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Donald Trump and son 'offered early access' to hacked Wikileaks documents during 2016 campaign

Donald Trump Jr said he did not recall receiving the email 

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The Independent Online
Donald Trump Jr and US President Donald Trump received an email from Wikileaks offering 'early access' to Wikileaks hacked documents. Win McNamee/Getty Images

In September 2016, then-candidate Donald Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr, and others were offered a decryption key to gain access to leaked Wikileaks documents ahead of the general public.

The email was provided to investigators working on the Congressional inquiry into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign team and Russian officials during the 2016 US election.

The email was sent on 4 September and Congress is attempting to figure out whether the email is proof of a legitimate attempt by Wikileaks to contact the Trump campaign, CNN reported. 

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Donald Trump Jr refuses to divulge details of Russia call with father

There is no indication whether any of the recipients acted on the email. 

Mr Trump Jr has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and during testimony in front of the House Intelligence Committee on 8 December said he did not remember receiving this particular email. 

Just one month before, the hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) server were released. One month later Wikileaks would begin leaking emails from John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.

Congress is also unable to identify the sender of the email, someone calling themselves "Mike Erickson". 

This person addressed the email to Mr Trump Jr, his personal assistant, and Mr Trump - who has famously said he does not use email. 

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation

  • 1/17 Paul Manafort

    Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Mueller’s team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts.

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  • 2/17 Rick Gates

    Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts.

    AP

  • 3/17 George Papadopoulos

    George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    Twitter

  • 4/17 Donald Trump Jr

    The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting.

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  • 5/17 Jared Kushner

    Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak.

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  • 6/17 Rob Goldstone

    Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign.

    AP images

  • 7/17 Aras and Emin Agalarov

    Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone.

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  • 8/17 Natalia Veselnitskaya

    Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers.

    Getty Images

  • 9/17 Mike Flynn

    Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian.

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  • 10/17 Sergey Kislyak

    Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia.

    Reuters

  • 11/17 Roger Stone

    Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services.

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  • 12/17 Jeff Sessions

    The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak.

    Getty Images

  • 13/17 Carter Page

    Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line.

    Reuters

  • 14/17 Jeffrey "JD" Gorden

    Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia.

    Creative Commons

  • 15/17 James Comey

    Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision.

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  • 16/17 Preet Bharara

    Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor.

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  • 17/17 Sally Yates

    Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia.

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It is not an uncommon for Wikileaks to post a file of leaked documents online, but lock it so that only people with the specific decryption key can access it. 

Adding to the controversy over this particular email is that Mr Trump Jr has had prior contact with Wikileaks, by his own admission. 

He released direct messages on Twitter he had exchanged with Wikileaks after a report from The Atlantic magazine brought the communications to light. 

Appropriately, he tweeted: "Here is the entire chain of messages with @wikileaks (with my whopping 3 responses) which one of the congressional committees has chosen to selectively leak. How ironic!"

Congress is trying to figure out whether there is a link between those communications and the decryption key email. 

Mr Trump Jr, according to sources who spoke to CNN, said the messages he shared were akin to speaking to any major media outlet. 

The decryption email is just the latest in a string of revelations in the investigation into alleged collusion - conducted in parallel by Congress and the FBI with special prosecutor Robert Mueller. 

Former campaign manager Paul Manafort, deputy Rick Gates, and aide George Papadopoulos have all been indicted already.

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Mr Manafort and Mr Gates were brought up on unrelated fraud and financial crimes and Mr Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia-linked individuals. 

On 1 December, former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI as well. He was indicted for making false statements about the nature of a 29 December 2016 conversation he had with former Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. 

Both investigations are continuing.