WikiLeaks denies opening back-channel for longtime Donald Trump associate Roger Stone

Roger Stone, a longtime political adviser and friend to President Donald Trump, signs copies of his book "The Making of the President 2016" at the Boca Raton Marriott on March 21, 2017 in Boca Raton, Florida. (Photo by AFP)

Transparency group WikiLeaks has denied opening a back-channel for longtime Donald Trump associate Roger Stone.

“No communications, no channel,” the spokesperson wrote to CNN on Monday.

The representative further suggested that Stone is fooling Democrats and aims at drawing attention by claiming to have had contact with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

“Stone is playing slovenly Democrat-aligned journalists like a fiddle, brilliantly inserting himself, as is his habit to raise his profile and market his books. He is entirely delighted with inviting scrutiny because of course, he is no one who knows nothing about anything and was pushed out of the Trump team a long time ago for just this type of opportunism,” wrote the spokesperson.

The transparency group further asserted in a tweet that it has never contacted Stone, complaining about CNN’s exclusion of the fact.

“Roger Stone continues to troll media into increasing his profile by feeding false claims of contact with WikiLeaks,” it said in another tweet.

In the run-up to the 2016 vote, transparency organization WikiLeaks kept releasing batches of emails from the Clinton campaign as well as the Democratic National Committee in favor of then-Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Democrats pointed the finger at Russia, an allegation later confirmed by the US intelligence community, and dismissed by Moscow and Trump ever since.

Stone argued that the dismissal of his claims by WikiLeaks proves that he was unaware of the hackings, including those against Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.

“Since I never communicated with WikiLeaks, I guess I must be innocent of charges I knew about the hacking of Podesta's email (speculation and conjecture) and the timing or scope of their subsequent disclosures. So I am clairvoyant or just a good guesser because the limited things I did predict (Oct disclosures) all came true,” Stone said.