According the Stone indictment
"After the July 22, 2016, release of stolen (Democratic National Committee) emails by Organization 1, a senior Trump Campaign official was directed to contact STONE about any additional releases and what other damaging information Organization 1 had regarding the Clinton Campaign. STONE thereafter told the Trump Campaign about potential future releases of damaging material by Organization 1,"
Now why would anyone ask Stone about that? Why would someone in the Trump assume Stone would know anything about the hacked emails if they did not have any prior knowledge of the hack before the release?
According to Stone it is because he was paying attention to what Assange was saying to the media, he was observant and he had enough sense to understand that this was a big deal.
Red:
Say what?
Applying Hawkeye10's answer to the questions asked:
- Blue question:
- One would ask Stone about "additional releases and what other damaging information [Wikileaks] had regarding the Clinton Campaign "because [Stone said] he was paying attention to what Assange was saying to the media, ... observant and ... had enough sense to understand that this[the hack and the information obtained and about to be released from it] was a big deal."
- Pink question:
- Someone in the Trump [campaign] assumed Stone [knew something] about the hacked emails, [even though the campaign employee knew that insofar as Stone wasn't part of the Wikileaks organization, Stone had to be presumed to have lacked] prior knowledge of [an upcoming] hack/release "because [Stone said] he was paying attention to what Assange was saying to the media, ... observant and ... had enough sense to understand that [the hack and the information obtained and about to be released from it] was a big deal."
First, I realize, Hawkeye10, that "your" answer is presumably what you think Stone would offer in answer to Sangha's questions. Now, with that out of the way....
I don't buy Stone's/Hawkeye10's explanation. I don't because the only thing that Stone could say to a rational person and that would give that person reason to think Stone had any awareness of the nature, extent and timing of upcoming Wikileaks releases of emails hacked from the DNC or Clinton, or Wikileaks releases of any other information damaging to Clinton, is something to the effect of this: "I have contacts who can give me advance notice of the nature, extent and/or timing of Wikileaks releases of information."
No amount of observation is going to allow anyone to tell
folks in the "Trump Campaign about [Wikileaks'] potential future releases of damaging material," not about what'd be the content of those releases, not about the timing of those releases, and not about how many upcoming releases there'd be. The only way for Stone to obtain and share such information was for him to have a contact who was either:
- part of Wikileaks management, or
- someone who knew someone (etc.) who was part of Wikileaks management, or
- someone who'd provided to Wikileaks the information Wikileaks management had agreed to release and who also knew of the agreement Wikileaks had made re: releasing that information.
Absent such a contact, Stone's remarks about upcoming Wikileaks information drops would be nothing other than speculation that was neither better nor worse than that which literally anyone could have made.
