The Gardian
An ally of Nigel Farage was asked to obtain secret information from WikiLeaks for Donald Trump’s team during the 2016 election campaign, according to US investigators.
Ted Malloch, a London-based academic close to Farage, was allegedly passed a request from a longtime Trump adviser to get advance copies of emails stolen from Trump’s opponents by Russian hackers and later published by WikiLeaks.
The allegation emerged in a draft legal document drawn up by Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and any collusion with Trump’s campaign team.
In response to a series of questions from the Guardian, including whether he had acted on the request to make contact with WikiLeaks, Malloch said in an email: “No and no comment.”
Trump appeared increasingly anxious on Wednesday following the latest burst of activity from the investigation that has clouded his presidency. He claimed, without evidence, in a tweet that Mueller’s team was “viciously telling witnesses to lie about facts” in return for favourable treatment.
The latest revelations come as the role of the former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has come under greater scrutiny amid reports in the US that Mueller is looking into his meeting with the Ecuadorian president in 2017. On Tuesday sources also told the Guardian that Manafort met with Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, a claim denied by both men.
Malloch, 66, has been under scrutiny by Mueller for months, amid suggestions that he may have served as an important nexus in 2016 between Trump’s White House bid and the campaign to secure Britain’s exit from the EU.
He was stopped and questioned by the FBI in March upon his arrival at a US airport and said his mobile phone was inspected by investigators. Mueller later subpoenaed him to appear before a grand jury considering the inquiry’s findings.
Malloch, who is American, told the BBC soon after Trump’s election win in November 2016: “I’ve had a lot of contact. I’ve been involved with the campaign for over a year and a half.” He was in Washington for Trump’s inauguration.
He was at the same time close to Farage and other influential Brexit campaigners. Farage wrote the afterword for a book by Malloch subtitled An Insider’s Look at the Trump Victory. Elsewhere in the book, Malloch said of Farage: “The government should use him as a back channel to Trump.”
Last year Glenn Simpson, a Washington-based investigator whose firm prepared the explosive Trump-Russia dossier in 2016, told congressional investigators: “I think Ted Malloch is an important person in this whole picture.” Simpson urged authorities to examine the activities of Malloch and Farage, who has denied any involvement.
Mueller’s draft legal document said that on 25 July 2016, Malloch was forwarded an email from Roger Stone, a notorious “dirty trickster” close to Trump. Stone wanted someone to make contact with Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, who had just published the first tranche of emails stolen from the Democratic party and was promising more revelations.
“Get to Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and get the pending WikiLeaks emails,” the email said, according to Mueller’s document. The email was sent by Stone to Jerome Corsi, a conservative author, who promptly forwarded it to his friend Malloch.
Mueller said Corsi understood Stone “to be in regular contact with senior members of the Trump campaign, including with then-candidate Donald J Trump”.
Six days later, Stone allegedly emailed Corsi again to say Malloch “should see Assange”. Then on 2 August, Corsi replied to Stone: “Word is friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps … Impact planned to be very damaging.” Corsi allegedly erased the emails from his computer but they were recovered by investigators.
In keeping with justice department convention, Mueller’s document did not identify WikiLeaks, Assange, Corsi, Stone or Malloch by name, referring to them instead with titles such as “person 1” and “overseas individual”.
Corsi said in an interview on Wednesday that Malloch did not respond to his email and did not visit Assange. He claimed to have gathered information about Assange’s intentions from other sources. Assange went on to publish emails hacked from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chief, John Podesta, disrupting her campaign.
“Ted Malloch and I were in touch. Roger Stone wanted Malloch to go and see Julian Assange and I did pass the message on,” said Corsi. “But to my knowledge he did not. I don’t think he ever saw Assange.”
The draft Mueller document accused Corsi of lying to investigators about his own involvement. It said Corsi claimed to have declined Stone’s request for help contacting WikiLeaks when in fact he passed it to Malloch. The draft was part of a plea agreement proposed by Mueller’s team, which Corsi has said he rejected. The document was shared with reporters by Corsi.
Corsi is one of several Mueller targets to have struck agreements with Trump’s lawyers to share information about the ongoing inquiry. In a highly unusual arrangement, Manafort has continued to pass information to Trump’s team even after signing a deal to cooperate with Mueller. That deal was scrapped on Monday as Mueller said Manafort had continued lying to investigators.
Malloch, who once taught at the University of Oxford, was last year discussed as a candidate to be Trump’s US ambassador to the EU before a Financial Times article exposed numerous false claims he had made about his credentials.