Mueller Probes Possible Witness Intimidation by Roger Stone
Former Trump adviser angry that radio personality Randy Credico denies being WikiLeaks conduit
By Shelby Holliday and Aruna Viswanatha Updated Nov. 14, 2018 4:40 p.m. ET
wsj.com
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office is exploring whether longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone tried to intimidate and discredit a witness who is contradicting Mr. Stone’s version of events about his contacts with WikiLeaks, according to people who have spoken to Mr. Mueller’s investigators.
In grand jury sessions and interviews, prosecutors have repeatedly asked about emails, text messages and online posts involving Mr. Stone and his former friend, New York radio personality Randy Credico, the people said. Mr. Stone has asserted that Mr. Credico was his backchannel to WikiLeaks, a controversial transparency group, an assertion Mr. Credico denies.
Mr. Mueller’s investigators are probing whether Mr. Stone had direct contact with WikiLeaks and knew ahead of time about its release of stolen Democratic emails, as he claimed during the campaign and now denies. Mr. Stone says he is angry at Mr. Credico because his ex-friend has “refused to tell the truth” about being his conduit to WikiLeaks.
Filmmaker David Lugo, who knows both men, said in an interview he has testified before Mr. Mueller’s grand jury about a blog post Mr. Stone helped him draft that was harshly critical of Mr. Credico. Another witness, businessman Bill Samuels, said he was questioned by Mr. Mueller’s team about Mr. Credico’s reaction to allegedly threatening messages sent by Mr. Stone.
Prosecutors also are examining messages between Messrs. Stone and Credico that involve the radio personality’s decision to assert his Fifth Amendment before Congress, according to a person familiar with the probe.
WikiLeaks released thousands of emails from and to John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, before the 2016 election. Mr. Mueller’s office has alleged that the emails were illegally hacked by Russian intelligence operatives, then released through WikiLeaks and fake online personas to influence the election.
President Trump has repeatedly denied colluding with Russia, and Moscow has rejected assertions that it interfered in American politics. WikiLeaks didn’t respond to a request for comment.
In an email to The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Stone categorically denied any effort to intimidate Mr. Credico. An attorney for Mr. Stone said he hasn’t been contacted by Mr. Mueller’s office. A spokesman for Mr. Mueller’s office declined to comment.
For the past few months, Mr. Credico has expressed concern about public attacks from Mr. Stone and his associates. “He’s getting his friends out there to slime me,” Mr. Credico said in a message to the Journal earlier this month. Mr. Credico appeared before the grand jury in September.
Mr. Mueller’s team is examining whether Mr. Stone, along with several other pro-Trump activists, knew in advance about WikiLeaks’ release of Democrats’ emails in the 2016 campaign, according to people familiar with the matter. At the heart of Mr. Mueller’s inquiry is the question of whether anyone in Mr. Trump’s orbit participated in Russia’s efforts to hack and release the materials.
During the campaign, Mr. Stone said repeatedly that he was in communication with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and predicted Mr. Assange would release batches of emails damaging to Mrs. Clinton, a prediction that proved accurate.
Since then, he has said his statements were exaggerated and that his knowledge of WikiLeaks’ plans came from Mr. Credico, who had interviewed Mr. Assange on his radio program in August 2016. WikiLeaks has said it was not in touch with Mr. Stone at the time he was publicly claiming contact with the group.
Mr. Stone first cited Mr. Credico as a backchannel last fall before the House Intelligence Committee, and since then has attacked Mr. Credico directly and through associates. Mr. Credico has also publicly criticized Mr. Stone.
In emails sent to Mr. Credico and reviewed by the Journal, Mr. Stone threatened to “sue the f—” out of him, called him “a loser a liar and a rat” and told him to “prepare to die c— sucker.”
Mr. Stone was also involved in drafting a May blog post harshly criticizing Mr. Credico, which he gave to Mr. Lugo, the filmmaker.
Mr. Lugo published a version of the article for ArtVoice, a website Mr. Stone writes for, with the headline "Phony Russia Gate, Roger Stone & the lies of Randy Credico.” The piece asserted that Mr. Credico had said on multiple occasions that he was Mr. Stone’s conduit to WikiLeaks.
“They were looking into the intimidation stuff at first,” said Mr. Lugo in a text message to the Journal, referring to his talks with Mr. Mueller’s team. “They were following up on ‘conspiring’ ” to intimidate a witness, he said.
Mr. Lugo said that while it was his idea to write the blog piece, the first draft came from Mr. Stone, and he softened some of the language so it wasn’t “too personal.” “I gave them the entire email chain showing them how it was created, so we will see what happens,” said Mr. Lugo, who said the emails show he didn’t attempt to intimidate a witness.
Mr. Stone said he suggested Mr. Lugo write an op-ed because he and Mr. Lugo were frustrated with Mr. Credico’s “many lies in the press.” A writer who works for Mr. Stone helped with the draft, he said, because Mr. Lugo “is not an experienced writer.”
Mr. Lugo said he stands by his claim in the article that Mr. Credico told him he was Mr. Stone’s back channel to WikiLeaks in May of 2017. He also says he turned over to prosecutors a chain of combative messages that Mr. Credico sent to him after the story was published.
Mr. Credico has said his previous statements to Mr. Lugo and others about being Mr. Stone’s “back channel” were made in jest and at Mr. Stone’s urging.
Separately, Mr. Mueller’s investigators in September questioned Mr. Samuels, a businessman friend of Mr. Credico, about Mr. Credico’s reaction to the allegedly threatening messages from Mr. Stone. In some of those messages, Mr. Stone threatened to sue Mr. Credico and accused him of wearing a wire for Mr. Mueller, the Journal has reported.
Mr. Samuels told the Journal that Mr. Credico was intimidated almost to the point of a nervous breakdown. Mr. Samuels’ involvement in the Mueller probe was reported earlier this month by the New York Times.
Mr. Stone said, the “threatening messages he sent to me are as bad and worse. Our entire exchange is blunt vulgar and vicious but I never urged him to do anything other than tell the truth.”
Mr. Mueller’s interest in messages between Mr. Credico and Mr. Stone was earlier reported by CNN.
In March, when Mr. Credico worried he was in the crosshairs of the Intelligence Committee, Mr. Stone assured him Democrats couldn’t act against him and the Republicans would not. “The Minority has no authority,” Mr. Stone wrote, in a message reviewed by the Journal.
Mr. Stone said that while he discussed with Mr. Credico whether to assert his Fifth Amendment rights, “text messages in my possession prove he did so on the advice of his attorney.”
The messages, which were reviewed by the Journal, show Mr. Credico telling Mr. Stone that his lawyers wanted him to take the Fifth.
Write to Aruna Viswanatha at Aruna.Viswanatha@wsj.com
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