Ted Malloch, a Trump campaign adviser, has been questioned about his relationship with the Kremlin-controlled broadcaster

Robert Mueller is allegedly examining a Trump campaign adviser’s appearances on the Kremlin-controlled broadcaster RT, offering new hints about the investigation into possible collusion between Moscow and Donald Trump’s associates.

Mueller’s investigators have asked Ted Malloch, the London-based American academic who is also close to Nigel Farage, about his frequent appearances on RT, which US intelligence authorities have called Russia’s principal propaganda arm.

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The special counsel’s alleged focus on RT is important because the Russian news channel also has a close relationship with the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who in 2016 published tens of thousands of emails stolen from senior Democrats by Russian intelligence operatives.

Malloch disclosed that he was questioned about RT to his friend Jerome Corsi, a rightwing author who is himself a target of the investigation. “They thought maybe he was coordinating with Russia – and RT is Russia,” Corsi told the Guardian. Malloch denies any coordination.

Draft legal documents and visitor logs from Ecuador’s embassy in London, where Assange is based, show that RT staff met and interviewed Assange on the same day – 2 August 2016 – that Roger Stone, the self-described “dirty trickster” and longtime Trump associate who had previously bragged about having special access to WikiLeaks, was passed information about Assange’s plans.

The timing may be coincidental and is not clear evidence that RT shared information with Stone or others. RT denied sharing any information about its interview and said it was “ludicrous, baseless” to make any claim that information was passed from RT staff to Malloch or Corsi.

According to a draft court filing drawn up by Mueller, Stone was in late July 2016 scrambling to obtain advance copies of additional emails that WikiLeaks intended to publish after its release of thousands from the Democratic party, which prompted the resignation of its chairwoman.

Stone emailed Corsi on 31 July 2016 to say Malloch, a mutual friend of theirs who was in London, “should see Assange”. Corsi has said that he forwarded Malloch a message from Stone explaining that Stone wanted to “get the pending WikiLeaks emails”.

On 2 August 2016, Corsi replied with what appeared to be intelligence about WikiLeaks’s plans to dump more emails. “Word is friend in [the] embassy plans 2 more dumps,” it said. Corsi estimated a schedule for the releases, and seemed to predict one would deal with Clinton’s philanthropic foundation. Corsi also proposed spreading speculation that Clinton was in poor health as a campaign tactic to help Trump.

Mueller is investigating how Corsi obtained the information about WikiLeaks’ plans. Corsi said he did not recall Malloch ever responding, and that he only pretended he had a secret source in order to appear well-connected. He may have been aware of a separate 25 July 2016 email from a Fox News reporter, which also privately suggested that the Clinton Foundation would be a topic of the Assange emails.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The RT presenter Afshin Rattansi. Photograph: BBC

But on the same day that Corsi sent his email, Assange told an RT reporter during an interview at the embassy that he would be releasing emails that contained information relating to the Clinton Foundation. Assange’s interview with the RT reporter Afshin Rattansi was not broadcast publicly until several days later, on 6 August. Rattansi did not return a request for comment.

RT said in a statement the information conveyed in the 6 August interview “largely echoed” earlier interviews Assange had given, including to the independent news show Democracy Now. Assange was interviewed by Democracy Now on 25 July but did not mention future email releases or the Clinton Foundation.

Since Trump’s election victory in November 2016, Malloch has appeared at least five times on Rattansi’s talk show on RT.

Malloch, who has denied having any connection to WikiLeaks, declined to comment following multiple requests by the Guardian. WikiLeaks did not respond to requests for comment.

In an intelligence assessment published by US authorities following the election, Rattansi’s August 2016 interview of Assange was alleged to have been part of Russian propaganda efforts aimed at boosting Trump and denigrating Clinton.

The US intelligence report also noted a past relationship between RT and Assange, alleging that the Kremlin-backed channel had “actively collaborated with WikiLeaks” in an effort to denounce the US. RT has denied being controlled by the Kremlin and said its output is “designed merely to inform, not influence”.

Questions about whether the Trump campaign or other associates of the president helped to coordinate the timing of WikiLeaks’s release of emails before the November 2016 election lie at the heart of Mueller’s investigation. Emails were stolen from senior Democrats including Clinton’s campaign chairman by agents of the GRU and transferred to WikiLeaks, according to a US criminal indictment.

Assange has denied that he received the hacked emails from Russia.

Public statements and documents have so far revealed that Mueller’s team has focused on Stone, Corsi and Malloch as part of their quest to confirm who may have had knowledge about WikiLeaks’s plans.

Malloch was briefly detained by Mueller’s investigators at Logan airport in Boston in March this year. He was questioned and issued a grand jury subpoena, but his appearance at the grand jury in Washington DC was postponed.

