The Impeach-O-Meter is a wildly subjective and speculative daily estimate of the likelihood that Donald Trump leaves office before his term ends, whether by being impeached (and convicted) or by resigning under threat of same.
Donald Trump Jr. exchanged direct messages with the WikiLeaks Twitter account—which at least at some points appears to have been operated personally by Julian Assange—as early as Sept. 2016, the Atlantic reports, citing documents that have been turned over to congressional investigators. The correspondence involved, in part, discussion of material harmful to Hillary Clinton’s campaign:
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 quote from 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.”
More:
On October 12, 2016, the account again messaged Trump Jr. “Hey Donald, great to see you and your dad talking about our publications,” Wikileaks wrote. … “Strongly suggest your dad tweets this link if he mentions us,” Wikileaks went on, pointing 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. “There’s many great stories the press are missing and we’re sure some of your follows [sic] will find it,” Wikileaks went on. “Btw we just released Podesta Emails Part 4.”
And will you look at this:
(Trump Jr., for his part, sent out the specific link that WikiLeaks had provided him two days later.)
While Trump Jr. and the WikiLeaks account do not appear to have discussed the provenance of the hacked Clinton-related emails that the site began publishing in July 2016, the younger Trump is known to have been told that June that the Russian government supported his father’s campaign. June is also the month that public reports first suggested that Russia had committed hacking attacks against figures in the Democratic Party; before that, in April, a Trump foreign policy adviser was told that Russia possessed “thousands of emails” that constituted “dirt” on Clinton. WikiLeaks has denied that it received hacked emails from Russian operatives, but not many people believe that claim; Donald Trump’s own CIA director doesn’t, for one.
The Atlantic reports, moreover, that Trump Jr. informed campaign chairman Steve Bannon, campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, campaign digital media director Brad Parscale, and campaign adviser Jared Kushner of his contact with WikiLeaks in Sept. 2016. Less than a month later, the campaign indignantly denied that it had had any contact with the organization.
Good stuff!
Today’s meter level is unchanged, but in an very eyebrows-raised kind of way.
Photo illustration by Natalie Matthews-Ramo. Photos by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, Win McNamee/Getty Images, Chris Kleponis-Pool/Getty Images, Drew Angerer/Getty Images, and Peter Parks-Pool/Getty Images.
