Randolph A. Credico (born 1954) [1] is an American perennial political candidate, comedian, radio host, and activist, and the former director of the William Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice. [2]
Randolph A. Credico (born 1954) [1] is an American perennial political candidate, comedian, radio host, and activist, and the former director of the William Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice. [2]
Credico was formerly active on the comedy circuit, and at the age of 27 made an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. [3] During a later appearance, he compared Jeane Kirkpatrick to Eva Braun; he was never invited on the show again. [4]
Credico's most significant appearance in the 2016 election cycle was headlining a Republican fund-raiser in Cayuga County, New York. [5]
Credico ran as a Democratic primary challenger against Senator Chuck Schumer in 2010. Credico submitted petitions in an effort to get onto the Democratic Party primary ballot. The party chairman claimed that Credico only submitted a few pages' worth of petitions to the state, far short of the 15,000 necessary, a charge Credico denied. Credico threatened to throw his support to Republican candidate Carl Paladino in the gubernatorial race. [6]
Credico ran for the Democratic nomination for Mayor of New York City in the 2013 election. He received 12,685 votes (2.0%). [7] He also appeared on the ballot in the general election with 14 other candidates, on the Tax Wall Street line, receiving 654 votes (0.1%). [8]
Credico challenged incumbent Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo in the 2014 Democratic primary. He came in third among three candidates, with 20,760 votes (3.6%). [9]
Arranged by Margaret Ratner Kunstler, a mutual friend who is Julian Assange's attorney, [10] Credico hosted Assange on Credico's August 25, 2016, radio show. [11]
On August 27, 2016, Credico sent a text message to Roger Stone saying, "Julian Assange has kryptonite on Hillary." [12] Credico notified Stone of subsequent releases by WikiLeaks of numerous emails stolen from John Podesta and the Hillary Clinton campaign, a publication which initiated releases of information on October 7, 2016. [12]
In November 2017, Stone told the House Intelligence Committee that Credico was his intermediary with Assange to obtain information on Hillary Clinton. Credico was then subpoenaed to appear before the committee, [13] but asserted his Fifth Amendment right before the interview. The committee released him from appearing. [14] By August 2018, special counsel Mueller had subpoenaed Credico to testify before a grand jury in September 2018. [15] Credico complied with the request. [16]
Mother Jones reported that Credico had received text messages from Stone in January 2018 stating that Stone was seeking a presidential pardon for Assange. [17]
In January 2019, Stone was arrested by the FBI. [18] His indictment claimed that Credico, referred to as "Person 2," was not Stone's sole contact with WikiLeaks ("Organization 1"). It also claimed that Credico was pressured by Stone to "stonewall" his testimony before Congress, and to "do a Frank Pentangeli." Among other statements, Stone told Credico to "prepare to die," and that he would "take that dog away from you." Credico relies on a medical support dog. [19] Credico subsequently testified against Stone during Stone's trial in November 2019. [20]
Roger Jason Stone is an American conservative political consultant, lobbyist, and convicted criminal. Since the 1970s, Stone has worked on the campaigns of Republican politicians, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Jack Kemp, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump. In addition to frequently serving as a campaign adviser, Stone was a political lobbyist. In 1980, he co-founded a Washington, D.C.–based lobbying firm with Paul Manafort and Charles R. Black Jr. The firm recruited Peter G. Kelly and was renamed Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly (BMSK) in 1984.
WikiLeaks is a publisher and media organisation founded in 2006. It operates as a non-profit and is funded by donations and media partnerships. It has published classified documents and other media provided by anonymous sources. It was founded by Julian Assange, an Australian editor, publisher, and activist, who is currently challenging extradition to the United States over his work with WikiLeaks. Since September 2018, Kristinn Hrafnsson has served as its editor-in-chief. Its website states that it has released more than ten million documents and associated analyses. WikiLeaks' most recent publication was in 2021 and its most recent publication of original documents was in 2019. Beginning in November 2022, many of the documents could not be accessed.
Julian Paul Assange is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. He came to wide international attention in 2010 when WikiLeaks published a series of leaks from US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning: footage of an airstrike in Baghdad, military logs from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and US diplomatic cables.
The 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak is a collection of Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails stolen by one or more hackers operating under the pseudonym "Guccifer 2.0" who are alleged to be Russian intelligence agency hackers, according to indictments carried out by the Mueller investigation. These emails were subsequently leaked by DCLeaks in June and July 2016 and by WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016, just before the 2016 Democratic National Convention. This collection included 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments from the DNC, the governing body of the United States' Democratic Party. The leak includes emails from seven key DNC staff members, and date from January 2015 to May 2016. On November 6, 2016, WikiLeaks released a second batch of DNC emails, adding 8,263 emails to its collection. The emails and documents showed that the Democratic Party's national committee favored Clinton over her rival Bernie Sanders in the primaries. These releases caused significant harm to the Clinton campaign, and have been cited as a potential contributing factor to her loss in the general election against Donald Trump.
