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.”
