Opinion

OPINION: The Treachery Of Steve Bannon

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Roger Stone Political Consultant
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The Washington Post reported that former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon testified for the grand jury yesterday regarding his communications with me regarding the Wikileaks disclosures in October 2016.

The Special Counsel is reportedly probing whether I somehow directed or urged Wikileaks to release the allegedly hacked e-mails from the DNC in the wake of the Billy Bush accusations against Trump on Oct. 7. I did not — and there is no evidence to the contrary. In fact, Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange announced his release schedule on Oct. 2.

When Assange held a press event Oct. 2 (Oct. 3 U.S. time) and did not release any documents that day as had been widely expected, Bannon e-mailed me asking why.

I had long predicted an October release based on Assange’s June 2016 CNN interview with Anderson Cooper in which he said he had a trove of documents on Hillary and would release them. I had been told this would come in October for months by my source Randy Credico, whom I identified for the House Intelligence Committee.

Then Bannon (or his hatchet man Sam Nunberg) leaked this e-mail exchange to the various media outlets.

On Oct 4, 2016, at 9:25 AM, Steve Bannon < > wrote:
>
> What was that this morning???

———- Forwarded message ———
From: Roger Stone <
Date: Tue, Oct 4, 2016 at 9:47 AM
Subject: Re:
To: Steve Bannon < >

Fear. Serious security concern. He thinks they are going to kill him and the London police are standing done.

However –a load every week going forward.

Roger stone
_________________________

The source of Assange’s Security Concerns came from Credico

On March 9, 2018, I wrote on Stone Cold Truth:

When Assange made no disclosures on October 1st, Alex Jones was among those publicly m*therfucking Assange for losing his nerve. Credico told me that Assange had demurred on October 1st because of the concerns of one of his lawyers, Daniel Ellsberg, about threats to Assange’s life if he went forward with the disclosures. Remember, Hillary Clinton actually advocated the use of a drone strike to kill Assange in London, in order to prevent the disclosure of what she knew he had.

Credico told me that Secretary of State John Kerry had astonishingly gone to British Prime Minister Teresa May and asked that Britain rescind its diplomatic recognition of Ecuador for one day, stripping Assange of his asylum, so that United and British authorities could storm the Embassy and seize Assange …

Credico predicted that Assange “would do the right thing” and in fact Assange announced the schedule of a serious of forthcoming disclosures in his October 2nd remarks, which was little noticed by the press. He would follow this schedule to devastating effect.

More importantly my prediction of “a load every week going forward” is based on Assange’s own public announcement hours before-that there would be weekly releases going through and beyond the election and not any communication with Wikileaks or Assange. Politico reported this.

When Bannon’s minion Matt Boyle asked me if what Assange had was “good” I replied it was, based on Credico’s insistence the material was “devastating,” “bombshell” and would “change the race.” This turned out to be right, although — as I have testified — I never knew the content or source of the Wikileaks disclosures in advance.

Bannon’s animus toward me stems from a column I wrote for the Daily Caller arguing that he had outlived his usefulness in the Trump White House and should be fired. The next day, he was.

Bannon also told Rhe Washington Post that the idea to bring the woman victims to the debate was his while the paper trail tells a very different story.

If the grand jury was told that either of my comments to Bannon were based on anything other than information I had already attributed to my source under oath or information reported publicly that day, they were misled.

What I am guilty of is using publicly available information and a solid tip to bluff, posture, hype and punk Democrats on Twitter. This is called “politics.” It’s not illegal.

Roger Stone is a legendary Republican political consultant and a veteran of many national Republican presidential campaigns. He’s also the men’s fashion correspondent for The Daily Caller and editor of Stonezone.com.


The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.