Donald Trump Jr., Complainer Of Leaks, Forgets He Promoted Wikileaks Info Dump

Donald Trump Jr. on Monday released his private messages with WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy group that released a hacked trove of Democrats’ emails during the 2016 presidential campaign last year after a report revealed that his communications with Julian Assange's organization were shared with Congressional investigators who have been looking for evidence that President Donald Trump’s campaign collaborated with the Russian government.

Trump Jr., who had multiple online conversations with WikiLeaks at the time, handed over the Twitter messages he exchanged with the organization to several congressional committees investigating Russia’s attempts to disrupt the election, according to the officials.

In September this year, in a closed-door interview with the Senate Judiciary Committee, Trump Jr. admitted he had corresponded with WikiLeaks during the campaign, the officials said, according to the Independent.

He shared the messages on Twitter after the Atlantic published a story earlier Monday revealing the correspondence between the president's son and the organization.

Several Twitter users reacted immediately commenting that Trump Jr. downplayed the correspondence in his series of tweets Monday, however, they pointed out that earlier in October 2016, he was the one to promote the organization's leaks surrounding the elections in a tweet.

Although Trump Jr. mostly ignored the frequent messages from WikiLeaks, he appeared to have acted on its requests, at times. When WikiLeaks first reached out to Trump Jr. in September 2016 about an "anti-Trump" website affiliated with a political action committee which was later found out to be called "putintrump.org," Trump Jr. had replied saying "Off the record, I don't know who that is but I'll ask around. Thanks." According to the Atlantic's report, he queried multiple campaign officials such as Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, Brad Parscale about the matter and told them that WikiLeaks contacted him.

The most politically explosive communication between Trump Jr. and WikiLeaks, according to the Atlantic, came on and after Oct.12, 2016.

"Hey Donald, great to see you and your dad talking about our publications," the WikiLeaks account, @WikiLeaks, said to Trump Jr. two days after his father had proclaimed at a campaign rally: "I love WikiLeaks!"

"Strongly suggest your dad tweets this link if he mentions us. There are many great stories the press are missing and we’re sure some of your follows [sic] will find it," the message continued.

The message reportedly went on to offer a link to wlsearch.tk — a search tool that led to the exploration of the database of leaked emails from John Podesta, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign chairman, that the organization had by then begun to publish. Julia Ioffe, the author of the Atlantic article, wrote that Trump Jr. did not reply to the WikiLeaks message. However, two days later on Oct. 14, he tweeted that same link on his account, encouraging "those who have the time to read about all the corruption and hypocrisy" exposed by the WikiLeaks emails.

In response to the article in the Atlantic on Monday, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange posted on tweet saying: "WikiLeaks can be very effective at convincing even high profile people that it is their interest to promote links to its publications" and referred to a July tweet in which he referenced contacting Donald Trump Jr.

Vice President Mike Pence responded to Trump Jr.'s messages saying that he was never aware of anyone associated with the Trump campaign having any sort of contact with WikiLeaks, according to a statement from his press secretary.