The ongoing federal probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and potential collusion with the Trump campaign has enveloped Trump ally and former UKIP party leader Nigel Farage, The Guardian reported Thursday.
Farage, who helped lay the foundation for last year’s stunning Brexit vote, appeared on the FBI’s radar because of his relationship with both the Trump campaign and Wikileaks, according to the Guardian. In March of this year, Farage visited Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who has been accused of collaborating with Russian hackers to release stolen emails and other information in an attempt to tank the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. CIA Director Mike Pompeo has dubbed Wikileaks a “non-state hostile intelligence service often embedded by state actors like Russia.”
Farage is not accused of any wrongdoing himself, but may have information that could further the investigation, the newspaper reported. “If you triangulate Russia, WikiLeaks, Assange and Trump associates the person who comes up with the most hits is Nigel Farage,” a source told The Guardian. Farage has also appeared several times on the Kremlin-backed network RT, and in 2014 named Vladimir Putin as the world leader he most admires.
In a statement on his Facebook page, Farage dismissed the report as “fake news” and asserted that he has “no connections to Russia.”