WASHINGTON, January 25, 2019 — A Washington grand jury working with Special Counsel Robert Mueller has indicted self-proclaimed “dirty trickster” and former Trump campaign official Roger Stone, Jr., on charges of obstruction of justice, lying to Congress, and witness tampering.
Citing Stone’s attorney, television morning shows first reported that FBI agents had picked up the longtime Trump associate at his Fort Lauderdale, Florida, home just after 6:00 a.m. Friday.
While other Trump associates who’ve charged by Mueller’s grand jury have been allowed to voluntary surrender, Video footage broadcast by CNN revealed Stone’s arrest was carried out by a team of heavily-armed FBI agents in body armor.
The CNN footage shows the agents surrounding Stone’s home, at which point one agent approached the house’s front door, pounded on it three times, and announced “FBI! Open the door!”
Under Justice Department procedures, he will make his initial appearance in a federal district court in Florida on Friday.
His arrest makes him the latest in a series of Trump campaign officials and associates to face charges as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Like another of the president’s confidantes, former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen, the bulk of the charges against Stone stem from false or misleading statements made in testimony to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Stone’s career in politics began during Nixon’s 1972 campaign, after which he first gained a measure of notoriety as the youngest person interviewed by Watergate investigators.
He was 19 years old — a mere boy among the president’s men — when allegations of obstruction of justice and abuse of power brought down the man he’d later call his mentor, whose face is still tattooed on his back.
Now 66 years old, the veteran lobbyist, political operative and pro-Trump media personality’s life has come full circle as he once again finds himself at the center of a White House scandal that has gripped the nation for the past two years.
Prosecutors allege that Stone lied to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence about contacts he had with WikILeaks founder Julian Assange, conspiracy theorist and birther activist Jerome Corsi, and senior officials with Trump’s presidential campaign in the course of his attempts to gain information on when the Russia-linked stolen document repository would release emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee.
Mueller and his team also allege that Stone obstructed justice by encouraging a person identified as “Person-2” — widely believed to be radio personality Randy Credico — to lie to investigators from the House committee, and engaged threatened Credico in order to dissuade him from cooperating with the House probe.
The indictment, which was signed by Mueller himself, also strongly implies that either Trump or one of his family members directed Stone to contact WikiLeaks in pursuit of information.
At the White House, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders attempted to distance Trump from the man who’d been pushing him to run for president since the 1980s.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with the president. It doesn’t have anything to do with the White House,” Sanders said while speaking to reporters outside the West Wing. She declined to answer reporters’ questions as to whether Trump had “directed” the “high-ranking Trump campaign official” to contact Stone.
Jay Sekulow, the conservative activist litigator who serves as one of Trump’s personal attorneys, echoed Sanders’ comments in a statement to BeltwayBreakfast.
“The indictment today does not allege Russian collusion by Roger Stone or anyone else. Rather, the indictment focuses on alleged false statements Mr. Stone made to Congress,” Sekulow wrote.
Despite the Trump team’s assertions to the contrary, several sections of the 27-page indictment link Stone’s actions to the president’s 2016 campaign.
In laying out the case that Stone lied to Congress about whether he discussed WikiLeaks with anyone during the 2016 campaign, it cites an October 3, 2016, email from Stone to a “supporter involved with the Trump campaign,” in which Stone wrote: “Spoke to my friend in London last night. The payload is still coming.”
But the most direct link to the president contained within the indictment might be the revelation that on October 4, 2016, Stone “ an email from the high-ranking Trump Campaign official asking about the status of future releases by [WikiLeaks].”
According to the indictment, the official — thought to be former Trump campaign manager and White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon — “was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information Organization 1 had regarding the Clinton Campaign.”
Stone replied to the “high-ranking Trump campaign official” that same day, informing him that WikiLeaks would release “a load [of stolen documents] every week going forward.”
This story was updated at 11:38 am to include a statement from Counsel to the President Jay Sekulow.