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Roger Stone speaks to the media at Trump Tower on December 6, 2016 in New York City.
- Radio host Randy Credico was the intermediary between Roger Stone and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during the 2016 election, Stone told the House Intelligence Committee recently.
- Stone has long denied having any direct contact with Assange, saying that he had been getting his information from a mutual friend.
- Credico has been subpoenaed by the House Intelligence Committee.
Randy Credico, a radio host believed to be the intermediary between President Donald Trump's longtime confidante Roger Stone and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, was subpoenaed by the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday after he declined to be interviewed voluntarily.
The subpoena is believed to be related to his communications with both Assange and Stone, whose tweets in the weeks before the election raised questions about whether he knew in advance that emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, would be imminently published by WikiLeaks.
"Wednesday @HillaryClinton is done," Stone tweeted on October 1.
"I have total confidence that @wikileaks and my hero Julian Assange will educate the American people soon #LockHerUp," he tweeted two days later.
Stone has long denied having any direct contact with Assange, saying that he had been getting his information from a mutual friend.
He refused to name the intermediary when questioned privately by the House Intelligence Committee in September, describing the source as a "journalist" who confided in him off-the-record. But Stone recently told the panel that Credico was the go-between, according to CNN and ABC.
Stone did not respond to a request for comment. He told The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza that his claim in March that Credico was not his link to Assange was "a misguided effort to protect Credico who I felt had helped me on an off the record basis. Sorry."
Both Stone and Assange have been guests on Credico's show, but Credico told NY1 in a recent interview that he was "not at liberty courtesy of my counsel to talk about Roger Stone or to talk about WikiLeaks or to talk about Julian Assange."
"I am fighting for a jourmalist here and I am willing to go to jail for that," Credico said, referring to Assange.
Credico has characterized the Russia investigation as "bogus," and told radio host Jimmy Dore on Tuesday that he has "nothing to say" to the House Intelligence Committee.
He claimed that he had visited Assange in London, where he has sought asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy, "twice in the last two weeks."
Assange tweeted about Credico on Wednesday: "Who is satirist @credico2016 who has been subpoenaed by the U.S. House intelligence committee after interviewing me?" he wrote, along with a link to a documentary about Credico's life.
CIA Director Mike Pompeo has characterized WikiLeaks as a "hostile intelligence service," and US intelligence agencies concluded in January that the self-described radical transparency organization had aided Russia's efforts to interfere in the 2016 election by publishing emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta.
Stone told Business Insider earlier this year that he "had no contacts or communications with the Russian State, Russian Intelligence or anyone fronting for them or acting as intermediaries for them. None. Nada. Zilch. I am not in touch with any Russians. don't have a Russian girlfriend, don't like Russian dressing and have stopped drinking Russian Vodka."
Credico, for his part, told Dore that he thinks the US intelligence community "wants to contain" Assange. He said he will let the House Intelligence Committee have the "files" related to his interviews with Assange, who has been on his show "four times."
"But anything I've said behind closed doors with [Assange] or anybody else on my radio show, uh, I have nothing to say to them," said Credico, who has launched a petition calling on Congress to limit the committee's ability to target "people for political purposes."
"I'm not going to dignify or legitimize or dignify this witch hunt," he added. "Please visit me in jail."