Trump ally Roger Stone said Sunday that neither he nor his lawyer have spoken to Special Counsel Robert Mueller‘s office in the Russia investigation.
“I don’t know if I’m an interesting person or person of interest,” he said on Meet the Press. He complained about alleged leaks out of Mueller’s office, and said associates had been “terrorized” by the special counsel’s investigators. “I can guarantee you they have found no evidence whatsoever of Russian collusion, or trafficking of allegedly hacked emails with WikiLeaks.”
Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and former Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos have pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. In Papadopoulos’s case, he admittedly lied about talking to a professor in 2016 who claimed links to the Russian government, and he talked with him to learn about “thousands of emails” as well as “dirt” on then-candidate Hillary Clinton. Papadopoulos reportedly boasted about this conversation to an Australian diplomat, in turn leading to the FBI starting its investigation into Russian collusion.
On Sunday, Stone said that if he were charged in the case, it would be a trumped up a charge meant to silence the president’s supporters. He denied having advance knowledge about Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta‘s hacked emails, which were published on WikiLeaks on Oct. 7, 2016. Meet the Press host Chuck Todd pressed Stone on this denial, mentioning that in the days leading up to that release, Stone had tweeted about WikiLeaks, Clinton, and a “prediction” that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will publish an “exposé” on Clinton. In response, Stone denied having advance knowledge of the “content, source, or the exact disclosure time,” citing public statements by Assange. He denied knowing about the “accessing” of Podesta’s emails in advance.
[Screengrab via NBC News]
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