**Trump’s True Crimes – Episode 75: Roger Stone & Julian Assange**

Welcome to *Trump’s True Crimes*. This is Episode 75: *Roger Stone & Julian Assange.*

If Donald Trump had a dirty-tricks man, it was Roger Stone. A political operative since the Nixon years, Stone prided himself on living by the motto “admit nothing, deny everything, launch counterattacks.” In 2016, that dark philosophy found its perfect match in Trump’s campaign—and in Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.

Here’s what we know: in the summer of 2016, Russian hackers stole tens of thousands of Democratic emails. WikiLeaks then became the vehicle for dumping those stolen documents into the American political bloodstream. And Roger Stone? He was the self-appointed middleman, bragging that he had back-channel communications with Assange and foreknowledge of WikiLeaks’ plans.

Stone teased the email dumps on Twitter, boasting that “devastating” material was coming. He hinted at the timing. He even named names. The Mueller investigation later revealed that Trump’s campaign—at the highest levels—was hungry for information about what WikiLeaks had, and when it would drop. Trump himself, Mueller found, asked Stone directly what Assange might be planning.

And when WikiLeaks delivered—releasing emails that undercut Hillary Clinton during the Democratic National Convention, and then again right after the Access Hollywood tape—the Trump campaign pounced. They weaponized the leaks in speeches, ads, and rallies. Trump himself praised WikiLeaks over 140 times in the closing stretch of the campaign.

But when investigators came knocking, the lies came out. Stone denied having contacts with intermediaries. He pressured witnesses. He threatened people to keep them quiet. For those crimes—not for collusion itself, but for obstructing the truth—Roger Stone was convicted on seven felony counts. Until, of course, Trump rewarded his loyalty with a full commutation and later a pardon.

The story of Stone and Assange is more than just dirty politics. It’s a blueprint for how a presidential campaign embraced stolen foreign material, openly and gleefully, and then covered it up.

And it’s not the end of the story. In the next episode, we’ll turn to Episode 76: *Paul Manafort’s Payouts*, where the Trump campaign chairman’s secret millions from pro-Russian interests reveal how deep the ties—and the corruption—really went.