Special Counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly investigating a claim made by Roger Stone, a former adviser to President Trump's campaign team, that he met with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Stone's email correspondence with former campaign adviser Sam Nunberg is under the microscope, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday, because Stone claimed in one August 2016 message that he had "dined with Julian Assange last night." Assange's organization WikiLeaks published thousands of documents on then-candidate Hillary Clinton ahead of the 2016 presidential election, and U.S. officials said the materials were obtained by Kremlin-linked hackers who were trying to sway the election in Trump's favor.
In an interview, Stone told the Journal that he made the remark "in jest," and that no conversation between the two took place. But Stone's public applauding of WikiLeaks has already garnered some side-eyeing from federal investigators: The Washington Post reported last month that Mueller, who is leading the probe into Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election, had asked Nunberg and one other source about Stone's possible contact with Assange. Mueller additionally asked about Stone's email during testimony before a grand jury, the Journal reports.
"I never dined with Assange," Stone told the Journal, saying that he can prove that he was in Los Angeles the night before he sent the email to Nunberg. Read more at The Wall Street Journal.