Mueller notes show that Trump wanted stolen Democratic emails possessed by WikiLeaks

President Trump and officials on his 2016 presidential campaign had several private conversations about how they could obtain stolen Democratic emails WikiLeaks had possession of in 2016, according to new interview notes from former special counsel Robert Mueller obtained and released by CNN.

The notes recount interviews with former deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates in which he detailed the Trump campaign’s efforts to obtain damaging information on 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, including emails that the intelligence community later concluded were stolen by Russian hackers. 

{mosads}”Gates recalled a time on the campaign aircraft when candidate Trump said, ‘get the emails.’ [Michael] Flynn said he could use his intelligence sources to obtain the emails,” investigators wrote in a summary of Gates’s April 2018 interview with Mueller’s team. 

Flynn was a foreign policy adviser for the campaign and ultimately became Trump’s first national security adviser. He pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in December 2017 and faces up to five years in prison on the current charge.

“Flynn had the most Russia contacts of anyone on the campaign and was in the best position to ask for the emails if they were out there,” the investigators added. 

Gates went on to describe how advisers to Trump and Trump’s family members mulled methods of getting the stolen documents.

“Donald Trump Jr. would ask where the emails were in family meetings. Michael Flynn, [Jared] Kushner, [Paul] Manafort, [Redacted] [Corey] Lewandowski, Jeff Sessions, and Sam Clovis expressed interest in obtaining the emails as well. Gates said the priority focuses of the Trump campaign opposition research team were Clinton’s emails and contributions to the Clinton Foundation. Flynn, [Redacted] [Jeff] Sessions, Kushner, and [Donald] Trump Jr. were all focused on opposition topics,” Gates told investigators, according to the summary. 

Mueller had previously written in his final conclusions that Trump’s campaign repeatedly showed interest in the hacked emails that Wikileaks had, but several details of the report were redacted. 

Trump infamously publicly requested that Russia provide the hacked documents, sparking criticism that he was inviting foreign election meddling. 

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said in July 2016, referring to Clinton’s deleted messages. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

CNN obtained 274 pages of Mueller team interview notes, emails and documents related to Gates’s cooperation, among other things, after suing the Justice Department for access. According to the news outlet, CNN will release more of these new documents in the coming months.