"Guccifer 2.0" is a persona which claimed to be the hacker(s) who gained unauthorized access to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) computer network and then leaked its documents to the media, the website WikiLeaks, and a conference event. Some of the documents "Guccifer 2.0" released to the media appear to be forgeries cobbled together from public information and previous hacks, which had been mixed with disinformation. According to indictments in February 2018, the persona is operated by Russian military intelligence agency GRU. On July 13, 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 GRU agents for allegedly perpetrating the cyberattacks.
DCLeaks was a website that was established in June 2016. It was responsible for publishing leaks of emails belonging to multiple prominent figures in the United States government and military. Cybersecurity research firms determined the site is a front for the Russian cyber-espionage group Fancy Bear. On July 13, 2018, an indictment was made against 12 Russian GRU military officers; it alleged that DCLeaks is part of a Russian military operation to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The Russian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election with the goals of harming the campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the candidacy of Donald Trump, and increasing political and social discord in the United States. According to the U.S. intelligence community, the operation—code named Project Lakhta —was ordered directly by Russian president Vladimir Putin. The Special Counsel's report, made public in April 2019, examined numerous contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials but concluded that there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates.
Since Donald Trump was a 2016 candidate for the office of President of the United States, myriad suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials have been discovered by the FBI, Special counsel, and several United States congressional committees, as part of their investigations into the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Following intelligence reports about the Russian interference, Trump and some of his campaign members, business partners, administration nominees, and family members were subjected to intense scrutiny to determine whether they had improper dealings during their contacts with Russian officials. Several people connected to the Trump campaign made false statements about those links and obstructed investigations. These investigations resulted in many criminal charges and indictments.
The Mueller special counsel investigation was an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies, and possible obstruction of justice by Trump and his associates. The investigation was conducted by special prosecutor Robert Mueller from May 2017 to March 2019. It was also called the Russia investigation, the Mueller probe, and the Mueller investigation.
Democratic National Committee v. Russian Federation, et al. was a civil lawsuit filed by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against the Russian Federation, WikiLeaks and other entities and individuals. The case, relating to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, was filed on April 20, 2018. The DNC's complaint accused the Trump campaign of engaging in a racketeering enterprise in conjunction with Russia and WikiLeaks. The American Civil Liberties Union, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and others filed friend-of-the-court briefs expressing concern over the lawsuit's implications for freedom of the press.
This is a timeline of major events in first half of 2018 related to the investigations into links between associates of Donald Trump and Russian officials and spies that are suspected of being inappropriate, relating to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016 up until election day November 8, the transition, and the first and second halves of 2017, but precedes the second half of 2018, the first and second halves of 2019, 2020, and 2021. These events are related to, but distinct from, Russian interference in the 2018 United States elections.
This is a timeline of events in the first half of 2019 related to investigations into the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies relating to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, both before and after July 2016, until November 8, 2016, the transition, the first and second halves of 2017, the first and second halves of 2018, and followed by the second half of 2019, 2020, and 2021.
This is a timeline of events related to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, sorted by topics. It also includes events described in investigations into the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies. Those investigations continued in 2017, the first and second halves of 2018, and 2019, largely as parts of the Crossfire Hurricane FBI investigation, the Special Counsel investigation, multiple ongoing criminal investigations by several State Attorneys General, and the investigation resulting in the Inspector General report on FBI and DOJ actions in the 2016 election.
This is a timeline of major events in second half of 2018 related to the investigations into the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies relating to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016 up until election day November 8, and the transition, the first and second halves of 2017, and the first half of 2018, but precedes that of the first and second halves of 2019, 2020, and 2021. These events are related to, but distinct from, Russian interference in the 2018 United States elections.
This is a timeline of major events in the second half of 2017 related to the investigations into the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies relating to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016 up until election day November 8, the post-election transition, and the first half of 2017. The investigations continued in the first and second halves of 2018, the first and second halves of 2019, 2020, and 2021.
This is a timeline of events related to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.
This is a timeline of events from 2020 to 2022 related to investigations into the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies relating to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, both before and after July 2016, until November 8, 2016, election day, the transition, the first and second halves of 2017, the first and second halves of 2018, and the first and second halves of 2019.
This is a timeline of major events in second half of 2019 related to the investigations into the myriad links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies that are suspected of being inappropriate, relating to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016 up until election day November 8, and the transition, the first and second halves of 2017, the first and second halves of 2018, and the first half of 2019, but precedes that of 2020 and 2021.
The 2016 United States election leaks were a series of publications of more than 150,000 stolen emails and other files during the U.S. presidential election campaigns released by Guccifer 2.0, DCLeaks and WikiLeaks. Computer hackers affiliated with the Russian military intelligence service (GRU) infiltrated information systems of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), and Clinton campaign officials, notably chairman John Podesta, and leaked some of the stolen materials. Emails from Guccifer 2.0 to journalists suggest a link to DCLeaks, and messages WikiLeaks exchanged with Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks suggest both submitted emails to WikiLeaks.
Margaret Ratner Kunstler is a civil rights attorney who has worked with WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, and Sarah Harrison. She has also worked with Anonymous and was the attorney for Jeremy Hammond. Kunstler graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia Law School. She was the co-chair of the February 2022 Belmarsh Tribunal organized by Progressive International in New York City. After her husband William Kunstler died, a dispute started with his former law partner, Ronald L. Kuby, over the right to use his name.