Many media accounts based on the January 24, 2019 indictment of dirty trickster Roger Stone might be misinterpreting a phrase in paragraph 12, and some are wrongly presuming that the Special Counsel investigation is suggesting that "a senior Trump Campaign official was directed to contact STONE" by the president. However, it most likely refers to "a reporter who had connections to a high-ranking Trump campaign official", which is mentioned in paragraph 16.
"After the July 22, 2016 release of stolen DNC emails by Organization 1, a senior Trump Campaign official was directed to contact STONE about any additional releases and what other damaging information Organization 1 had regarding the Clinton Campaign," the indictment stated. "STONE thereafter told the Trump Campaign about potential future releases of damaging material by Organization 1."
Dan Mangan reported the next day, "Organization 1 refers to WikiLeaks. A source has told CNBC that the senior campaign official was Steve Bannon, who later served as senior advisor to Trump once he was elected president."
But Mangan quotes a tweet by Washington Post White House reporter and CNN political analyst Seung Min Kim quoting Democratic House Intel Chair Rep. Adam Schiff's statement that the "Committee will be eager to learn just who directed a senior campaign official to contact Stone about additional damaging information held by Wikileaks, one of the publishing arms of Russian government hackers."
"It’s difficult to dismiss that as some coincidence, drafting error or a careless choice of words. The people who write these things parse them endlessly, and had to know that line would stick out," Washington Post reporter Aaron Blake argues, before adding, "Considering that, some have theorized it’s a reference to Trump himself."
Blake concludes, "Who else would direct a 'senior Trump Campaign official,' after all?" However, the email sent by Boyle certainly could be characterizing as a form of direction, and the word "directed" has two definitions.
Most readers are focused on the first definition - "control the operations of; manage or govern" - but the second definition doesn't insist on the director of having a authoritative position: "aim (something) in a particular direction or at a particular person."
On January 11, 2018 the NY Times published the email from Matt Boyle to his former boss, Steven Bannon.
Former Breitbart News White House reporter Lee Stranahan, who now hosts a radio show on the Kremlin-funded Sputnik noted the theory that it was Boyle during a video shot at a Roger Stone hearing on January 25th.