Roger Stone suspiciously predicted the Podesta emails. Now investigators think they know how.

How did Roger Stone know about the Podesta emails before they were published?
(Image credit: Joshua Blanchard/Getty Images for Politicon)

On Aug. 21, 2016, President Trump's adviser Roger Stone published a cryptic tweet: "It will soon [be John] Podesta's time in the barrel," he wrote, referring to Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman. By September, Stone was telling Boston Herald Radio that "Julian Assange and the WikiLeaks people [are ready] to drop a payload of new documents on a weekly basis fairly soon. And that of course will answer the question of exactly what was erased on [Clinton's] email server."

Then, on Oct. 7, 2016, Stone's predictions came true: WikiLeaks began publishing thousands of emails hacked from Podesta's Gmail account.

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Jeva Lange

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.