Tag: Roger Stone

Roger Stone Sought WikiLeaks’ Plans Amid 2016 Campaign, Associate Says

Jerome Corsi, an associate of the longtime Trump adviser Roger J. Stone Jr., said he might be indicted in the special counsel investigation. Credit: Shannon Stapleton, Reuters

WASHINGTON — An associate of the former Trump campaign adviser Roger J. Stone Jr. released documents on Tuesday showing that as the presidential campaign heated up in the summer of 2016, Mr. Stone tried to dispatch him to find out what information WikiLeaks had that could prove damaging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

The associate, Jerome Corsi, said in an interview that he might be indicted on a charge of lying to federal investigators because he told them that he refused Mr. Stone’s request when in fact he passed it on to an intermediary. He said he had refused a plea deal offered by the office of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, because he did not intentionally lie, but merely forgot events of more than two years ago.

Mr. Corsi’s dealings with Mr. Mueller’s prosecutors have caused alarm among the president’s legal team, who were informed of developments by Mr. Corsi’s lawyer. President Trump’s lawyers were especially troubled by a draft statement of offense against Mr. Corsi that was passed on to them, according to people familiar with the situation. In it, prosecutors claimed that Mr. Corsi understood that Mr. Stone was “in regular contact with senior members of the Trump campaign, including with then-candidate Donald J. Trump” when he asked Mr. Corsi in late July 2016 to “get to” Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.

View the complete November 27 article by Sharon LaFraniere and Maggie Haberman on The New York Times website here.

Roger Stone Sold Himself to Trump’s Campaign as a WikiLeaks Pipeline. Was He?

Senior Trump campaign officials have told investigators that they viewed Roger J. Stone Jr. as a conduit to WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign. Credit: Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — When the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, appeared on a video link from Europe a month before the 2016 presidential election and vaguely promised to release a flood of purloined documents related to the race, the head of Donald J. Trump’s campaign, Stephen K. Bannon, was interested.

He emailed the political operative Roger J. Stone Jr., who had been trying to reach him for days about what Mr. Assange might have in store. “What was that this morning???” Mr. Bannon asked on Oct. 4.

“A load every week going forward,” Mr. Stone replied, echoing Mr. Assange’s public vow to publish documents on a weekly basis until the Nov. 8 election.

View the complete November 1 article by Sharon LaFraniere, Michale Schmidt, Maggie Haberman and Danny Hakim on the New York Times website here.

Text Messages Show That Roger Stone Sought Presidential Pardon for WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange

Roger Stone is busted.

Credit: Screenshot, Raw Story

Mother Jones is reporting that on January 6, Roger Stone—veteran Republican Party operative and an advisor to President Donald Trump—sent a series of text messages to comedian/activist Randy Credico stating that he was actively seeking a presidential pardon for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

“I am working with others to get JA a blanket pardon,” Stone wrote in a January 6 exchange of text messages obtained by Mother Jones. “It’s very real and very possible. Don’t fuck it up.” And in a separate text written 35 minutes later, Stone added, “Something very big about to go down!”

The 66-year-old Stone is among the many Trump associates who has become a focus of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia-related investigation. And although Assange hasn’t been charged with any crimes in the U.S., Mueller’s office has been examining Stone’s efforts to secure a blanket presidential pardon for the Wikileaks founder. Prosecutors for the U.S. Justice Department have been keeping an eye on Assange since 2010, when more than 250,000 diplomatic cables were released by WikiLeaks.

View the complete October 25 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet.org website here.

Roger Stone posts then deletes Nazi Space Force meme. He says he didn’t notice the swastikas.

The following article by Eli Rosenberg was posted on the Washington Post website August 14 2018:

“I love this,” Stone wrote next to the meme. “Proud to be in this crew — but the only lies being told are by liberal scumbags.” Credit: Patrick T. Fallon, Bloomberg

Roger Stone, a confidant of President Donald Trump and a longtime Republican operative, posted an image that depicted himself and other Trump allies wearing space suits with swastika patches on Monday, before deleting the picture after outcry on social media.

The image appears to have been originally deployed as an anti-Trump meme on social media sites and websites such as 4chan and Reddit that surfaced after Pence touted the proposal for a sixth branch of the military at a news conference last week. It shows Stone, Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Vice President Mike Pence, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Fox News host Sean Hannity and President Trump in space suits with the Nazi symbol appropriated into an insignia for the space force on the front of their outfits. A magnified image of the swastika patch also appears in the photo’s upper right hand corner.

“In space no one can hear you lie,” the caption says.

View the complete article here.

