Ex-Trump aide charged with lying about hacked emails
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s confidant Roger Stone was charged with lying about his pursuit of Russian-hacked emails damaging to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 election bid, with prosecutors alleging that senior Trump campaign officials sought to leverage the publication of the stolen material into a White House victory.
He will be arraigned in Washington, D.C., next week.
The self-proclaimed dirty trickster, arrested by the FBI in a raid before dawn Friday at his Florida home, blasted the prosecution as politically motivated. In a circus-like atmosphere outside the courthouse, as supporters cheered him on and spectators shouted “Lock Him Up,” Stone proclaimed his innocence and predicted his vindication.
“As I have said previously, there is no circumstance whatsoever under which I will bear false witness against the president, nor will I make up lies to ease the pressure on myself,” Stone said.
The seven-count indictment, the first criminal case in months in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, provides the most detail to date about how Trump campaign associates in the summer of 2016 actively sought the disclosure of emails the U.S. says were hacked by Russia and then provided to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. It alleges that unidentified senior Trump campaign officials contacted Stone to ask when stolen emails relating to Clinton might be disclosed.
Stone is the sixth Trump aide or adviser charged by Mueller and the 34th person overall. The nearly two-yearold probe has exposed multiple contacts between Trump associates and Russia during the campaign and transition period and revealed efforts by several to conceal those communications.
The 24-page indictment brings the investigation even further into the president’s circle of advisers and suggests that Trump campaign officials were eager to exploit the stolen messages for political gain. But prosecutors did not accuse Trump of wrongdoing or charge Stone with conspiring with WikiLeaks or with the Russian intelligence officers Mueller says hacked the emails.
They also did not reveal whether any Trump associates conspired with Russia or had advance knowledge of the hacking.
Instead the prosecution mirrors other Mueller cases in alleging cover-ups and deception, accusing Stone of lying to lawmakers about WikiLeaks, tampering with witnesses and obstructing a House intelligence committee probe into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to tip the election.
Trump attorney Jay Sekulow said the indictment “does not allege Russian collusion by Roger Stone or anyone else.” Trump on Friday called the investigation the “Greatest Witch Hunt in the History of our Country!”