Two more associates of Roger Stone, the longtime adviser to President Donald Trump, testified recently before a grand jury hearing evidence in the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election — the latest in a series of witnesses connected to Stone whose testimony has been sought by the special counsel.
David Lugo, a filmmaker who interviewed Stone for a movie, told The Washington Post on Tuesday that he has turned over hundreds of text messages, emails and Facebook messages to the grand jury.
Lugo, who was a co-producer on the 2015 Oliver Stone film, A Good American, also said he testified on Oct. 19 before the grand jury about conversations about WikiLeaks he had with a onetime friend of Stone, New York comedian Randy Credico.
Separately, attorney Tyler Nixon, another Stone associate, confirmed to The Post that he testified before the grand jury on Friday.
The appearances by Lugo and Nixon underscore how intensely special counsel Robert Mueller is pursuing the question of whether Stone had advance knowledge of WikiLeaks’ plans to release hacked Democratic emails that roiled the 2016 campaign and damaged Hillary Clinton’s White House bid. At least nine Stone associates have been contacted by prosecutors so far.
A spokesman for Mueller declined to comment.
In July, Mueller’s prosecutors charged 12 Russian military officers with engineering the hack of Democratic accounts and giving the emails to WikiLeaks.
Stone has denied any contact with WikiLeaks and said he did not know the content of material before it was published.
Both Lugo and Nixon told The Post last month that Credico acknowledged in conversations being the source of material for Stone’s statements and tweets about WikiLeaks.
Another Stone associate, conservative author Jerome Corsi, was interviewed by Mueller’s team over three days last week and appears to be emerging as a key witness, according to a person familiar with the sessions who requested anonymity to describe the ongoing investigation.
Stone has said that research by Corsi about Clinton campaign chief John Podesta and his lobbyist brother Tony prompted him to tweet “it will soon the Podesta’s time in the barrel” on Aug. 21, 2016. The tweet came about six weeks before WikiLeaks began publishing emails hacked from John Podesta’s account.