Signs grow that Mueller is zeroing in on Roger Stone

The following article by Morgan Chalfant was posted on the Hill website August 13, 2018:

Credit: Seth Wenig, AP Photo

Special counsel Robert Mueller appears to be narrowing his focus on Roger Stone in his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, prompting widespread speculation that the longtime adviser to President Trump is likely a target in the probe.

Stone has long been subject to public scrutiny as a result of his connections to WikiLeaks and Guccifer 2.0, the hacking persona that Mueller’s team now alleges was a front for Russian intelligence officers.

The focus on Stone has seemed to intensify in recent weeks as Mueller has sought testimony from a growing number of individuals linked to him.

View the complete article here.

Judge holds Roger Stone associate in contempt for refusing to testify in Russia investigation

The following article by Spencer S. Hsu and Bevlin Barrett was posted on the Washington Post website August 10, 2018:

Roger Stone and Andrew Miller Credit: Facebook

A federal judge has found a witness in contempt for refusing to testify before the grand jury hearing evidence in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

U.S. District Chief Judge Beryl Howell made the ruling Friday after a sealed hearing to discuss Andrew Miller’s refusal to appear before the grand jury. Miller is a former aide to longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone.

Miller’s lawyer Paul Kamenar said after the hearing that Miller was “held in contempt, which we asked him to be in order for us to appeal the judge’s decision to the court of appeals.”

View the complete article here.

Mueller seeking to question ‘Manhattan madam,’ a friend of Roger Stone, in Russia probe, she says

The following article by Manuel Roig-Franzia was posted on the Washington Post website July 20, 2018:

Roger Stone and Kristin Davis leave court in New York on March 30, 2017. Credit: Seth Wenig, AP

Investigators in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s office have notified an attorney for Kristin Davis, who gained notoriety in the 2000s for running a high-end prostitution ring, that they intend to question her as part of their probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Davis said Friday.

Davis, who is known as the “Manhattan Madam,” said she expects to be asked about her close friend, Roger Stone, a political operative and longtime confidant of President Trump. It comes one week after prosecutors unveiled an indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers who allegedly conspired to hack Democrats during the campaign.

Stone was not named in the indictment, but messages cited by prosecutors match communications that he says he had with the Twitter persona Guccifer 2.0, who had claimed online to be a Romanian hacker.

View the complete post here.

Roger Stone has lied or contradicted himself regarding Russia probe matters on countless occasions

The following article by Eric Hananoki was posted on the Media Matters website July 18, 2018:

Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to President Donald Trump, has repeatedly lied or contradicted himself on numerous issues related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

Stone is a vicious racist, misogynist, liar, and conspiracy theorist who describes himself as “a 40-year friend and advisor of Donald Trump.” He worked as a paid consultant to Trump’s campaign for part of 2015 and has since advised him in an unofficial capacity.

He was banned from CNN, MSNBC, and even Fox News in 2016 because of his vitriolic rhetoric. However, all three networks have since welcomed him back as a guest. Stone also writes commentaries online and works for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars network.

View the complete article here.

Trump associate Roger Stone reveals new contact with Russian national during 2016 campaign

The following article by Manuel Roig-Franzia and Rosalind Helderman was psoted on the Washington Post website June 17, 2018:

MIAMI — One day in late May 2016, Roger Stone — the political dark sorcerer and longtime confidant of Donald Trump — slipped into his Jaguar and headed out to meet a man with a “Make America Great Again” hat and a viscous Russian accent.

The man, who called himself Henry Greenberg, offered damaging information about Hillary Clinton, Trump’s presumptive Democratic opponent in the upcoming presidential election, according to Stone, who spoke about the previously unreported incident in interviews with The Washington Post. Greenberg, who did not reveal the information he claimed to possess, wanted Trump to pay $2 million for the political dirt, Stone said. Continue reading “Trump associate Roger Stone reveals new contact with Russian national during 2016 campaign”

Confirmed: Trump confidante communicated with Russian intel during election

The following article by Caroline Orr was posted on the ShareBlue.com website March 22, 2018:

It may soon be Roger Stone’s time in the barrel.

Credit: Seth Wenig, AP Photo

Guccifer 2.0, the hacker who claimed responsibility for providing WikiLeaks with a trove of emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 presidential campaign, has been conclusively identified as an officer working out of Russia’s military intelligence agency.

According to The Daily Beast, which reported on the explosive revelation late Thursday, FBI agents were able to identify that Guccifer 2.0 was working out of Russia’s military intelligence agency, GRU, when the hacker failed to activate their virtual private networking (VPN) service.

That seemingly minor slip-up exposed Guccifer 2.0’s IP address as one belonging to a specific GRU officer working out of the agency’s headquarters in Moscow. Continue reading “Confirmed: Trump confidante communicated with Russian intel during election”