By Mark Hosenball
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, are facing
multiple investigations by U.S. authorities, including three
congressional probes and a federal criminal inquiry, sources familiar
with the investigations said.
The
Senate and House of Representatives intelligence committees and leaders
of the Senate Judiciary Committee are probing the website's role in the
2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, according to the sources, who
all requested anonymity, and public documents.
WikiLeaks
published emails hacked from the Democratic Party and the personal
email account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential
campaign chairman.
In
a report issued in January, the CIA, the National Security Agency, and
the Federal Bureau of Investigation said Russian intelligence did the
hacking, and the GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency, sent hacked
data to WikiLeaks via intermediaries.
The
Senate Intelligence Committee is investigating who gave WikiLeaks the
hacked Democratic National Committee data that WikiLeaks published in
July 2016, which included more than 44,000 emails and 17,000
attachments, the sources said. So far, its inquiries are still at an
early stage, the sources said.
Senate Judiciary Committee leaders have asked Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, for emails related to WikiLeaks.
The
House Intelligence Committee has questioned Roger Stone, a longtime
friend of President Donald Trump and a veteran political operative who
promoted WikiLeaks' disclosures of the emails on Twitter.
After
initially refusing to identify an intermediary he dealt with who was in
contact with Assange, Stone later told the committee it was Randy
Credico, a left-wing comedian.
The
committee sent Credico a letter asking him to appear voluntarily. When
he declined to do so, the panel sent him a subpoena requiring him to
give a deposition.
Credico's
lawyer, Martin Stoller, said on Wednesday that Credico was considering
whether to invoke his First and Fifth Amendment rights under the U.S.
Constitution to avoid answering questions.
It is unclear whether Credico could help investigators uncover where WikiLeaks got the hacked Democratic emails.
In emails to Reuters, Stone has dismissed the intelligence agencies' conclusion about Russian hacking.
It
is not known whether Robert Mueller, the Justice Department special
counsel investigating possible Russian interference in the 2016
presidential election, is investigating WikiLeaks.
A U.S. lawyer for Assange, Barry Pollack, said Mueller's team had not contacted him.
Meanwhile,
federal prosecutors in Alexandria, Virginia, are conducting a criminal
investigation into how WikiLeaks obtained thousands of classified U.S.
government documents, including CIA materials and most recently
ultra-secret technical materials describing American spy agency hacking
tools. Law enforcement sources and Pollack said the probe began several
years ago.
Assange
has lived in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London for several years after
taking refuge there when Swedish authorities sought his extradition in a
sexual molestation case.
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