Russiagate Update: Someone leaked all over Don Jr and Wikileaks!
Here’s what you may have missed yesterday:
The Atlantic had the big get of the day: during Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Vladimir Putin’s favorite “transparency” web site was sending a ton of secret messages to the candidate’s son.[Wikileaks] asked the president’s son for his cooperation—in sharing its work, in contesting the results of the election, and in arranging for Julian Assange to be Australia’s ambassador to the United States.Just before the stroke of midnight on September 20, 2016, at the height of last year’s presidential election, the WikiLeaks Twitter account sent a private direct message to Donald Trump Jr., the Republican nominee’s oldest son and campaign surrogate. “A PAC run anti-Trump site putintrump.org is about to launch,” WikiLeaks wrote. “The PAC is a recycled pro-Iraq war PAC. We have guessed the password. It is ‘putintrump.’ See ‘About’ for who is behind it. Any comments?” (The site, which has since become a joint project with Mother Jones, was founded by Rob Glaser, a tech entrepreneur, and was funded by Progress for USA Political Action Committee.)The next morning, about 12 hours later, Trump Jr. responded to WikiLeaks. “Off the record I don’t know who that is, but I’ll ask around,” he wrote on September 21, 2016. “Thanks.”The messages, obtained by The Atlantic, were also turned over by Trump Jr.’s lawyers to congressional investigators. They are part of a long—and largely one-sided—correspondence between WikiLeaks and the president’s son that continued until at least July 2017. The messages show WikiLeaks, a radical transparency organization that the American intelligence community believes was chosen by the Russian government to disseminate the information it had hacked, actively soliciting Trump Jr.’s cooperation.
WikiLeaks made a series of increasingly bold requests, including asking for Trump’s tax returns, urging the Trump campaign on Election Day to reject the results of the election as rigged, and requesting that the president-elect tell Australia to appoint Julian Assange ambassador to the United States.And yes, you should take ten minutes to take in the whole article.
Of course, we’re wondering who leaked this Wikileaks leak to The Atlantic. It’s almost surely someone in Congress, and Donald Trump Jr. was whining about it all late last night.
FYI 1: Consider the timeline — Trump tweeted about Podesta emails 15 minutes after WikiLeaks asked Trump Jr. to tweet!
FYI 2: Another little timeline…
👉🏼10/3—Jr to WL “What’s behind this Wed leak?”
👉🏼10/7—WL releases Podesta emails
👉🏼10/10—Trump “I love Wikileaks!”
👉🏼10/12—WL to Jr “great to see you/your dad talking abt our publications”
👉🏼10/14—PENCE “Nothing could be further from the truth”https://t.co/jUdGdvRuQM— Dr. Dena Grayson (@DrDenaGrayson) November 13, 2017
FYI 3: Here’s why this could be a massive problem for Numbskull Junior:
Clint Watts on why, um, yes, this is not good for various and sundry reasons. (The term espionage comes to mind.) https://t.co/GIfbekRjHd
— Eric Garland (@ericgarland) November 14, 2017
7- this would be asking a foreign agent, Assange, for heads up about assistance from a foreign power (#Russia) to hurt another American pic.twitter.com/bbdgbgw1ez
— Clint Watts (@selectedwisdom) November 13, 2017
FYI 4: We love this tweet!
- FYI 5: THis one too.
We've now updated the story with @ByronTau's great catch: @realDonaldTrump tweeted about the release of Podesta's emails *15 minutes* after @Wikileaks wrote to @DonaldJTrumpJr about it. https://t.co/pVGEBqmB9O pic.twitter.com/pOszShJ7JY
— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) November 13, 2017
- Oh the Trump Jr.-Wikileaks reveal means that Mike Pence is caught up in another lie:
On the same morning [of messages between Trump Jr. and Wikileaks] Pence claimed on Fox News that the Trump campaign wasn’t “in cahoots” with WikiLeaks — which was then orchestrating the release of Hillary Clinton’s hacked emails — Trump Jr. tweeted out a link reportedly provided to him by WikiLeaks.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Pence told “Fox & Friends” co-host Steve Doocy when asked on Oct. 14, 2016, about reports of coordination between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks. “I think all of us have had concerns about WikiLeaks over the years and it’s just a reality of life today.” - Hey, Junior: who’s the “coffee boy” now?
“And speaking of George Papadopoulos, someone from Trump’s merrie band of incompetents needs to explain why Papadopoulos told a senior Trump adviser he had an “interesting message” from Russia the day after learning of Clinton “dirt.” Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?- This morning’s The Washington Post has an analysis of an unlikely (but nevertheless possible) series of events involving Roy Moore and Jeff Sessions that could put Donald “Crazy Uncle Dotard” Trump in a position to fire Robert Mueller.
- Later today, rest assured that House Democrats are going to grill Jeff Sessions about his ever-changing story about meetings between the Trump campaign and Russia — and more!
The Wikileaks-Donald Jr. story will have legs. Stay tuned, kids — looks like someone is going to need more lawyers…
