Dana's secret back channel

A U.S. congressman contacted the White House this week trying to broker a deal that would end WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s U.S. legal troubles in exchange for what he described as evidence that Russia wasn’t the source of hacked emails published by the antisecrecy website during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The proposal made by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R., Calif.), in a phone call Wednesday with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, was apparently aimed at resolving the probe of WikiLeaks prompted by Mr. Assange’s publication of secret U.S. government documents in 2010 through a pardon or other act of clemency from President Donald Trump.

The possible “deal”—a term used by Mr. Rohrabacher during the Wednesday phone call—would involve a pardon of Mr. Assange or “something like that,” Mr. Rohrabacher said. In exchange, Mr. Assange would probably present a computer drive or other data-storage device that Mr. Rohrabacher said would exonerate Russia in the long-running controversy about who was the source of hacked and stolen material aimed at embarrassing the Democratic Party during the 2016 election.

“He would get nothing, obviously, if what he gave us was not proof,” Mr. Rohrabacher said.

Mr. Rohrabacher confirmed he spoke to Mr. Kelly this week but declined to discuss the content of their conversation. “I can’t confirm or deny anything about a private conversation at that level,” he said in a brief interview. He declined to elaborate further.

A Trump administration official confirmed Friday that Mr. Rohrabacher spoke to Mr. Kelly about the plan involving Mr. Assange. Mr. Kelly told the congressman that the proposal “was best directed to the intelligence community,” the official said. Mr. Kelly didn’t make the president aware of Mr. Rohrabacher’s message, and Mr. Trump doesn’t know the details of the proposed deal, the official said.

In the call with Mr. Kelly, Mr. Rohrabacher pushed for a meeting between Mr. Assange and a representative of Mr. Trump, preferably someone with direct communication with the president.

“I would be happy to go with somebody you trust whether it is somebody at the FBI; somebody on your staff,” Mr. Rohrabacher said. The California congressman said he would be pleased to talk to CIA Director Mike Pompeo, but that the agency “has its limitations” and wanted “to cover their butt by having gone along with this big lie.” The CIA was one of the intelligence agencies that helped determine in January that emails from prominent Democrats were stolen by Russian intelligence and given to WikiLeaks.

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Mr. Rohrabacher, who has long been one of the most pro-Russia voices in Congress, traveled to London in August to meet with Mr. Assange, who has been living in Ecuador’s embassy since 2012 to avoid arrest and extradition to Sweden on allegations of sexual assault. Mr. Rohrabacher’s travel wasn’t paid for by the U.S. House of Representatives and wasn’t an official government trip, aides said...

Mr. Rohrabacher has also publicly stated his desire to arrange some sort of meeting between Mr. Assange and Mr. Trump or his representatives in media interviews after the visit. He told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday that he had talked to “senior people at the White House” about presenting Mr. Assange’s evidence.

But his contact with the White House chief of staff and the idea of a deal between the Trump administration and Mr. Assange that would end the legal jeopardy faced by WikiLeaks hasn’t been previously reported.