President Donald Trump's former campaign adviser and longtime confidante Roger Stone said he exchanged private messages with a hacker implicated in a massive cyberattack that targeted the Democratic National Commitee last year.
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Top Trump confidante admits to speaking privately with Guccifer 2.0, an alleged Russian cyberspy
In a statement obtained by Business Insider on Thursday, Stone said he had a private conversation on Twitter with the person, nicknamed "Guccifer 2.0" last year.
Roger Stone speaks to the media at Trump Tower on December 6, 2016 in New York City.
Stone told Business Insider in an email late Thursday night that he had a private conversation on Twitter with the person, nicknamed "Guccifer 2.0," and that the interaction was so "brief and banal, I had forgotten it."
Guccifer 2.0 has said that they targeted Democrats in the heat of the election last summer. One such cyberattack hit the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, leading to the release of email addresses and phone numbers belonging to nearly 200 Democratic congressional members on August 12, The Wall Street Journal reported at the time.
Guccifer 2.0 has denied having any links to Russia. But digital fingerprints were left on the hacks that led the US intelligence community — as well as several private cybersecurity firms — to conclude that the cyberattacks were largely, if not entirely, carried out by two Russian intelligence groups.
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Piecing together Guccifer's comments and cyber trails, experts soon began to agree that the self-proclaimed hacker was either a poser or the product of a Russian disinformation campaign. ThreatConnect,
For his part, Stone cast aside any suggestion that he may have collaborated with the DNC hackers, Russian or not, telling Business Insider that he first noticed on August 14 — after he'd written an article for Breitbart saying he thought Guccifer was "the real deal" — that a Twitter account that apparently belonged to Guccifer had been reinstated after a brief suspension.
Seventeen US intelligence agencies concluded in January that Russia interfered in the US election — hacking into the DNC and John Podesta's inbox and leaking the stolen documents to WikiLeaks — to undermine Hillary Clinton.
US intelligence agencies and the House and Senate intelligence committees are currently investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with, or was complicit in, Russia's election-related meddling. They have found no evidence so far that the Trump campaign actively collaborated with Russia to affect the outcome of the election.
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