Mueller court documents suggest Trump campaign advisor was tipped off about Wikileaks data dump

Draft legal papers highlight emails to Roger Stone describing 'very damaging' data dumps in the final months of the 2016 presidential election

Robert Mueller's office is aware of emails sent to Trump confidant Roger Stone tipping him off about "very damaging" data dumps Wikileaks released during the 2016 presidential election, a draft court document has revealed.

The emails, detailed within in draft court documents, were sent by right-wing commentator Jerome Corsi to Mr Stone — who was serving as a campaign adviser to Donald Trump — two months before the data dumps were published online.

The correspondence forms part of Mr Mueller's broader investigation into Russian election meddling and any possible collusion with Trump campaign officials.

"Word is friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps," one email written on 2 August says. "One shortly after I’m back. 2nd in Oct."

He added, "Impact planned to be very damaging."

Mr Stone has denied any involvement in the release of the emails.

The emails appear to reference Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who has been living inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London for six years in order to avoid an international arrest warrant about a case in Sweden.

US intelligence services believe Russia’s intelligence agencies were behind the hacking of the emails released by Wikileaks - which were taken from the Democratic National Committee. Russia denies the allegation.

The draft court documents, first reported by NBC News and later posted online by the Washington Post, were also provided to Mr Corsi and his attorneys by the special counsel’s office.

However, it is still unclear whether there was any potential coordination between the president’s campaign and Wikileaks or other entities.

The latest court documents were filed as part of a plea deal Mr Mueller’s office has sent Mr Corsi, effectively allowing him to request a sentence of probation so long as he pleads guilty to one count of lying to federal investigators.

Mr Corsi has rejected the deal, however, saying the emails were based on “speculation”.

“It’s all a guess. That email – ‘word is’ – is 100% speculation on my part,” he said. “I made it sound maybe like I had a source, but I didn’t. And I don’t think Stone ever believed me.”

Mr Corsi told the Associated Press Mr Mueller’s team responded to his public rejections of the plea deal by saying, “We’ll take it from here.”