THE TIGHTENING NOOSE:

As has been already documented, Stone, during the Russian attack on the 2016 election, repeatedly declared he was in contact with WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange. Throughout that stretch, he sent out tweets predicting WikiLeaks would release material that would torpedo Hillary Clinton's campaign--tweets that reinforced the impression he was in communication with WikiLeaks while it was part of the Russian operation. Stone--who remained in contact with Trump and his campaign after he was ousted from his official role in the Trump 2016 effort--also privately communicated with Guccifer 2.0, an online persona created by the Russian hackers. And Stone repeatedly claimed in public that Moscow had nothing to do with the hack of the Democratic National Committee servers, echoing Moscow's propaganda. After the Russia scandal exploded, Stone changed his story and insisted that he had not been in direct touch with WikiLeaks and Assange. That is, he has essentially said he was lying and exaggerating during the 2016 campaign. He maintained it had all been "posture, bluff, hype."

Yet Mueller's report tantalizingly suggests that, in 2016, Stone directly interacted with Trump about WikiLeaks and its plans to release the documents pilfered by the Russian cyberthieves.

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