Political fixer facing long spell behind bars
He was proud of his reputation as a practitioner of political dirty tricks, and frequently boasted about the extent of his contacts and the depth of his insider information.
Now Roger Stone, a longtime friend and ally of US President Donald Trump, faces a prison sentence for a collection of crimes that essentially amounts to exaggerating how much he knew, then lying and scrambling to keep those boasts from being exposed.
Stone was convicted yesterday on all seven charges in a federal indictment that accused him of lying to Congress, tampering with a witness and obstructing the House investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election.
He is the sixth Trump aide or adviser to be convicted of charges brought as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
Stone has denied wrongdoing, and has consistently criticised the case against him as politically motivated. He did not take the stand during the trial, and his lawyers did not call any defence witnesses.
The evidence presented at the trial provided a new insight into the scramble inside the Trump campaign when it was revealed in July 2016 that anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks was in possession of more than 19,000 emails hacked from the servers of the Democratic National Committee.
The US says the emails were hacked by Russia and then provided to WikiLeaks.
Steve Bannon, who served as the campaign’s chief executive, testified during the trial that Stone had boasted about his ties to WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange, alerting them to pending new batches of damaging emails. Campaign officials saw Stone as the ‘‘access point’’ to
WikiLeaks, he said.
Stone is scheduled to be sentenced on February 6, and could face up to 20 years behind bars.
Trump tweeted minutes after the verdict, calling the conviction ‘‘a double standard like never seen before in the history of our Country’’, because his frequent nemeses, including Hillary Clinton, former FBI director James Comey and ‘‘including even Mueller himself,’’ had not been convicted.
Prosecutors asked for Stone to be jailed as he awaits sentencing. He was released, but is subject to the same blanket gag order that was imposed during the trial.
Prosecutors used Stone’s own text messages and emails – many of which appeared to contradict his congressional testimony – to lay out their case.
They alleged that Stone lied to Congress about his conversations about WikiLeaks with New York radio host and comedian Randy Credico – who scored an interview with Assange in 2016, when he was avoiding prosecution by sheltering in the Ecuadoran embassy in London – and conservative writer and conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi.