On Nov. 14, I directed my attorneys to release text messages proving, as I testified under oath, Randy Credico was the source of both the explosive description and the October 2016 release date of Hillary Clinton materials that Julian Assange described on CNN in June of that year.
They also prove that Credico’s repeated claim that he could not have been my source in late July because he did not meet and interview the Wikileaks publisher until late August is irrelevant: Credico says the source of his tip is a Wikileaks lawyer who is “one of my best friends.”
The texts also show that when the Assange held a Press event on Oct. 2 but did not release any material, Credico urged me to be patient as the material would be released shortly. That turned out to be true. In all fairness, Politico reported on Oct. 4, “Assange said the organization would publish documents on various subjects every week for the next 10 weeks, and vowed that the U.S. election-related documents would all come out before Election Day.”
Consistent with my testimony, nothing in these text exchanges suggests that I knew of the source or content of any of the allegedly stolen or hacked material released by Wikileaks.
If Randy Credico testified contrary to this before the Mueller grand jury, he committed perjury.
Equally ludicrous is a report that I somehow sought to intimidate Randy Credico. I was and am angry at Randy, a friend of almost 20 years, for his failure to tell the truth. How do you intimidate someone to tell the truth? Two witnesses, Tyler Nixon and David Lugo, testified before the grand jury that Credico told them each that he was my back-channel source. According to The Daily Caller, Credico threatened to “put a bullet” in Lugo’s head. Who tried to intimidate who?
After watching Randy Credico tell falsehoods night after night on MSNBC, I spoke to an equally frustrated David Lugo and urged him to make a video laying out the truth (he is, after all, a film-maker). He ultimately decided to write an op-ed refuting Credico’s stories. Because he is not an experienced writer a writer on my staff helped with his draft. The piece is 100 percent accurate and truthful. I helped get it placed. In what world is the exercise of your First Amendment rights in truthful article an act of intimidation or interference in an investigation?
As I said in my now-iconic tweet, “THE Podesta’s time in the barrel will come” was based on my frustration that the Clintonistas were actively promoting stories about then-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort’s Eastern European business activities, and a briefing by Dr. Jerome Corsi pointing out several public sources online that showed John and Tony Podesta were deeply involved in lucrative business dealings with oligarchs around Putin — including uranium, gas, aluminum and banking.
I asked Dr. Corsi for a round-up of the material I had looked at online, which he subsequently supplied. The purpose of the memo was to send to reporters to generate coverage of the Podestas’ Russian business dealings. If Corsi knew that someone had stolen John Podesta’s emails, he certainly never told me this, nor is there any e-mail or text messages proving otherwise. This was before Hillary ginned up Russophobia as an issue and I did have to reconstruct the sequence of events in my mind but the statement I submitted for the record for the House Intelligence Committee is 100 percent accurate.
Equally false is the notion that I had any advance notice of the release of the Billy Bush/NBC/ Grab them by the p***y” tape or that I somehow reached out to Wikileaks directly or through Dr. Jerome Corsi (or anyone else) to urge them to release material to distract from the NBC story. That is a fairy tale without any supporting evidence. It is false and never happened. That Corsi and I spoke on the phone on Oct. 7 and 8 proves nothing. We spoke often during the presidential campaign.
Despite almost two years of being under intense microscopic investigation (three years if you include what The New York Times reported on Jan. 20, 2017), including the federal surveillance of me during the 2016 presidential campaign, there is still no evidence of Russian collusion, Wikileaks collaboration or evidence that I knew the source or content of the allegedly stolen or hacked emails published by Wikileaks.
Enough already.
Roger Stone is a legendary Republican political consultant and a veteran of many national Republican presidential campaigns. He’s also the men’s fashion correspondent for The Daily Caller and editor of Stonezone.com.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.