Mueller is reportedly asking Paul Manafort for information on Roger Stone

Paul Manafort.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Investigators from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office have been peppering Paul Manafort, President Trump's former campaign chairman, with questions about his longtime friend and onetime business partner Roger Stone, several people with knowledge of the matter told ABC News on Wednesday.

Stone served as a political adviser to Trump and once ran a lobbying firm with Manafort. Manafort recently pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy in Washington, D.C., and was found guilty of financial crimes in Virginia, and he's now one of Mueller's cooperating witnesses. Mueller appears to be focusing on whether Stone or his associates communicated with WikiLeaks or its founder, Julian Assange, before the organization released emails meant to damage Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

Stone made several statements before the emails were released that seemed to show he knew WikiLeaks was going to publish the information, and close to a dozen of his associates have been interviewed by Mueller's team, with many also appearing before a federal grand jury. Stone told ABC News that he's known Manafort since childhood, and is "highly confident" his friend "is aware of no wrongdoing on my part during the 2016 campaign, or at any other time, and therefore there is no wrongdoing to know about."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.