explicitly.
The same day that
the Podesta emails were released, Oct. 7, the Department of Homeland
Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued their
now-famous public release finding that “[t]he U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident
that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails
from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations.
The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and
WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the
methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts.”
It seems Stone met with Trump on Oct. 8, the next day. Stone messaged Corsi: "Lunch postponed - have to go see T," referring to Trump. And Stone grew concerned that his contacts with WikiLeaks through Corsi be hidden: “Corsi said that Stone was concerned about having advance information about the Podesta release, and that Stone recruited Corsi to make sure no one knew Stone had advance knowledge of that information.” Corsi claimed that Stone directed him to delete emails relating to the Podesta information. Stone’s later testimony to the House Intelligence Committee about his actions formed the basis for his indictment and trial on charges of making misleading and false statements about his communications with the Trump campaign and individuals associated with the campaign.
In addition, Stone directed Corsi to "stick to the plan" and threatened radio host Randy Credico, who had also served as a link between Stone and Assange, to prevent Credico from testifying to the House Intelligence Committee and contradicting Stone's story. Recall that on July 10, 2020, Trump commuted Stone’s sentence on seven felony crimes for which he had been convicted, sparing Stone from a 40-month prison term.
The report
confirms that following the Oct. 7 release, WikiLeaks released 33 more sets of
stolen materials before Election Day—more than 50,000 documents—advertising the
materials on Twitter each time. And the campaign once again eagerly integrated
WikiLeaks materials into the campaign’s efforts, including Trump’s tweets,
speeches and press releases. The campaign even “tracked WikiLeaks releases in
order to populate a fake Clinton Campaign website, clintonkaine.com.” In short,
as summarized in the report:
Despite the contemporaneous
statement by the U.S. Government warning of Russian responsibility for the
hacking and leaking of the DNC, DCCC, and Clinton Campaign documents and emails,
the Trump Campaign considered the release of these materials to be its
"October surprise."
And they took full advantage—DHS and ODNI findings be damned. They even endeavored to undermine the attribution of the theft to Russia: “While the Campaign was using the WikiLeaks documents, Trump cast doubt on the assessment that Russian government hackers were responsible for the hack-and-leak campaign.” Everyone who saw the second presidential debate on Oct. 9 saw Trump assert "maybe there is no hacking."
Other times he suggested it was an "absurd claim" to
say that the Kremlin was promoting the Trump campaign; that "the DNC did
the 'hacking'" as a distraction; that the Democrats were "putting
[it] out" that the Russians were responsible; and that it was
"unlikely" that the Russians did it; that nobody knew it was Russia,
and it "could also be China" or "lots of other people."
Gates described a "growing belief” within the campaign that Assange was, in fact, assisting their effort. But it seems that any moral sense that it was wrong for the campaign to accept Russian involvement in assisting Trump’s campaign was nonexistent. The campaign “treated the releases as just another form of opposition research.” Bannon's view was that "anything negative that comes out [against an opponent] is clearly helpful to a campaign."
Campaign aide
Stephen Miller felt "[i]t would have been political malpractice not to use
the WikiLeaks material once it became public." Trump “praised and promoted
WikiLeaks repeatedly in the closing month of the campaign”—a “deliberate
strategy employed by the Campaign” in his remarks and on social media:
In mid-October, Ivanka Trump tasked the
Campaign's senior officials (including Bannon, Scavino, Stephen Miller and
Jason Miller) with preparing two Trump tweets every day linking to WikiLeaks
content, which, she said, would help "refocus the narrative."
Trump tweeted direct references to WikiLeaks throughout October and November
2016, including on October 11, 12, 16, 17, 21 (twice), 22, 24, 27 and November
1.
And then there’s
Donald Trump Jr., who had his own special connection with WikiLeaks.
It seems Trump Jr.
did not get the message about obscuring contact with WikiLeaks. Instead, he
responded directly when WikiLeaks reached out to him. As previously outlined in
the Mueller report, the Senate report recounts how, on Sept. 21, WikiLeaks used
a direct message on Twitter to reach out to Trump Jr. for a comment about a
website, "putintrump.org," and provided Trump Jr. a password to
access the website before it launched. Trump Jr. responded, "Off the
record I don't know who that is, but I'll ask around." He then forwarded
the message to the campaign team with this note:
Guys I got a weird Twitter DM
from wikileaks. See below. I tried the password and it works and the about
section they reference contains the next pic in terms of who is behind it. Not
sure if this is anything but it seems like it's really wikileaks asking me as I
follow them and it is a DM. Do you know the people mentioned and what the
conspiracy they are looking for could be? These are just screen shots but it's
a fully built out page claiming to be a PAC let me know your thoughts and if we
want to look into it.
The report also
describes how, prior to the October Podesta dump, WikiLeaks reached out directly to Trump Jr. and asked him
to "comment on/push" a report about Clinton asking whether
Assange could be droned. Trump Jr. responded that he had already done so, and
then two minutes later, Trump Jr. wrote to WikiLeaks: "What's behind this
Wednesday leak I keep reading about?" (He did not receive a response.)
This section of the report concludes with a description of how WikiLeaks sought to coordinate its distribution of stolen documents through Don Jr. After Trump proclaimed at an Oct. 10 rally, "I love WikiLeaks," and then posted about it on Twitter, WikiLeaks resumed messaging with Trump Jr.: "Strongly suggest your dad tweets this link if he mentions us ... there's many great stories the press are missing and we're sure some of your follows [sic] will find it. btw we just released Podesta Emails Part 4." Shortly afterward, Trump tweeted: "Very little pick-up by the dishonest media of incredible information provided by WikiLeaks. So dishonest! Rigged System!"
In case that didn’t make the point strongly enough, two
days later, Trump Jr. tweeted the link himself: "For those who have the
time to read about all the corruption and hypocrisy all the @wikileaks emails
are right here: wlsearch.tk." According to the report, Trump Jr. admitted
that this may have been in response to the request from WikiLeaks but also
suggested that it could have been part of a general practice of retweeting the
WikiLeaks releases when they came out. Trump Jr. retweeted WikiLeaks content
numerous times in October and November 2016, frequently encouraging others to
go to WikiLeaks or elsewhere to review the hacked emails.
But he wasn’t
alone. This section of the report concludes:
The Campaign's preoccupation
with WikiLeaks continued until the general election. As the general election
approached, Scavino, a member of the communications team who also had a role in
administering Trump's Twitter account during the campaign, increasingly forwarded
updates relating to WikiLeaks to other Campaign officials, using subject lines
like · "WIKI ABOUT TO DROP SOME BOMBS ... 4 pmE" and "The
WikiLeaks BOMB!" and linking to the latest WikiLeaks twitter post or its
website. To one, Donald Trump Jr. responded: "Blow it out."
At least there was
no collusion.
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