UPDATE 2: CNN corrects its original reporting:
This story has been corrected to say the date of the email was September 14, 2016, not September 4, 2016. The story also changed the headline and removed a tweet from Donald Trump Jr., who posted a message about WikiLeaks on September 4, 2016.
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CNN originally reported the email was released September 4 -- 10 days earlier -- based on accounts from two sources who had seen the email. The new details appear to show that the sender was relying on publicly available information. The new information indicates that the communication is less significant than CNN initially reported.
After this story was published, The Washington Post obtained a copy of the email Friday afternoon and reported that the email urged Trump and his campaign to download archives that WikiLeaks had made public a day earlier. The story suggested that the individual may simply have been trying to flag the campaign to already public documents.
CNN has now obtained a copy of the email, which lists September 14 as the date sent and contains a decryption key that matches what WikiLeaks had tweeted out the day before.
UPDATE: The Washington Post reports it has a copy of the email in question and puts the date at September 14th and not September 4th as CNN indicated. This would change the nature of the story, as the WikiLeaks documents offered already were publicly released by the 14th:
The email — sent the afternoon of Sept. 14, 2016 — noted that “Wikileaks has uploaded another (huge 678 mb) archive of files from the DNC” and included a link and a “decryption key,” according to a copy obtained by The Washington Post.
The writer, who said his name was Michael J. Erickson and described himself as the president of an aviation management company, sent the message to the then-Republican nominee as well as his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and other top advisers.
The day before, WikiLeaks had tweeted links to what the group said was 678.4 megabytes of DNC documents.
The full email — which was first described to CNN as being sent on Sept. 4, 10 days earlier — indicates that the writer may have simply been flagging information that was already widely available.
The message also noted that information from former secretary of state Colin Powell’s inbox was available “on DCLeaks.com.” That development, too, had been publicly reported earlier that day.
Email pointed Trump campaign to WikiLeaks documents that were already public (WaPo)
CNN reports someone calling himself Mike Erickson emailed "Trump, Trump Jr., Trump Jr.'s personal assistant and others" during the 2016 campaign offering access to stolen data posted online and a decryption key to unlock the data:
The September 4 email was sent during the final stretch of the 2016 presidential race -- on the same day that Trump Jr. first tweeted about WikiLeaks and Clinton.
"WIKILEAKS: Hillary Clinton Sent THOUSANDS of Classified Cables Marked "(C)" for Confidential," he tweeted, sharing a story from the Gateway Pundit, a conservative, pro-Trump website.
The email came two months after the hacked emails of the Democratic National Committee were made public and one month before WikiLeaks began leaking the contents of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's hacked emails. It arrived less than three weeks before WikiLeaks itself messaged Trump Jr. and began an exchange of direct messages on Twitter.
Trump Jr. told investigators he had no recollection of the September email.
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The email also indicated that the Trump campaign could access records from former Secretary of State Colin Powell, whose hacked emails were made public by a Russian front group 10 days later.
While neither Congress nor CNN has been able to verify Erickson's identity or whether his offer was valid yet, the proposal lines up with how WikiLeaks operates:
The use of a website and decryption key as a means to provide information aligns with past WikiLeaks practices. The idea is that WikiLeaks posts a data file on the Internet, but it is encrypted and impossible to open without the key.
WikiLeaks' Julian Assange says the email could have come from anyone:
After CNN's story published, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange tweeted that it was "not clear what this has to do with @WikiLeaks."
"Many enthusiastic readers emailed around archives of our publications during the election," Assange said.
Read more: Exclusive: Email shows effort to give Trump campaign WikiLeaks documents (CNN)