Trump friend reveals meeting with Russian
Contact involving Stone examined by Mueller’s team
WASHINGTON — Special counsel Robert Mueller is examining a previously undisclosed meeting between longtime Donald Trump confidante Roger Stone and a Russian figure who allegedly tried to sell him dirt on Hillary Clinton.
The meeting between Stone and a man who identified himself as Henry Greenberg was described in a pair of letters sent Friday to the House intelligence committee and first reported by The Washington Post.
Stone and Michael Caputo, a Trump campaign aide who arranged the 2016 meeting, did not disclose the contact in their interviews with the committee. But they now believe the man was an FBI informant trying to set them up in a bid to undermine Trump’s campaign. Greenberg could not immediately be reached for comment, but in a text to The Post he denied he was
Giuliani: Post-probe pardons possible
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said Sunday the president might pardon jailed onetime campaign chairman Paul Manafort and others ensnared in the Russia investigation once special counsel Robert Mueller’s work wraps up, if he believed they were treated “unfairly.”
Until then, consideration of clemency is unnecessary, Giuliani said, as the White House presses to bring the yearlong investigation to an end. working for the FBI when he met with Stone.
The letters obtained by The Associated Press and written by Stone and Caputo’s lawyers say that, in late May 2016, Caputo received a call from his Russian business partner introducing him to Greenberg, who claimed he had information about Clinton that he wanted to share with the campaign.
Caputo suggested Greenberg meet with Stone, who had left the campaign in 2015 but remained an informal Trump adviser.
At Caputo’s request, Stone met with Greenberg at a Florida cafe, where Greenberg asked for $2 million in exchange for the information, according to Stone’s lawyer. Stone swiftly re- jected the offer, explaining that neither he nor Trump would ever pay for “political information,” his lawyer wrote.
Both men say they quickly forgot about the episode.
The special counsel has spent months investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election and whether Trump campaign aides played any role in the foreign interference plot. Trump and his lawyer, meanwhile, have tried to discredit the investigation.
“WITCH HUNT!” Trump tweeted Sunday, insisting: “There was no Russian Collusion. Oh, I see, there was no Russian Collusion, so now they look for obstruction on the no Russian Collusion. The phony The meeting involving Roger Stone was described in letters sent to a House committee. Russian Collusion was a made up Hoax. Too bad they didn’t look at Crooked Hillary like this. Double Standard!”
As part of their campaign, Trump and his loyalists have tried to convince the public that the FBI violated its usual operating procedures, including installing “spies” inside Trump’s campaign, though there’s no evidence that’s the case.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a member of Trump’s legal team, on Sunday dismissed the significance of the Stone meeting.
“So, yes, sure, there was contact, as there was in that meeting. But that meeting led to nothing. This led to nothing. So, if anything, it’s proof there was no collusion,” he said in an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Both Stone and Caputo failed to disclose the Greenberg meeting in their interviews with the House intelligence committee — an omission their lawyers said was accidental.
Caputo’s lawyer, Dennis Vacco, said his client had “simply forgotten about this brief encounter in 2016,” and only remembered it as he was preparing for his interview with Mueller’s team.
Caputo told the AP that Mueller’s team asked him at length about the meeting.
“They knew more than I did, which set off alarms. I thought — was this a setup?” he recalled.
Caputo said he hired investigators using money from his legal defense fund to dig into Greenberg’s background and has produced a “dossier” with the findings, which Stone endorses. “Mr. Stone believes it is likely that Mr. Greenberg was actively working on behalf of the FBI at the time of their meeting with the intention of entrapping Mr. Stone and to infiltrate and compromise the Trump effort,” his lawyer, Grant J. Smith, wrote.
The FBI declined to comment, but has said its counterintelligence investigation didn’t begin until July 2016.