Jerome Corsi, a right-wing conspiracy theorist and associate of political operative Roger Stone, is in plea negotiations with special counsel Robert Mueller.
Corsi confirmed the talks, first reported by The Washington Post, to NBC News on Friday. Corsi's attorney, David Gray, did not immediately respond to CNBC's requests for comment. A spokesman for the special counsel also did not immediately respond to CNBC.
Corsi said in an interview with NBC earlier this month that Mueller's team told him he would be indicted. Gray had previously told journalists the special counsel's office likely put Corsi in its cross hairs because of his connections to Stone.
Mueller is investigating Russian election interference during the 2016 presidential election, as well as potential collusion between the Kremlin and Trump campaign-related people. The investigators are reportedly looking into U.S. individuals' contacts with WikiLeaks, the whistleblowing database that published stolen emails of Democratic leaders during the 2016 campaign. U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that the emails were hacked and shared by Russian government-backed sources.
Stone, a longtime confidant of President Donald Trump, hinted that he had advance knowledge of WikiLeaks' plans to leak the emails from high-ranking Democrats, including Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign chairman John Podesta. The Post reported that Corsi provided research on Democrats to Stone during the campaign. Stone has since denied that he had any inside information about WikiLeaks.
In a statement, Stone said: "It is clear from his recent videos and his recent interviews that my friend Dr. Corsi has been under a tremendous amount of pressure and it is beginning to affect him profoundly."
He added: "As for what he may have known and when he may have known it, his discussions with me regarding the Podesta brothers were strictly limited to their overseas business interests unearthed in the Panama Papers and other public sources that were writing about John and Tony's activities. To the best of my recollection, there was not one publication, mainstream or otherwise, that ever mentioned John Podesta's email prior to their posting by WikiLeaks. As I told The Washington Post if Dr. Corsi knew that John Podesta's emails had been obtained by anyone and would be published he never shared this information with me nor did he give me any such documents."
from Top News & Analysis https://ift.tt/2ziEijl
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