Emma Loop at Buzzfeed:
President Donald Trump’s team was “very happy” that Wikileaks released emails hacked from the Democratic party during the 2016 race, a former campaign official told investigators from the special counsel’s office.
Rick Gates, who served as Trump’s deputy campaign chair, told Robert Mueller’s team last year that the release of the hacked emails “offered a mode of deflection for the campaign after a sink in polling numbers following Trump's comments about Ted Cruz's father at the end of the Republican National Convention,” according to interview summaries obtained by BuzzFeed News.
Cruz, a senator from Texas, refused to endorse Trump at the convention. Afterwards, Trump made a comment linking Cruz’s father to President John F. Kennedy’s killer.
Gates also told investigators that the Republican National Committee had “non-public information” about the timing of the Wikileaks releases, but “did not specify who at the RNC knew this information.”
The RNC disputes this, saying it "had no advanced knowledge" of the releases. "Gates has already pled guilty to lying to federal authorities. Why would anyone believe him now?" RNC communications director Michael Ahrens told BuzzFeed News on Saturday.
US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russian intelligence services were behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee and passed the information on to Wikileaks, which the CIA has labelled a “non-state hostile intelligence service.”
Holy crap, this section of Mueller’s memos is damning:— Caroline Orr (@RVAwonk) November 2, 2019
-“The RNC also indicates they knew the timing of the upcoming [Wikileaks] releases.”
....and...
-“Candidate Trump said, ‘get the emails.’ [Michael] Flynn said he could use his intelligence sources to obtain the emails.” pic.twitter.com/lGMXBnEN4V
