Former Trump campaign aide Roger Stone may have attempted to contact WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in the days leading up to the infamous DNC emails leak, ABC News reported Monday.
The network said it obtained two emails between Mr. Stone and his associate Jerome Corsi. In one of these emails, Mr. Stone wrote that Ted Malloch, a political consultant tied to the Trump campaign, should try to connect with Mr. Assange.
It was dated July 31, 2016, just over a week before WikiLeaks published Democratic National Committee emails hacked by Russian agents.
Several Russians were indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team in July.
Mr. Stone and two other sources confirmed the email’s existence to ABC News, which described the message as “an explicit attempt by Stone to connect with Assange using Corsi and Malloch as intermediaries.”
Mr. Stone told ABC News the email, “proves I had no advance knowledge of contents of WikiLeaks’ DNC material” but wanted to know about it like everyone else.
He denied claims that he was trying to meet with Mr. Assange to release information in order to distract from negative news coverage of Mr. Trump.
“Corsi either never passed the suggestion on, or Malloch ignored it — but I think it is the latter,” Mr. Stone told ABC News. “The key is Malloch never contacts or sees Assange and never gets anything from him.”
In May, Mr. Stone also told ABC News that he did not use Mr. Malloch to contact Mr. Assange.
Mr. Malloch also told ABC News that he never tried to contact Mr. Assange or visit the Ecuadorian Embassy in London where Mr. Assange claimed asylum.
Both Mr. Corsi and Mr. Malloch have been questioned by the Mueller team as part of the Russia investigation.
• Gabriella Muñoz can be reached at gmunoz@washingtontimes.com.
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