Trump sweated on data from WikiLeaks’ Democrats hack
Donald Trump clamoured for the speedy release of emails hacked by WikiLeaks from Democrats during the 2016 campaign.
Donald Trump clamoured for the speedy release of emails hacked from Democrats during the 2016 campaign, and a top Trump aide promoted the idea that Ukraine, rather than Russia, was behind the cyber attack, documents from special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe show.
The Justice Department released 500 pages of interview summaries, emails and other documents related to Mr Mueller’s report detailing Russian meddling in the 2016 election. They were released after a court battle with BuzzFeed News and CNN.
The documents, released on Sunday by the online news outlets, include summaries of FBI interviews with Trump deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates, campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former campaign lawyer Michael Cohen and Steve Bannon, the former presidential adviser.
Gates told investigators on April 10, 2018, that Manafort during the campaign believed a hack of Democratic National Committee emails was “likely” to have been carried out by Ukrainians, not Russians, the documents show.
The Gates interview notes also suggest that the Republican National Committee had more knowledge than previously disclosed about the hacked DNC emails.
Gates told investigators the RNC had “non-public information” about the timing of the release of the emails on website WikiLeaks but did not identify who at the RNC knew this information.
Australian WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion by the US government in April. He and his website “have effectively acted as an arm of the Russian intelligence services for years”, US Senate intelligence committee chairman Richard Burr, a Republican, said then.
During the campaign, Mr Trump was frustrated that WikiLeaks was slow in releasing DNC emails that his campaign was told WikiLeaks had obtained, the newly released Mueller documents show.
When Wikileaks did dump a series of documents, Gates said the campaign’s response was “euphoric”.
In July 2017, Mr Trump publicly asked Russia for help finding emails his rival Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of State, had not made public during a State Department inquiry into her use of a private email server. He later backtracked, saying: “Of course I’m being sarcastic.”
“Trump was generally frustrated Clinton’s missing emails had not been found,” Gates said in an interview, the notes show.
The documents also include email correspondence between Bannon and Jared Kushner, Mr Trump’s adviser and son-in-law, as well as a “proposal to obtain” and analyse emails belonging to Mrs Clinton, which was sent to Mr Bannon by conservative activist and former congressional staffer Barbara Ledeen.
BuzzFeed filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking all documents related to the investigation by Mr Mueller and a lawsuit to get access to the documents.
Gates has pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the US. Manafort is serving eight years for tax and bank fraud.
Reuters
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