Roger Stone, a longtime associate of President Donald Trump, said he knew the date of upcoming WikiLeaks disclosures in October 2016, despite claiming on Friday in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper that he didn’t.
“I had no advanced notice of the content source or exact timing of the WikiLeaks disclosures including the allegedly hacked emails,” Stone said on CNN. “I never received anything whatsoever from WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, anyone associated with them, or anyone else, including allegedly hacked emails, and passed them onto Donald Trump.”
Stone’s comments on Friday further complicate an already murky picture of what he knew and when he knew it.
On CNN, Stone, while discussing comments he had made claiming to have had dinner with Julian Assange in August 2016, also “categorically” denied having advance knowledge of the contents of the hacked emails.
Those comments stand in sharp contrast with ones he made on the October 2, 2016, episode of InfoWars’ radio show, to discuss a tweet he had sent a day earlier that read, “Wednesday @HillaryClinton is done. #Wikileaks.”
“Now, an intermediary met with him (Assange) in London recently – who is a friend of mine and a friend of his, a believer in freedom,” Stone said. “I am assured that the motherlode is coming Wednesday. It wouldn’t be an October surprise if I told you what it was, but I have reason to believe that it is devastating because people with political judgment who are aware of the subject matter tell me this. So right now, you see a terrible scrambling by the Clintonites to attempt to discredit Assange, to try to soften the blow.”
The emails were not released that Wednesday, October 5, but on that same day, Stone wrote on Twitter, “Libs thinking Assange will stand down are wishful thinking. Payload coming #Lockthemup.”
Two days later, WikiLeaks began releasing the first installment of John Podesta’s hacked emails.
In an email with CNN on Saturday, Stone did not address the conflicting statements. But he did say he got the release date wrong because, “My source changed his prediction.”
Stone did not respond to a follow-up question about why his answer about his source conflicted with his statements to Anderson Cooper denying having advance knowledge of the date of the release of WikiLeaks documents.
Stone has previously said the comments about the dinner were said in jest and that he has never met or spoken with Assange.