Jerome Corsi, a far-right conspiracy theorist and Roger Stone associate, says his friend may have had something to do with WikiLeaks releasing John Podesta's stolen emails just one hour after the emergence of the Access Hollywood tape on which Donald Trump brags about sexually assaulting women.
“I had one call from Roger, as I recall it — Roger disputes this — on the day that WikiLeaks did begin in October dropping the final emails on John Podesta, in which Roger was essentially saying, ‘We’ve got this timing issue because the Billy Bush tape is going to be released, and we’d like to have [Julian] Assange begin releasing emails now,’” Corsi told MSNBC’s Ari Melber on Monday. Bush was the “Access Hollywood” anchor who appeared with Trump in the clip from 2005, in which the host of “The Apprentice” describes using his stardom to grope and kiss women.
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Corsi acknowledged that he could not “prove” that the longtime Republican operative and self-described “dirty trickster” had taken steps to influence the timing of the email dump. Instead, he merely shared his recollection of their phone conversation, which he also recounts in his book, “Silent No More: How I Became a Political Prisoner of Mueller’s ‘Witch Hunt.’” In the 192-page book, Corsi writes that Stone asked him to see if he “could get Assange to begin dropping the Podesta emails on top of the Washington Post exposé.”
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Responding to the book’s claims in November, Stone told the Daily Caller that the allegations were “preposterous.” On Instagram this month, he labeled Corsi a “pathological liar,” also identifying him as “Judas,” a disciple of Jesus who, in the telling of the Gospels, betrayed him.
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Despite his well-documented tendency to take liberties with the truth, Corsi does have demonstrable links to figures in Trump’s inner circle, including to Stone. Moreover, he had an audience with the special counsel ...
Corsi said he gave 40 hours of testimony to Mueller’s team and on Sunday told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he would be “happy to testify” against Stone.
“I will affirm that what is in the indictment about me is accurate,” Corsi said. There is at least one piece of evidence, however, that he maintains is inaccurate — one that he wrote. He has disclaimed any direct ties to WikiLeaks, contradicting an August 2016 email cited in the indictment in which he appeared to alert Stone to Assange’s plans for “2 more dumps,” which promised to be “very damaging.”
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He said that he had told Mueller’s team about his recollections of the phone call concerning the timing of the “Access Hollywood” tape.
Asked whether the special counsel was interested, Corsi said, “Absolutely.”
In a tweet the day before the WikiLeaks dump, Stone previewed the coming threat to Clinton’s campaign. His Twitter account has since been suspended.
"Julian Assange will deliver a devastating expose on Hillary at a time of his choosing,” he wrote on Oct. 6, 2016. “I stand by my prediction. #handcuffs4hillary”
Roger Stone wanted WikiLeaks dump to distract from ‘Access Hollywood’ tape, Mueller witness says (WaPo)