Former Trump campaign chairman Stephen K. Bannon appears in the indictment of GOP operative Roger Stone as a key campaign official with whom Stone communicated in the days before Wikileaks began releasing the hacked emails of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.
An unnamed “high-ranking Trump Campaign official” emailed Stone in early October 2016, days before Wikileaks began to publish the emails, “asking about the status of future releases,” the indictment alleges.
Stone replied that Assange had a “[s]erious security concern” but that Wikileaks would release “a load every week going forward.”
A person familiar with the matter confirmed to TPM that the indictment is referring to Bannon.
The messages also correspond to a November 2018 New York Times article that first published the exchange.
Bannon joined the Trump campaign as chairman in August 2016, after the departure of the now-convicted Paul Manafort.
Wikileaks began publishing the emails, stolen from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s account, on Oct. 7.
“Shortly after Organization 1’s release, an associate of the high-ranking Trump Campaign official sent a text message to STONE that read ‘well done,'” prosecutors allege. “In subsequent conversations with senior Trump Campaign officials, STONE claimed credit for having correctly predicted the October 7, 2016 release.”
I have been wondering when Bannon’s name would come up. There’s no way he’s not heavily involved in all of this.
What a day!
I hope we get to see Stone in the chain gang black and white stripes before long.
Remember, Bannon made reference to Don Jr. 's Trump Tower meeting as “treasonous” (which got him booted from Trumpworld).
I wonder how he would characterize “coordinating the release or receipt of property stolen by a hostile foreign actor”?
Who knew infrastructure week would be a celebration of schadenfreude?
Well, a nation needs to invest periodically in replacing its old, worn-out schadenfreude, and replacing it with new, sturdier schadenfreude.
I trust we’re not done yet. So far, it seems that everyone, and I do mean everyone, in Trump’s orbit ends up indicted, pleading guilty, convicted, becoming a cooperating witness, or resigning in disgrace. But there are still a lot of “not indicted yet” people in the mix. One or two of them each Friday for the next few months seems about right.