It was unclear in March 2018 why Mueller was interested in Malloch.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange speaks on the balcony of the embassy of Ecuador in London, Britain, on 19 May 2017. Photograph: Neil Hall/Reuters

The academic appeared to have played only a minor role in Trump’s campaign as an “unpaid adviser”, although he claimed in his January 2017 book Hired that he had known Trump for decades and contributed to Trump’s “philanthropic causes” in Florida and New York.

It became clearer last week why Mueller took an apparent interest in Malloch when the draft filing containing messages between Stone and Corsi was released to the media by Corsi.

Corsi told the Guardian he introduced Malloch to Stone over steaks at the Strip House in midtown Manhattan in late February or March 2016. Mueller’s investigators “wanted to know about the dinner”, he said. When asked if Assange was discussed during the meal, Corsi said he was not a “human tape recorder”.

Stone has given conflicting accounts of the meeting. In March he told Business Insider the three chatted about “Brexit and globalism” but did not discuss WikiLeaks, Assange or Russia. Yet last Sunday, Stone told Fox News that Malloch “mentioned that he knew Assange”, which was what prompted him to suggest Malloch go to Ecuador’s embassy in search of the emails.

Nearly two years after Stone’s attempt to get to Assange, the FBI descended on Malloch, separated him from his wife and began questioning him. Corsi was quickly alerted – apparently by Malloch or his wife – and, for reasons that are unclear, publicised the news in an “emergency” broadcast on the far-right conspiracy website Infowars.

At the time, Corsi said he had been told the FBI was questioning Malloch about Assange and his appearances on RT. He repeated that assertion in an interview with the Guardian this week: “Mueller’s people asked Ted about his appearances on RT.

At the time, Malloch said he “knew nothing” about WikiLeaks and has suggested he was being targeted because of his support for Trump. He also played down his longtime friendship with Corsi, who he said “edited a memoir I had written some years ago”.

Malloch was subpoenaed to appear before Mueller’s grand jury in Washington DC soon after being questioned by the FBI, but the appearance was postponed and it is unclear if it was ever rescheduled. Malloch said in May that he was “still actively participating in this conversation” with investigators. A spokesman for Mueller declined to comment.

Mueller’s alleged focus on RT is noteworthy, too, because employees of the Russian broadcaster made several visits to Assange at Ecuador’s embassy – on 4, 8, 10, 17 and 23 June 2016, according to visitor logs – a time of high activity for Assange and for the Russian operatives alleged to have stolen the Democratic emails.

US intelligence officials also noted in their 2017 assessment that allegations Clinton was suffering “poor physical and mental health” featured prominently in RT’s coverage. RT has rejected claims it paid unusual attention to the subject, pointing to widespread coverage by other outlets after Clinton fell ill at a September 11 memorial event.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jerome Corsi speaks during an interview in New York, on 27 November 2018. Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

But a Guardian review of RT’s output found it began raising the allegations at least a month earlier, soon after Corsi’s message to Stone predicting Clinton’s health would dominate the next WikiLeaks email release – and that it “would not hurt” to start suggesting she had suffered a stroke.

On 8 August, RT published a misleading article about a six-month-old photograph of Clinton slipping on a stair, which falsely stated she had “well-documented brain injuries”. The channel’s Spanish-language version cited unfounded allegations that Clinton had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

That same day, Russian intelligence operatives posted the first of almost 500 tweets or retweets featuring the hashtag #HillarysHealth, according to a study of 3m postings by Russian troll accounts by the Clemson University researchers Darren Linvill and Patrick Warren.

From 30 August, RT itself began using the hashtag in tweets to promote its articles on Clinton’s condition.

RT also broadcast wild speculation about Clinton’s health on television. Michael Lebron, the broadcaster and conspiracy theorist who goes by the name “Lionel”, claimed on air that Clinton might be hiding a degenerative illness. He asked: “Where the hell has the mainstream media been regarding Hillary Clinton’s health?”

There is no evidence Malloch had a relationship with RT or Rattansi before the November 2016 election. RT told the Guardian that Malloch was introduced to the show Going Underground by Jan Halper Hayes and that Malloch first met Rattansi in February 2017.

RT said Malloch had not been paid for his appearances on Rattansi’s show since the election. In those interviews, Malloch dismissed the notion of collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russian operatives as a conspiracy theory.

Malloch also advocated for friendlier US-Russia relations and predicted Trump would move to soften US economic restrictions on Moscow. He asked Rattansi in a February 2017 appearance: “If those sanctions were removed, would not the world be a better place?”

Mueller has also been investigating whether another Stone contact, the comedian and radio host Randy Credico, could have been his source for information from WikiLeaks. Credico denies this.

There is no evidence that Malloch or Stone ever personally met Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy.

Additional reporting by Peter Stone