A8
NATION
East Oregonian
Saturday, November 9, 2019
Bannon says Stone was Trump campaign link to WikiLeaks
By ASHRAF KHALIL AND
MICHAEL BALSAMO
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Donald
Trump’s campaign viewed Roger
Stone as an “access point” to
WikiLeaks and tried to use him to
get advanced word about hacked
emails damaging to Hillary Clin-
ton that the anti-secrecy group
released during the 2016 presiden-
tial race, a former top presidential
adviser testifi ed Friday.
In reluctant testimony, former
campaign CEO Steve Bannon told
a federal court that Stone, on trial
for lying to Congress and witness
tampering, had boasted about his
ties to WikiLeaks and its founder
Julian Assange, alerting them to
pending new batches of damaging
emails.
“The campaign had no offi cial
access to WikiLeaks or to Julian
Assange,” Bannon told the court.
“But Roger would be considered if
we needed an access point.”
It was the fi rst time that anyone
affi liated with the Trump cam-
paign acknowledged in court that
they had actively sought material
from Wikileaks, which released
material that U.S. intelligence
AP Photo/Al Drago
Former White House strategist Steve Bannon, left, arrives to testify for
the federal trial of Roger Stone, at federal court in Washington on Friday.
agencies determined had been
hacked by the Russian government
in order to damage Clinton.
The White House had no imme-
diate comment.
Stone, a colorful political oper-
ative and Trump ally, is charged
with witness tampering and lying
to Congress about his attempts to
contact WikiLeaks about the dam-
aging material during the 2016
presidential campaign.
While
Stone
repeatedly
“implied that he had a connection
with WikiLeaks,” he never stated
it directly, Bannon said.
The campaign took Stone’s
boasts seriously enough to follow
up, asking why expected informa-
tion about Clinton wasn’t revealed
Possible chemical culprit found
in vaping illness outbreak
U.S. health
offi cials reporting
a breakthrough in
their investigation
when Assange held a press confer-
ence in October 2016.
Bannon, who testifi ed in
response to a subpoena, did not
say anything about Trump and
said Stone had not been sent by
anyone on the campaign to talk to
Assange.
Earlier this week, a former
FBI agent testifi ed about a fl urry
of phone calls between Stone and
then-candidate Trump — includ-
ing three calls on July 14, 2016
— the day that a massive hack of
the Democratic National Commit-
tee’s servers was reported. But the
agent said she did not know what
was discussed on those calls.
As he left the courthouse, Ban-
non griped about being subpoe-
naed by prosecutors and Congress
in addition to being interviewed
several times by special counsel
Robert Mueller’s team as it inves-
tigated Russian interference in the
2016 presidential election.
“I was forced and compelled
to come here today,” he said as he
climbed into a waiting SUV out-
side the courthouse.
Bannon’s testimony came after
comedian and radio talk show
Randy Credico told jurors that
Stone pressured him into backing
Got a weird text? A telecom vendor
says it’s to blame for the error
By TALI ARBEL
Associated Press
By MIKE STOBBE
Associated Press
NEW YORK — U.S.
health offi cials announced
a breakthrough Friday into
the cause of a mysteri-
ous outbreak of vaping ill-
nesses, reporting they have
a “very strong culprit.”
The same chemical com-
pound was found in fl uid
taken from the lungs of 29
patients across the coun-
try, the Centers for Dis-
ease Control and Preven-
tion said. The compound
— vitamin E acetate — was
previously found in liquid
from electronic cigarettes
and other vaping devices
used by many of those who
got sick.
This is the fi rst time
they’ve found a common sus-
pect in the damaged lungs of
patients, offi cials said.
“We are in a better place
in terms of having one very
strong culprit,” said the
CDC’s Dr. Anne Schuchat.
But agency offi cials cau-
tioned they cannot rule out
AP Photo/Hans Pennink
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta
said fl uid extracted from 29 lung injury patients who vaped
contained the chemical compound vitamin E acetate .
all other toxic substances,
and it may take animal stud-
ies to clearly show vitamin
E acetate causes the lung
damage that’s been seen.
More than 2,000 Ameri-
cans who vape have gotten
sick since March, many of
them teen and young adults,
and at least 40 people have
died. The bulk of the cases
occurred in August and
September but new cases
are still being reported.
