Could the Trump campaign really not have known that in dealing with WikiLeaks it was dealing with Russia?
In his indictment of the Trump torpedo Roger Stone, the special counsel Robert Mueller noted that on June 14,2016, the Democratic National Committee announced “that it had been hacked by Russian government actors.”
According to the indictment, unsealed Friday, Mr. Stone participated in and helped conceal an effort by the Trump campaign to cooperate with WikiLeaks in publicizing thousands of emails stolen from the Clinton campaign, which was done to devastating political effect. Mr. Stone stands accused of obstructing an official proceeding, making multiple false statements to Congress and tampering with a witness.
Around June and July of 2016, the indictment says, Mr. Stone told “senior Trump campaign officials” that WikiLeaks possessed stolen emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s chances of being president. It released the first batch on July 22, roiling the Democratic National Convention, which began three days later.
Maybe Mr. Trump and his associates had no idea who stole the emails and did not connect this bonanza with “Russian government actors.”
Mr. Trump and his associates might have thought that Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, was just being a mischievous scamp, not passing along communications stolen by Russian intelligence, most of which came from the hacker Guccifer 2.0, an online persona created by Russian military intelligence officers.
