Mueller reportedly has evidence Roger Stone ally knew WikiLeaks had Clinton emails

(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

published 26 October 2018

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team has reviewed messages suggesting that Jerome Corsi, a right-wing conspiracy theorist and Roger Stone associate, may have known in advance that Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta's emails had been stolen and given to WikiLeaks, a person familiar with the matter told NBC News.

Stone is a longtime informal adviser to President Trump, and Mueller's team has been looking into whether Corsi passed that information along to Stone. Podesta's emails were hacked by Russian intelligence officers, and WikiLeaks started releasing the emails on Oct. 7, 2016, hours after the Access Hollywood tape featuring Trump bragging about grabbing women went public.

In July, 12 Russian intelligence officers were charged with conspiracy to violate U.S. election laws by hacking Democrats and distributing the emails, and legal experts told NBC News if any American is found to have helped them, that person could be charged as a member of the conspiracy. Corsi was one of about a dozen Stone associates called to testify in front of Mueller's grand jury in Washington, D.C., people with knowledge of the matter told NBC News, and when asked why he seemed to know before anyone else did about Podesta's emails being sent to WikiLeaks, he claimed to have figured it out on his own. Stone has denied any wrongdoing. For more on Stone's comments about WikiLeaks and hacked emails, visit NBC News.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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