Special Counsel Robert Mueller is believed to be examining Trump campaign adviser Ted Malloch’s appearances on the Russian state broadcaster RT, thereby looking for new hints about the investigation into the alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump presidential campaign in 2016. Malloch reportedly disclosed his questioning with regard to RT to his friend Jerome Corsi, an author also targeted in the investigation: “They thought maybe he was coordinating with Russia – and RT is Russia”, Corsi told The Guardian, while Malloch denies any coordination, as well as connection to WikiLeaks.
Visitor logs from the Ecuadorian Embassy, where Assange has been staying under asylum since 2012, show that RT staff met and interviewed Assange on the same day, on 2 August 2016, that Roger Stone, the long-time Trump associate was passed information on Assange’s plans to release the Democrats’ emails, Mueller’s draft legal documents suggested, according to the British newspaper.
There is no evidence, meanwhile, of RT sharing information with Stone or any other people, with the Russian broadcaster blasting it as “ludicrous and baseless” to claim that information was passed from RT staff to Malloch or Corsi.
According to a draft court filing, cited by The Guardian, in late July 2016 Stone was striving to obtain advance copies of upcoming emails that WikiLeaks intended to publish after it initially released thousands from the Democratic Party, which prompted the resignation of its chairwoman, and with this in mind, on 31 July, he allegedly emailed Corsi to say their mutual friend Malloch “should see Assange”.
On 2 August 2016, Corsi allegedly replied, announcing alleged intelligence data on the “pending” releases. “Word is friend in [the] embassy plans 2 more dumps”, it said. The same day Corsi replied, Assange spoke to RT, telling them about his intentions to release emails that contained information relating to the Clinton Foundation, which featured in the interview aired several days later, on August 6.
RT said in a statement that the information voiced in the interview “largely echoed” earlier interviews Assange had given, including to the independent news show Democracy Now. Stone, for his part, has repeatedly denied all allegations that he knew the source or content of the DNC emails, telling NBC News that his correspondence doesn’t suggest that it was the other way round. “None of these emails provide any evidence or proof that I knew in advance about the source or content of any of the allegedly stolen or allegedly hacked emails published by WikiLeaks”, Stone said.
“These emails prove nothing other than the fact that Jerry Corsi is an aggressive investigative reporter”.
Malloch was detained for a short time by Mueller’s investigators at Boston’s Logan Airport in March this year. He was questioned and handed a grand jury subpoena, but his appearance at the grand jury in Washington DC was postponed, while it was unclear in March why Mueller would express interest in the campaign adviser.
Previously, there was much speculation on Western mainstream media over another American figure, who previously appeared on RT, former US national security adviser Michael Flynn. In December 2015, Flynn participated in RT's official ceremony in Moscow dedicated to the broadcaster's 10th anniversary. The event was also attended by Putin among its hundreds of VIP guests, and his brief polite exchange with Flynn appeared enough to arouse rumours of Flynn's involvement in the alleged Trump campaign's collusion with Russia.
In summer 2016, WikiLeaks published tens of thousands of emails from the Democratic Party. The DNC subsequently alleged they could have been hacked by Russian intelligence services, with Trump’s Democratic rival in the presidential race, Hillary Clinton, blaming her defeat squarely on the hack.
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The Kremlin denied the accusations, saying that it never colluded with either candidate and never meddled in the US elections. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election, as well as accusations of coordination between Moscow and the Trump team. Russia has denied all allegations of interfering in the election, calling the accusations "absurd”. The US president has also repeatedly rejected allegations of collusion, calling the investigation "a despicable witch hunt”.