Inquiry into Russia investigation gets the OK for more subpoenas

Kevin Johnson, Bart Jansen and Brad Heath | USA TODAY

AP

WASHINGTON — Every criminal case brought against a senior member of the Trump campaign as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation has revealed a new attempt to conceal contacts with Russia or intermediaries linked to the Kremlin.

Michael Cohen, the longtime personal attorney to President Donald Trump; Michael Flynn, the Trump administration's first national security adviser; Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman; and George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser to the campaign; all have been implicated in back-channel efforts to establish lines of communication with the United States' primary adversary – Russia.

In a 24-page indictment revealed Friday against Roger Stone, one of Trump’s longtime political advisers, Mueller's prosecutors took their deepest plunge yet into the inner workings of the Trump campaign and its intense interest in the Kremlin’s effort to undermine Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid with hacked emails laundered through the group the government says became its de facto publishing arm: WikiLeaks.

Since launching his investigation into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election, Mueller hasn’t charged any Americans with plotting to help the Kremlin’s effort. Instead, his office has indicted a succession of Trump associates – now Stone – for lying to investigators about their activities, and in the process has sketched an increasingly detailed picture of a series of efforts by the campaign to benefit from hacking by Russian intelligence services that the U.S. government says was meant to help deliver Trump the presidency.

Stone's relationship with WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy group that published troves of documents stolen from Democratic political organizations by a hacking group backed by Russian military intelligence, is at the heart of the Friday court filing in which the self-avowed political "dirty trickster" was charged with lying to investigators, obstruction and witness tampering.

Following a brief court appearance Friday morning, a defiant Stone stood before jeering protesters and cheering supporters claiming that he was "falsely accused" and would "plead not guilty."

Stone's remarks came shortly after prosecutors detailed a series of alleged contacts between Trump campaign officials, who were not identified in court documents, and the colorful political adviser who had publicly boasted of his connections with WikiLeaks and its embattled founder, Julian Assange. Some of the exchanges had been known previously, because Stone and his associates had made them public, but their inclusion in Friday's indictment marks the first time prosecutors themselves have offered such detailed information about interactions within Trump's campaign.

Assange has been living in exile at the Ecuadoran embassy in London since being granted asylum in 2012, in part to avoid the reach of British authorities and possible prosecution in the United States.

Starting in the summer of 2016, as Trump was securing the Republican nomination for president and as the FBI was launching its initial inquiry into Russia's interference campaign, prosecutors alleged Friday that Stone communicated with senior Trump campaign officials about WikiLeaks and the politically-charged material in its possession.

In those contacts, according to court documents, the campaign officials referred to information that "would be damaging to the Clinton campaign."

Among the most striking of the allegations disclosed Friday, however, was contained in a passage in which prosecutors asserted that after a July 22 release of stolen Clinton-related emails, "a senior Trump campaign official was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information (WikiLeaks) had regarding the Clinton campaign."

"Stone, thereafter, told the Trump campaign about potential future releases of damaging material by (WikiLeaks)," prosecutors alleged.

Prosecutors did not identify the senior campaign official, nor did the documents elaborate on who may have directed that official to get in touch with Trump's longtime adviser.

But the July timeline referenced in the court documents closely tracked a series of related events that month, including an often-cited July 27, 2016, campaign appearance by then-candidate Trump who personally appealed to Russia to unearth Clinton's electronic communications.

"Russia, if you are listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing," Trump said, referring to a tranche of emails linked to an FBI review of Clinton's communications while she served as secretary of State.

Mueller's office previously alleged that later that same day, hackers working for Russia's military intelligence service "attempted after hours to spear-phish for the first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a third-party provider and used by Clinton’s personal office."

Mueller's office did not allege that Stone or other campaign aides worked with WikiLeaks to release the stolen records. Instead, they allege that Stone lied to the House Intelligence Committee during its investigation of Russian election interference, and that he tried to conceal emails and other records the committee had requested that related to his efforts to obtain information about WikiLeaks' planned disclosures.

Those efforts, according to prosecutors, continued throughout the summer and into the fall and included alleged collaborations with intermediaries including right-wing political commentator Jerome Corsi, identified in court documents as "Person 1," and radio host Randy Credico, identified by prosecutors "Person 2."

In an Aug. 2, email, Corsi allegedly informed Stone that Assange "plans 2 more dumps" of emails, including one in October.

"Time to let more than (Clinton campaign chief John Podesta) to be exposed as in bed (with) enemy if they are not ready to drop HRC,” the message said, referring to Clinton.

Stone replied that he expected WikiLeaks to release "a load every week, going forward."

That same month, in a text with a London-based supporter involved with the Trump campaign, Stone asks if the person wants to switch to a "secure line" to continue an alleged exchange about WikiLeaks' planned releases.

Prosecutors said Stone told the friend that he "spoke to my friend in London last night," a reference to Assange. "The payload is still coming."

In all, WikiLeaks released 33 sets of documents totaling 50,000 pages of stolen communications related to the Clinton campaign and Podesta.

Following the Oct. 7 release of the first batch of Podesta communications, prosecutors alleged that an associate of an unidentified, high-ranking Trump campaign official sent Stone a text message:

"Well done," it said.

The Trump official was campaign and administration adviser Steve Bannon, according to copies of the messages previously published by The New York Times.

Stone denied any wrongdoing Friday, denying any collaboration with WikiLeaks.

Yet the case against Stone, and the allegations that he lied about his alleged entreaties involving WikiLeaks, tracks the underlying false statement charges against other Trump campaign officials regarding their contacts with Russia.

Flynn, the former national security adviser, pleaded guilty to lying about his contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition promising relief from the sanctions the Obama administration had imposed to retaliate for the hacking. In charging him, Mueller's office revealed new details about the extent to which Flynn had discussed those conversations with other top Trump transition aides.

Last month, prosecutors said Cohen, the president's former personal attorney, acknowledged that Trump had continued efforts to build another of his eponymous towers in Moscow. More recently, when Mueller’s office fought with Manafort about whether he had violated his plea agreement, it was revealed that the former campaign chairman had provided polling data to a Russian associate and lied to the special counsel about it.

Trump's lawyers and the president have not strayed from their claims that Mueller has not filed charges involving conspiracy or coordination with Russia. But Democratic lawmakers, conducting their own investigations into Russian interference, seized on the new charges lodged against Stone.

"It is clear from this indictment that those contacts happened at least with the full knowledge of, and appear to have been encouraged by, the highest levels of the Trump campaign," said Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. "It remains essential that the special counsel be permitted to finish this work without any political interference.”

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Md., referred to Mueller's allegations that at least some the campaign's contacts with Stone regarding WikiLeaks were carried out by a campaign official at the direction of another. "The direction came at the same time that Trump was calling for Russia’s help in obtaining Clinton’s emails, Schiff said.

Legal analysts, meanwhile, suggested Friday that the Stone indictment likely meant that there were more to follow.

Paul Rosenzweig, a senior fellow at the R Street Institute and a former senior counsel with Ken Starr’s independent counsel investigation of President Bill Clinton, said the allegations that a senior Trump official was "directed" to contact Stone only raised more questions of where Mueller's theory of the case will lead.

“That begs the question who is senior enough to direct a senior campaign official,” Rosenzweig said.

“Does it put Trump in the bag personally?” Rosenzweig said. “Not quite yet.”

Carrie Cordero, a former Justice Department official, said the Stone indictment offers a possible explanation for why candidate Trump was appealing to Russia to unearth Clinton emails.