President Trump’s confidant Roger Stone said Sunday he is “prepared” to be indicted in the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller.
President Trump’s confidant Roger Stone said Sunday he is “prepared” to be indicted in the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller.
“I am prepared should that be the case,” Stone, a longtime Republican operative and adviser to Trump, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “But I think it just demonstrates, again, this was supposed to be about Russian collusion, and it appears to be an effort to silence or punish the President’s supporters and his advocates.”
Stone is a possible target in Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election and potential involvement by Trump campaign associates. He said he was confident he would not be charged in relation to those issues – but wouldn’t be surprised to be indicted for something else.
“It is not inconceivable now that Mr. Mueller and his team make seek to conjure up some extraneous crime pertaining to my business, or maybe not even pertaining to the 2016 election,” Stone said. “I would chalk this up to an effort to silence me.”
Stone said he had not been interviewed or contacted by the special counsel, but said eight of his associates has been “terrorized” by investigators.
The Republican fixer has generated suspicion because of a series of tweets he posted predicting that damaging material about Hillary Clinton was about to emerge through WikiLeaks, shortly before hacked e-mails of her campaign chairman John Podesta were released by the site.
Russia is believed to be responsible for the hack.
Stone said his tweets were based on public statements by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, not any inside knowledge about the hack.
“There is no evidence whatsoever that I had advance knowledge of the content or source of this material,” he said.
Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who also appeared on “Meet the Press,” said Stone’s statements do not add up.
“Roger Stone is known for a lot of things. Candor isn’t really one of them,” said Schiff (D-Calif.) “Either his testimony before our committee was untrue, or his public statements are untrue. Both cannot be fact because they’re inconsistent with each other. We were never allowed to find out which was the case in our committee.”
The Republican-controlled panel shut down its own Russia investigation over objections from Democrats last month.
