Mueller investigating whether Roger Stone met with Assange: report

Special counsel Robert Mueller is looking into claims made by Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone that he met with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

WikiLeaks released thousands of documents during the 2016 campaign that U.S. intelligence agencies believe came from Russian operatives and were aimed to hurt Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

In an email to fellow former Trump adviser Sam Nunberg dated Aug. 4, 2016, Stone claims that he “dined with Julian Assange last night,” according to the Journal.

Nunberg told The Washington Post earlier this month that investigators working for Mueller asked him to describe his conversation with Stone about meeting with Assange.

Stone has said that the email was a joke and that he never spoke with Assange.

{mosads}Mueller’s team investigating Russia’s election meddling has asked about the email during testimony before a grand jury, a source familiar with the matter told the Journal.

Stone said he was flying out to Los Angeles the night before he sent the email. The Journal confirmed that a flight from Miami to Los Angeles matches a screenshot of the flight information Stone provided, but could not confirm he was on it.

Stone has been inconsistent about any contact he has had with Assange and WikiLeaks. He previously stated that he communicated with Assange but told the Journal on Friday that was not the case.

The day after Stone sent the email in August 2016 in which he claimed to have dined with Assange, Stone tweeted: “Hillary lies about Russian Involvement in DNC hack -Julian Assange is a hero.”

Later in the month, he told a Republican group in Florida that he had communicated with Assange and believed more documents about Clinton would be released.

Weeks before the emails of John Podesta, chairman of Clinton’s campaign, were posted online, Stone tweeted that “it will soon [be] the Podesta’s time in the barrel.”

About a month before the election, Stone again claimed that WikiLeaks had damaging material on Clinton. Two weeks later, the first of Podesta’s hacked emails were made public.

In recent weeks, President Trump has gone after Mueller’s investigation, claiming that it should have never started because there was no collusion.

His comments have some people worried he might try to fire Mueller — something he has reportedly tried to do in the past —  but the White House has said it is cooperating with the investigation.