Several news outlets are reporting developments pertaining to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Donald Trump's longtime political advisor Roger Stone.
The Wall Street Journal says Mueller's team is reviewing remarks Stone made on a series of conference calls in 2016 about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.
In at least two August conference calls advertised online to the public and promoting himself as “the ultimate political insider,” Mr. Stone told callers about WikiLeaks’ plans to release information that he said would affect the 2016 presidential campaign before the election, according to people who listened to the sessions and recordings of one of the calls published online and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Investigators have collected records and interviews related to the biweekly conference calls, according to the witness—Jason Sullivan, a social-media specialist who organized some of the conference calls on Mr. Stone’s behalf—and the person familiar with the matter.
“In the background of this entire race going forward is the fact that Julian Assange...is going to continue to drop information on the American voters that is going to roil this race,” Mr. Stone said in a call on Aug. 4, 2016, according to the audio recording reviewed by the Journal. “He has made that very clear.”
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In another conference call two weeks later, Mr. Stone claimed he was in touch with Mr. Assange, according to Mr. Sullivan. Mr. Sullivan said his recording of that call was among the materials he turned over to the special counsel’s office in May in response to a subpoena.
“Cooperation with Julian Assange, that’s the main thing,” Mr. Sullivan said about the special counsel’s questions related to Mr. Stone. “They’re pretty much fixed on him.”
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In addition to subpoenaing material related to Mr. Stone’s conference calls, the special counsel has also obtained Mr. Stone’s text messages, emails and social-media messages, according to Mr. Sullivan and other witnesses in the probe, including [Randy] Credico and Sam Nunberg, a former associate of Mr. Stone’s.
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The Aug. 4, 2016, conference call marks one of Mr. Stone’s earliest known predictions that WikiLeaks would release more hacked emails before election day, beyond the ones published in July 2016. Hours before the call, Mr. Stone emailed an associate, saying, “I dined with my new pal Julian Assange last nite,” the Journal previously reported.
Four days later, in an appearance before the Southwest Broward Republican Organization, Mr. Stone made another prediction: “I actually have communicated with Assange. I believe the next tranche of his documents pertain to the Clinton Foundation, but there’s no telling what the October surprise may be,” he said.
On Aug. 21, 2016, Mr. Stone appeared to foreshadow trouble for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta, whose emails would be dumped online by WikiLeaks in mid-October. “Trust me,” Mr. Stone tweeted, “it will soon the Podesta’s time in the barrel. [sic] #CrookedHillary.”
According to The Washington Post, Mueller's team also is taking a look at whether Stone was coordinating with senior Trump campaign officials at the same time he may have been communicating with WikiLeaks.
On Friday, Mueller’s team questioned Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s former chief campaign strategist, about alleged claims Stone made privately about WikiLeaks before the group released emails allegedly hacked by Russian operatives, according to people familiar with the session.
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Investigators have questioned witnesses about events surrounding Oct. 7, 2016, the day The Washington Post published a recording of Trump bragging about his ability to grab women by their genitals, the people said.
Less than an hour after The Post published its story about Trump’s crude comments during a taping of “Access Hollywood,” WikiLeaks delivered a competing blow to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by releasing a trove of emails hacked from the account of her campaign chairman John Podesta.
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Investigators have been scrutinizing phone and email records from the fall of 2016, looking for evidence of what triggered WikiLeaks to drop the Podesta emails right after the “Access Hollywood” tape story broke, according to people with knowledge of the probe.
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In his interview Friday with the special counsel team, Bannon was asked about Stone’s interactions with the campaign and instances in which Stone allegedly made private comments that matched his public declarations of having knowledge of WikiLeaks’s plans, according to people with knowledge of the interview.
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Stone said he never coordinated with WikiLeaks, and that his tweets and public comments predicting a coming WikiLeaks release were intended solely to generate publicity that might help Trump.
“I deserve credit for hyping public attention, but not coordinating,” Stone said this week.
As he continues to assert his innocence, Stone also is hiring more lawyers.
Sources tell ABC News that Stone ... quietly expanded his legal team in recent months, hiring prestigious Florida attorney Bruce Rogow, who will be Stone’s lead attorney on all matters related to the office of the special counsel and all constitutional matters, such as first amendment issues that may arise.
In the past, Rogow has represented President Donald Trump's golf club interests in a handful of civil matters out of Florida over the past 20 years. His over 50-year career in litigation includes eleven cases in the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Mr. Robert Buschel and I welcome the presence of someone with Mr. Rogow’s stature and gravitas," another Stone lawyer, Grant Smith, told ABC News of Rogow joining he and Buschel on the Stone legal team.
As special counsel closes in, Roger Stone suits up for legal battle (ABC News)
Mueller Investigators Probe Roger Stone Conference Calls (WSJ)