The Mueller probe's troubling reliance on journalists as sources

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has sent a subpoena to veteran writer Jerome Corsi — the first publicly known effort to compel a journalist’s testimony in the Trump-Russia collusion investigation.

Corsi, whose work has been showcased for years in conservative outlets such as Human Events, World Net Daily and the InfoWars conspiracy site, says he will not fight the subpoena and plans to appear before the grand jury on Friday.


The subpoena is a not-so-subtle reminder of just how much prosecutors, FBI agents, and the government’s confidential sources who launched and sustained the Russia probe all targeted, courted and leveraged the news media.

Mueller’s team reportedly wants to question Corsi about his contacts with longtime Trump friend Roger Stone and whether Stone ever asked Corsi to try to get WikiLeaks to release damaging emails on Hillary Clinton before the 2016 election ended. It’s expected that Corsi will tell prosecutors he did not bite on Stone’s overtures, in part because he suspected Julian Assange and WikiLeaks were monitored by U.S. intelligence after their past publications of classified U.S. secrets.

Stone is a former business partner of now-convicted lobbyist and former Trump presidential campaign chairman Paul Manafort, as well as a longtime outside adviser to Donald Trump. He recently told The Hill’s new morning program, “Rising,” that he fears he might be indicted by Mueller over his interest in WikiLeaks’ Clinton email leaks. Stone has denied any effort to collude with Russia to swing the election to Trump.

The Mueller probe's troubling reliance on journalists as sources