11/14/2017
On September 20, 2016, during the height of last year’s presidential election, the WikiLeaks Twitter account sent a private direct message to Donald Trump Jr. “A PAC run anti-Trump site putintrump.org is about to launch,” WikiLeaks wrote. “The PAC is a recycled pro-Iraq war PAC. We have guessed the password. It is ‘putintrump.’ See ‘About’ for who is behind it. Any comments?”
Thinking he had somehow made a secret contact with somebody in the dark world of WikiLeaks, Trump Jr. responded the next morning. “Off the record I don’t know who that is, but I’ll ask around, Thanks.” Thus began a correspondence between Donald Jr. and WikiLeaks which lasted almost a year, until at least July 2017.
The messages show WikiLeaks, a radical transparency organization that the American intelligence community believes was chosen by the Russian government to disseminate the information it had hacked, actively soliciting Trump Jr.’s cooperation. WikiLeaks made a series of increasingly bold requests, including asking for Trump’s tax returns, urging the Trump campaign on Election Day to reject the results of the election as rigged, and requesting that the president-elect tell Australia to appoint Julian Assange ambassador to the United States.
Trump Jr., apparently enthralled at the prospect of working with a dark source, immediatly went to work on behalf of WikiLeaks. On the same day that Trump Jr. received the first message from WikiLeaks, he emailed other senior officials with the Trump campaign, including Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, Brad Parscale, and Jared Kushner, telling them WikiLeaks had made contact. Kushner then forwarded the email to campaign communications staffer Hope Hicks. At no point during the 10-month correspondence does Trump Jr. rebuff WikiLeaks, which had published stolen documents and was known to be releasing information that benefited Russian interests.
Not only was Donald Jr. fulfilling the requests of some unknown person hiding behind a rogue entity, he did it all on Twitter’s open source. He also involved others in his actions, not once thinking that he could be putting his father, as well as other trusted staff and family members at risk. Discovering these communications would be easy, and eventually was.
In July 2016, on the first day of the Democratic National Convention, WikiLeaks released emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee’s servers that spring. On October 3, 2016, WikiLeaks wrote again. “Hiya, it’d be great if you guys could comment on/push this story,” WikiLeaks suggested, attaching a quotefrom then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton about wanting to “just drone” WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange. “Already did that earlier today,” Trump Jr. responded an hour-and-a-half later. “It’s amazing what she can get away with.”
On October 12, 2016, the account again messaged Trump Jr. “Hey Donald, great to see you and your dad talking about our publications,” (At a rally on October 10, Donald Trump had cheered “I love WikiLeaks!”). WikiLeaks continued “Strongly suggest your dad tweets this link if he mentions us.” WikiLeaks pointied Trump Jr. to the link wlsearch.tk, which it said would help Trump’s followers dig through the trove of stolen documents and find stories. 15 minutes after it was sent, Donald Trump himself tweeted “Very little pick-up by the dishonest media of incredible information provided by WikiLeaks. So dishonest! Rigged system!”
Two days later, on October 14, 2016, Trump Jr. tweeted the link WikiLeaks had provided him. “For those who have the time to read about all the corruption and hypocrisy all the @wikileaks emails are right here: http://wlsearch.tk/,” he wrote.
In communicating and cooperating with an unknown source to distribute and promote stolen information, Donald Trump Jr. proved how dumb he really is. To understand he did all of this on an open platform boggles the mind. His participation eventually drew the attention of the Congressional investigators who are looking into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Furthermore, Trump Jr.’s attorney has been forced to turn over thousands of documents regarding his contact with WikiLeaks. Coupled with the fact that Donald Jr. dragged Campaign Manager Manafort to a secret meeting with Russian operatives at Trump Tower, few could argue that Donald Jr. is truly dumb.
