Donald Trump tweeted about the hacked emails of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta 15 minutes after WikiLeaks asked his son Donald Trump Jr. to, the Atlantic reported on Monday.
It was part of a pattern of the “radical transparency” group attempting, and sometimes succeeding, to make contact with Trump Jr., offering help in the presidential campaign and making requests. U.S. intelligence agencies believe that WikiLeaks was chosen by the Russian government to release information it had hacked.
On October 3, 2016, WikiLeaks sent a private direct message to Trump Jr. “Hiya, it’d be great if you guys could comment on/push this story,” WikiLeaks said, attaching a quote from then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton asking why the U.S. couldn’t “just drone” WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
“Already did that earlier today,” Trump Jr. responded. “It’s amazing what she can get away with.”
On October 12, 2016, WikiLeaks messaged Trump Jr. again: “Strongly suggest your dad tweets this link if he mentions us,” WikiLeaks said, appending wlsearch.tk, which it said would help Trump’s followers parse stolen Democratic documents. “There’s many great stories the press are missing and we’re sure some of your follows [sic] will find it,” WikiLeaks went on. “Btw we just released Podesta Emails Part 4.”
Trump Jr. didn’t respond, but just 15 minutes later, Donald Trump tweeted, “Very little pick-up by the dishonest media of incredible information provided by WikiLeaks. So dishonest! Rigged system!” Two days later, Trump Jr. tweeted the link WikiLeaks sent him. “For those who have the time to read about all the corruption and hypocrisy all the @wikileaks emails are right here: http://wlsearch.tk/,” he wrote.
The messages were turned over to Congressional investigators by Trump Jr.’s lawyers.
“Over the last several months, we have worked cooperatively with each of the committees and have voluntarily turned over thousands of documents in response to their requests,” said Alan Futerfas, an attorney for Donald Trump Jr. “We have no concerns about these documents and any questions raised about them have been easily answered in the appropriate forum.”
WikiLeaks hasn’t commented.
