Donald Trump’s longtime informal political adviser Roger Stone was arrested by the FBI on Friday on charges that he lied and tried to tamper with a witness — all so he could allegedly cover up efforts to find out when WikiLeaks would release stolen emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
According to The Washington Post, Stone was indicted on seven criminal counts, including one count of obstruction of an official proceeding, five counts of false statements, and one count of witness tampering.
The indictment details that in the summer of 2016, members of Trump’s campaign learned that emails had been stolen from Clinton’s campaign and wanted them released; Stone was apparently their go-to man to get the dirty deets.
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The indictment states:
“After the July 22, 2016 release of stolen DNC emails . . . 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. Stone thereafter told the Trump campaign about potential future releases of damaging material by Organization 1.”
Per The Post, Organization 1 is WikiLeaks — Julian Assange’s anti-secrecy group that has been accused of working with Russian intelligence agents to hack and publish the email accounts of Democrats.
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After the election, Stone allegedly tried to hide what he had done by lying about it to Congress and attempted to persuade a witness to lie to the House Intelligence Committee “in order to avoid contradicting Stone’s testimony,” the indictment charges.
Stone’s Friday arrest came as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. The 66-year-old, who has been friends with Trump for three decades, has called the Mueller investigation a witch hunt and repeatedly denied that he was in direct contact with either Russia or WikiLeaks.
Trump’s legal team says the Stone case poses no legal threats for the president. We’ll see…
Watch CNN’s video of Stone’s arrest in Florida (below).
“FBI. Open the door.”
Watch exclusive CNN footage of the FBI arresting longtime Trump associate Roger Stone. Stone has been indicted by a grand jury on charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller. https://t.co/5QHKDB2mfA pic.twitter.com/UeKo7CmXWo
— CNN (@CNN) January 25, 2019
[Image via C-SPAN.]
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