Trump advisor Roger Stone takes his show to Capitol Hill, promises 'epic testimony'

Kyle Cheney
Politico
Mon, 25 Sep 2017 16:07 UTC

© J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press

Longtime Donald Trump associate Roger Stone arrives to testify before the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill.

The flamboyant Trump adviser promises 'epic' testimony before the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday

After months of taunting congressional Russia investigators from afar, Roger Stone, a longtime confidant of President Donald Trump, arrived Tuesday on Capitol Hill to meet them face-to-face for what he had promised would be "epic" testimony debunking charges of collusion between the Kremlin and Trump associates.

The Republican operative was set to testify behind closed doors as part of the House Intelligence Committee's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. But officials were braced for his unique brand of theatrics before, during and after the session, not least because Stone had said he would bring a reporter and cameraman to Capitol Hill with him. On Tuesday, Stone arrived with a reporter for InfoWars - the site anchored by Stone ally Alex Jones - who trailed him until he entered the secure hearing room.

Even while he testified behind closed doors, Stone's presence was evident. Five supporters, who identified themselves as members of Blacks for Trump, a group that often shows up at Trump rallies in support of the president, gathered outside the hearing room to show support for Stone. Their shirts read "Trump & Republicans are not racist."

After briefly holding court outside the room, the men left after a Capitol Police officer approached them about whether they had permission to be in a staff-only area.

Clearly relishing his moment at the center of Washington intrigue, the flamboyant Stone wrote in a Sunday tweet that the conspiracy-peddling pro-Trump website InfoWars was "embed[ding] a reporter and cameraman in Camp Stone for my epic testimony."

"Never pass up a chance to have sex, be on television or testify before a House Congressional Committee," he added in another.

And a day before his appearance before the panel, Stone posted a photo of himself reading a book titled The Russians, which he captioned: "Preparing for my testimony before the House Intelligence Committee tomorrow 9am."

Among other things, Stone said he intended to lay into the committee's top Democratic lawmaker, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who frequently stokes questions about potential Trump malfeasance on television, and whom Stone has long called "Schiffhead."

In an email to POLITICO, Stone called Schiff "a grandstanding Sammy Glick" - a reference to a craven Hollywood hustler from the 1941 novel What Makes Sammy Run?

Stone faces questions from federal investigators about his ties to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, whose website dumped troves of emails last year hacked from the Gmail account of Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta.

Stone indicated in August 2016 that he had communicated with Assange through backchannels and later that month seemed to foreshadow the email dump when he prophesied that it would soon be "Podesta's time in the barrel." Wikileaks began publishing Podesta's emails in October.

Stone also revealed earlier this year that he'd been in contact with Guccifer 2.0, the hacker believed to be a Russian government cutout at the center of a separate hack of the Democratic National Committee.

Stone said the intelligence committee hadn't asked him to restrict his comments to the press. But he has demanded that it release full transcripts of his interview "so that there will be no confusion or misinformation about my testimony."

Stone had long demanded that he testify in an open session, which would have provided a live-television platform for his colorful denunciations of the Russia probe. He had previously been slated to appear before the committee in July, only to have his hearing canceled. In a subsequent tirade on Alex Jones's InfoWars show, Stone ripped Democrats as "pimps" for the delay.

Stone has proudly styled himself as a master of dark political arts since he served as an aide on Richard Nixon's 1968 campaign. After a years-long business relationship with Trump, the men linked up in 2000 for the developer's short-lived flirtation with a presidential bid on the Reform Party ticket.

"Why [do] the Democrats oppose transparency? What are they hiding? What don't they want the people to see?" Stone said in an email. "That Adam Schiff is a grandstanding Sammy Glick who thus far has not produced a scintilla of evidence the actual Collusion with the Russians?"

Schiff's office declined to comment.

Comment: Stone released his opening statement prior to his committee appearance:

Roger Stone, a longtime political adviser to Donald Trump, released his opening statement Monday that he plans to deliver to the House Intelligence Committee Tuesday.

The House Intelligence Committee is investigating alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and invited Stone to testify behind closed doors, despite Stone's requests for an open hearing.

"I am most interested in correcting a number of falsehoods, misstatements, and misimpressions regarding allegations of collusion between Donald Trump, Trump associates, the Trump Campaign and the Russian state.

I view this as a political proceeding because a number of members of this Committee have made irresponsible, indisputably, and provably false statements in order to create the impression of collusion with the Russian state without any evidence that would hold up in a US court of law or the court of public opinion."

The famed political operative known as a "dirty trickster" goes on to write, "There is one 'trick' that is not in my bag and that is treason."

The opening statement includes rebuttals to remarks from members of the committee that Stone says are false.

One example is ranking member Adam Schiff's comments in a hearing asking, "Is it a coincidence that Roger Stone predicted that John Podesta would be a victim of a Russian hack and have his private emails published, and did so even before Mr. Podesta himself was fully aware that [his] private emails would be exposed?"

However, Stone never made this prediction and simply tweeted, "Trust me, it will soon be the Podesta's time in the barrel."

"Note, that my Tweet of August 21, 2016, makes no mention, whatsoever, of Mr. Podesta's email, but does accurately predict that the Podesta brothers' business activities in Russia with the oligarchs around Putin, their uranium deal, their bank deal, and their Gazprom deal, would come under public scrutiny," Stone says in the statement. "Podesta's activities were later reported by media outlets as diverse as the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg."

Stone's opening statement concludes:

"Based on what we know now, it is clear that there was a foreign nation which was colluding with a presidential campaign in an attempt to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. Therefore, I strongly urge this Committee to investigate the numerous, publicly documented contacts between Ukraine and the Clinton campaign, particularly in light of recent public reports that Ukraine is now providing sophisticated missile technology to North Korea."