Newly revealed text messages show that Trump ally Roger Stone repeatedly talked up plans to lobby President Donald Trump to give WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange a “blanket pardon” — and that could come back to bite him legally.
Mother Jones reports that the texts, which were sent to talk show host Randy Credico, show Stone boasting about his plans to convince Trump to pardon Assange, who directly helped the president get elected in 2016 by releasing hacked emails stolen from Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
“I am working with others to get JA a blanket pardon,” Stone wrote to Credico this past January. “It’s very real and very possible.”
Even though Stone’s efforts to get Assange a pardon have yet to bear fruit, attorney Paul Rosenzweig tells Mother Jones that these efforts could nonetheless put him legal jeopardy.
“If Stone worked with WikiLeaks on the release of DNC emails, an effort by Stone to try to help Assange secure a pardon could be considered evidence of a conspiracy to obstruct justice,” explains Rosenzweig, who was a senior counsel to Ken Starr during the Whitewater investigation in the 1990s.
NBC News reported on Thursday that Mueller has messages that Stone sent to members of the Trump campaign in which he tried “to take credit for the release of Democratic emails” by WikiLeaks.