Roger Stone, a former associate to President Donald Trump, said Russia was likely behind the hack of Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails to help the now-president defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, according to a new report.
CNN listened to numerous interviews Stone gave in the past and now reports that he made several comments implying Russia was the culprit of the DNC hack in the summer of 2016, including in an interview with Alex Jones in July 2016, before pivoting to casting doubt Russia was behind it.
“The reason that the Russians are probably leaking this information is because they don’t want a nuclear war either. [Hillary Clinton] is bent on a war that benefits her donors and the multinational corporations and the defense contractors,” Stone said in the interview on July 27, 2016.
A few days later, Stone again seemed to imply Russia was behind the DNC hack during another interview with Jones.
“This is why they used the unsecured server to hide the very things that I suspect someone, most likely the Russians, is going to drop on the American people like truthbombs throughout this election,” he told Jones. “She can raise a billion dollars and it may not matter. Trump may beat her like a drum as he pounces on and helps further public knowledge of every one of the bombshells that is coming.”
But on August 4th, Stone moved away from suggesting Russia was behind it, after meeting with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, according to CNN’s report, insisting that Guccifer 2.0 was behind the hack.
Last month Guccifer 2.0 was identified as a Russian intelligence officer when he did not activate a VPN, leaving his Moscow-based IP address on servers of an American social media company.
The Washington Post recently reported that Stone had boasted to associates that he knew of the DNC email hack months before they happened. The political operative’s connection to WikiLeaks has been under fire for months.
Stone told the news outlet he was making his “own timeline” that would make CNN look “foolish.”
You can read all of CNN’s report here.
