Rick Gates says Roger Stone told Trump about WikiLeaks email dump, contradicting Trump’s written Mueller testimony

(Image credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)

published 12 November 2019

President Trump's Mueller testimony may not have been all it was written up to be.

The trial of Roger Stone, a Trump associate indicted under Special Counsel Robert Mueller, continued Tuesday with testimony from also indicted ex-Trump campaign official Rick Gates. Gates testified he'd heard Stone tell Trump about the WikiLeaks release of hacked DNC emails before the dump happened — a direct contradiction of what Trump told Mueller in his written testimony, The Washington Post reports.

Gates has cooperated with the Mueller probe's legal fallouts since pleading guilty to conspiracy and lying to the FBI in 2018, and Stone is currently facing trial regarding his ties to WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign. In his Tuesday testimony, Gates described how he'd seen Trump get a phone call from Stone in summer 2016, and after Trump hung up, told Gates "more information would coming" regarding WikiLeaks, per CNBC. In his written testimony for Mueller's probe last year, Trump contradictorily said he didn't recall hearing about the WikiLeaks dumps in advance or even discussing WikiLeaks with Stone, and that he wasn't aware of anyone on his staff knowing about them either.

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Gates testified he didn't hear exactly what was said on the call, but said Trump campaign officials still held "brainstorming sessions" on what they'd do with a favorable WikiLeaks dump, The Wall Street Journal reports from the trial. And after the emails came out, Gates said Trump campaign officials were "in disbelief" and saw it as "a gift." That was apparently enough for government prosecutors, who rested their case after Gates' testimony without Stone ever appearing on the stand.

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.