The Conversation (0)
News
Donald Trump's former longtime adviser Roger Stone has today been arrested by the FBI as part of the special counsel's investigation into the president's links to Russia during the 2016 election campaign.
The 66-year-old was held on seven charges including witness tampering, obstruction and false statements about his communications with WikiLeaks, who were responsible for the leak of thousands of emails that eventually damaged Hillary Clinton's campaign.
Stone was indicted on Thursday but wasn't arrested until the early hours of Friday by officials at his home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
It should be said that the indictment does accuse Stone of working with the Russian government but that he had close contacts with WikiLeaks.
A report from The New York Times states that Stone was aware of the email leak before it was released and that the Trump campaign would have been informed about it.
The report adds that three senior Trump campaign officials have told Robert Mueller's team that Stone gave the impression that he had access to unique inside information from WikiLeaks but would also seem to predict and take credit for when releases linked to Clinton happened.
Whether or not Trump knew about Stone's supposed relationship with WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange, is unclear, but during the 2016 campaign, Trump didn't hide his admiration for the website.
Several tweets from 2016 show see Trump mention WikiLeaks in relation to Clinton's emails, including one where he says that the website had provided 'incredible information.'
At a campaign rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on October 10, 2016, Trump read emails from the leak to his supporters, which had only just been released, and declared "I love WikiLeaks."
This combined with today's news has got a lot of people chatting, and it feels a little too suspicious to be a coincidence.
More: People want Ivanka Trump to be 'locked up' after she sent government emails from a personal account
Top 100
x