WASHINGTON – Federal agents arrested Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to President Donald Trump, Friday on charges that he had lied to investigators examining Russian…
WASHINGTON – Federal agents arrested Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to President Donald Trump, Friday on charges that he had lied to investigators examining Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Special counsel Robert Mueller revealed the charges, including counts of obstruction and witness tampering, after FBI agents arrested Stone at his Florida home before sunrise. Stone is scheduled to appear in federal court later Friday morning.
The charges against Stone offer the first view from prosecutors of efforts by members of the Trump campaign to learn about WikiLeaks’ plans to release hacked documents that they believed would be damaging to Trump’s 2016 opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton. Prosecutors have said the hacks were carried out by a Russian intelligence service. Prosecutors said one unnamed senior campaign official was “directed” to communicate with Stone about future releases of the stolen records.
Roger Stone: Read the full indictment against Stone, an informal Trump adviser
The White House distanced itself from the Stone indictment. “This has nothing to do with the president,” press secretary Sarah Sanders said.
Stone, a self-described “dirty trickster,” is the latest Trump associate to face criminal charges in the investigation that has clouded the first two years of his administration. He has repeatedly said he is innocent and that Mueller is conducting a vendetta against him and the president.
In a 24-page indictment unsealed on Friday, prosecutors charged that in the summer of 2016, as Trump was securing the Republican nomination, Stone “spoke to senior Trump Campaign officials about Organization 1 and information it might have had that would be damaging to the Clinton Campaign.” Organization 1 is a reference to WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy group that published troves of documents stolen from Democratic political organizations.
