Right-wing conspiracy theorist and Roger Stone associate Jerome Corsi put the final nail in his own coffin Tuesday. Just as soon as Corsi offered a rather fanciful explanation for why he knew in advance that WikiLeaks would drop damaging emails from the Clinton campaign in October 2016, it all fell apart when NBC News reported that the special counsel has emails from Corsi refuting his own story.
On Monday, Corsi had floated the idea that he didn't actually have inside knowledge about the cache of emails WikiLeaks was about to publish in October 2016 from Clinton campaign chair John Podesta. Instead, he just made an exceedingly great educated guess.
"I connect the dots. I didn't need any source to tell me,” Corsi told the conservative One America News Network—a claim he repeated to NBC News on Tuesday. "Why did I think they were coming out in October? Because I said to myself if I had these emails I'd use them as the October surprise," he said.
But within hours of that interview, NBC revealed newly drafted court documents from Robert Mueller outlining emails Corsi sent to Stone indicating he did have inside knowledge.
"Word is friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps," Corsi wrote on Aug. 2, 2016, referring to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, according to the draft court papers. "One shortly after I'm back. 2nd in Oct. Impact planned to be very damaging."
So much for Corsi the soothsayer. WikiLeaks ultimately published the first round of those “very damaging” Podesta emails on Oct. 7, 2016. The importance of that email is that Corsi clearly relayed insider knowledge to Stone who was in close contact with the Trump campaign—all steps on the path to conspiracy charges.
Corsi has had quite the week so far. Last weekend, he was reportedly in talks with Mueller over a plea agreement. On Monday he reportedly rejected the agreement because he wasn't willing to admit that he intentionally lied to Mueller. Rather, Corsi said, he simply forgot about certain emails he had sent encouraging a meeting with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. After Mueller's team allowed him to review the emails from his own laptop proving otherwise, Corsi said he did indeed remember encouraging such a meeting sometime between July 2016 and August 2016. Voila!
Corsi may have been even more surprised by the discovery since he sought to erase any remnants of such correspondence.
Mueller's team says in the court papers that Corsi scrubbed his computer between Jan. 13, 2017, and March 1, 2017, deleting all email correspondence that predated Oct. 11, 2016, including the messages from Stone about WikiLeaks and Corsi's email to [his friend Ted] Malloch.
Right, so Corsi wrote the emails. He deleted the emails. Then he said he forgot the emails that he purposely sought to cover up. Smooth.
Plus, in the course of this whole debacle, Corsi also leaked incriminating court documents to CNN. Now that's some fancy maneuvering from someone who might be a few fries short of a Happy Meal.
