The White House declined to address a report on Tuesday that said Paul Manafort, Donald Trump's onetime campaign chairman, met in person with
The White House declined to address a report on Tuesday that said Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s onetime campaign chairman, met in person with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
So far the parties involved have either strongly denied the report or, like press secretary Sarah Sanders, demurred from commenting upon it one way or another.
Manafort and WikiLeaks both said there were no such meetings.
WikiLeaks said on Twitter that it was willing “to bet… a million dollars and the editor’s head” that the story was wrong and the anti-secrecy group said it was launching a legal defense fund.
Separately, Manafort also said the report isn’t true.
“This story is totally false and deliberately libelous,” he said in a statement. “I have never met Julian Assange or anyone connected to him. I have never been contacted by anyone connected to Wikileaks, either directly or indirectly. I have never reached out to Assange or Wikileaks on any matter.”
At the White House, meanwhile, Sanders did not say one way or another what she might be able to address about Manafort’s contacts. Instead, she restated the White House’s position that Trump didn’t have anything to do with the Russian attack on the 2016 election.
“We certainly remain confident in the White House assertion that the president was involved in no wrongdoing and not part of any collusion.”
The reported meetings
The Guardian newspaper reported on Tuesday that Manafort traveled to London to visit Assange three times from 2013 to 2016. Assange and WikiLeaks released an avalanche of stolen data aimed at causing chaos in the presidential election in 2016.
