Donald Trump Jr. Exchanged Messages With WikiLeaks
The messages, seen in an email, mark the first evidence of direct contact between senior Trump campaign officials and the leak-spilling website
.. Donald Trump Jr. was in communication during the 2016 campaign with WikiLeaks, the online operation that last year published a trove of damaging Democratic emails that the U.S. intelligence community concluded were stolen by Russian hackers, according to an email obtained by The Wall Street Journal.
On Sept. 20, 2016, WikiLeaks contacted the son of President Donald Trump through a direct message on Twitter to advise him about the pending launch of a website that would highlight ties between the elder Mr. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to the email.
“A PAC run, anti-Trump site putintrump.org is about to launch,” WikiLeaks warned the younger Mr. Trump, who was a top campaign adviser to his father.
The WikiLeaks message told him it had “guessed the password” behind the website, and asked Mr. Trump Jr.: “Any comments?”
.. He subsequently forwarded the email to top campaign aides, including then-campaign chief executive Steve Bannon, campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, senior adviser Jared Kushner and digital director Brad Parscale, according to the email viewed by The Journal.
“Do you know the people mentioned and what the conspiracy they are looking for could be?,” he asked the group.
.. The exchange—which was first reported by the Atlantic on Monday and is part of a collection of documents turned over to congressional investigators by the younger Mr. Trump’s lawyers—marks the first evidence of direct contact between senior Trump campaign officials and the Sweden-based WikiLeaks.
.. On Oct. 3, 2016, WikiLeaks asked him to “comment on/push” a quote by Mrs. Clinton saying she wanted to “Just drone” Mr. Assange.
“Already did that earlier today. It’s amazing what she can get away with,” the president’s son responded.
.. On Oct. 12, 2016, WikiLeaks said it was “great to see you and your dad talking about our publications” and suggested a link for the elder Mr. Trump to tweet if he were to mention the website, according to the Atlantic.
Fifteen minutes later, the elder Mr. Trump tweeted: “Very little pick-up by the dishonest media of incredible information provided by WikiLeaks. So dishonest! Rigged system!”
He didn’t include the suggested link but his son tweeted it out two days later. “For those who have the time to read about all the corruption and hypocrisy all the @wikileaks emails are right here: http://wlsearch.tk/,” the younger Mr. Trump wrote.