Vitamin E acetate has
only recently been used as
a thickener in vaping fl uid,
particularly in black market
vape cartridges. While vita-
min E is safe as a vitamin
pill or to use on the skin,
inhaling oily droplets of it
can be harmful. It’s sticky
and stays in the lungs — the
CDC’s Dr. Jim Pirkle lik-
ened it to honey.
Many who got sick said
they had vaped liquids that
contain THC, the high-in-
ducing part of marijuana,
with many saying they got
them from friends or bought
them on the black market.
E-cigarettes and other
vaping devices heat a liquid
into an inhalable vapor. For
years, most products con-
tained nicotine, but THC
vaping has been growing
more common.
up lies he told Congress, threat-
ening to take away his dog at one
point. Credico said Stone pressed
him to “go along” with a false
account of the operative’s contacts
with WikiLeaks during the 2016
U.S. presidential campaign.
“He wanted me to go along with
this narrative,” Credico said in his
second day of testimony.
Stone called a Credico a “rat”
and a “stoolie” in a threatening
April 2018 email. Credico also tes-
tifi ed that Stone used repeated ref-
erences from the movie “The God-
father Part II” to intimidate him
into either backing up Stone’s tes-
timony to Congress or refusing to
testify.
“My lawyers are dying to rip
you to shreds. I’m going to take
that dog away from you,” he said
in the email, which Credico read
aloud in court. And while Credico
testifi ed he considered the threat
“hyperbole,” he also said that
Stone “plays hardball” and “I did
not want to rile the guy.”
The radio host told the court
he’s had his dog Bianca, a small
breed known as a coton de tulear,
since 2006. “I have no wife, no
kids, I’ve been around the dog for
12 years,” he said.
PORTLAND — If you
woke up to a weird text that
seemed totally out of place,
you aren’t alone. A mysteri-
ous wave of missives swept
America’s phones overnight,
delivering confusing mes-
sages from friends, family
and the occasional ex.
Friends who hadn’t
talked to each other in
months were jolted into
chatting. Others briefl y
panicked.
A telecom vendor called
Syniverse said a server
failed on Feb. 14, and thou-
sands of messages from
multiple carriers didn’t go
through. When that server
was reactivated Thursday,
those messages got sent.
Syniverse initially esti-
mated about 170,000 mes-
sages, but the company now
says it’s higher, without say-
ing how many. Syniverse
said it is reviewing internal
procedures so this doesn’t
happen again. Syniverse
typically deletes messages
that don’t go through.
The sudden release of
messages sometimes had a
dramatic effect.
Stephanie Bovee, a
28-year-old from Portland,
woke up at 5 a.m. to a text
from her sister that said just
“omg.” She immediately
thought something had
happened to her newborn
nephew at the hospital.
She started calling every-
one. Her sister and her sis-
ter’s husband didn’t answer.
She woke up her mom,
freaking her out. It was three
hours before she learned that
everything was fi ne and the
text was an odd anomaly.
“Now it’s funny,” she
said. “But out of context, it
was not cool.”
Bovee fi gured out that
people were getting some
of her old texts that failed
to go through when her sis-
ter and a co-worker both got
texts that she had sent in
February. The text her sis-
ter received wished her a
happy Valentine’s Day.
Marissa Figueroa, a
25-year-old from Turlock,
California, got an unwanted
message from an ex she had
stopped talking to — and
then he got one from her as
well. Neither actually sent
them recently, both said.
Figueroa couldn’t fi gure it
out, even worrying that her
ex was messing with her,
until she saw reports of this
happening to others.
“It didn’t feel great,”
she said. “It just was not
good for me and my mental
health to be in contact with
him.”
A friend who’d just reen-
tered his life got a mystify-
ing message from Joseph
Gomez at 5:32 a.m. Thurs-
day. In that text, Gomez
seemed to assume she was
on her way over to his house
so they could order a Lyft.
It took a half hour of
back-and-forth texting and
help from a screenshot to
clear up the situation. Can
their relationship recover?
Gomez, who is 22 and lives
in Washington, D.C., said it
was “confusion, then awk-
ward, and then funny.” No
mixed messages there.
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Renata Anderson, MA
Pam Wagenaar,
Administrative Assistant
2237 SW Court, Pendleton • 541-276-5053
www.renataanderson.com