Links between Trump associates and Russian officials: Difference between revisions

[[Roger Stone|Roger J. Stone, Jr.]], a former adviser to Donald Trump and self-proclaimed political “dirty trickster”, admitted in March 2017 that during August 2016, he had been in contact with [[Guccifer 2.0]], a hacker persona believed to be a front for Russian intelligence operations who publicly claimed responsibility for at least one hack of the [[Democratic National Committee|DNC]].<ref name=Matishak>{{cite news | url=http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/russia-hearing-fbi-roger-stone-236268 | title=Roger Stone takes center stage as Congress lines up Russia probe witnesses | newspaper=[[Politico]] | date=March 20, 2017 | last=Matishak | first=Martin | accessdate=April 18, 2017}}</ref> Stone is suspected of having inside knowledge of these hacks, predicting, "Trust me, it will soon {{sic|expected=be}} the Podesta's time in the barrel" on [[Twitter]] shortly prior to the Wikileaks release of the [[Podesta emails]], a hacking incident now broadly understood to have been a significant contributing factor to [[Donald Trump|Trump]]'s 2016 election victory against then-expected winner [[Hillary Clinton]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Danner|first1=Chas|title=Trump Adviser Roger Stone Admits Messaging With Alleged DNC Hacker|url=http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/03/trump-adviser-roger-stone-admits-messaging-with-dnc-hacker.html|work=[[New York (magazine)|New York]] |accessdate=April 23, 2017}}</ref> Stone denies this, stating he was actually referring to reports of the [[Podesta Group]]'s own ties to Russia.<ref name="Stone's Prescience">{{cite web|last=Farley|first=Robert|url=http://www.factcheck.org/2017/03/misrepresenting-stones-prescience/|title=Misrepresenting Stone’s Prescience|publisher=FactCheck.org|date=March 28, 2017|accessdate=July 13, 2017}}</ref> In his opening statement before the [[United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]] on September 26, 2017, Stone reiterated this claim: "Note that my tweet of August 21, 2016, makes no mention whatsoever of Mr. Podesta's email, but does accurately predict that the Podesta brothers' business activities in Russia&nbsp;... would come under public scrutiny."<ref>{{cite web|last=Bertrand|first=Natasha|url=http://www.businessinsider.com/roger-stone-dnc-hacker-guccifer-russia-trump-2017-9|title=Top Trump confidant points to dubious report to justify conversation with Russian cyber spy|work=[[Business Insider]]|date=September 26, 2017|accessdate=October 18, 2017}}</ref> Additionally, Stone has reportedly stated privately to some Republican colleagues that he has "actually communicated with [[Julian Assange]]" on at least one occasion, although Stone and his two attorneys have since denied this.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Massie|first1=Chris|last2=McDermott|first2=Nathan|last3=Kaczynski|first3=Andrew|title=Trump adviser Roger Stone repeatedly claimed to know of forthcoming WikiLeaks dumps|url=http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/20/politics/kfile-roger-stone-wikileaks-claims/|publisher=[[CNN]] |accessdate=April 23, 2017}}</ref> Instead, Stone has "clarified&nbsp;... that the two have a mutual journalist friend," who Stone ultimately named as [[Randy Credico]].<ref name="Stone's Prescience"/><ref>{{cite web|last1=Raju|first1=Manu|last2=Herb|first2=Jeremy|url=http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/29/politics/randy-credico-roger-stone-wikileaks/index.html|title=New York radio personality was Roger Stone's WikiLeaks contact|publisher=CNN|date=2017-11-29|accessdate=2017-11-30}}</ref>