Roger Stone, a longtime Republican strategist and sometime confidant of President Donald Trump, was arrested in Florida on Friday after being indicted for obstructing Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia before the 2016 U.S. election.
The indictment goes to the heart of Mueller’s investigation and could pose serious risk to Trump. It lays out how Stone, after leaving Trump’s campaign in 2015, continued communicating regularly with unnamed senior campaign officials about an organization matching the description of WikiLeaks -- and how a “senior Trump campaign official was directed to contact Stone.”
Those exchanges occurred in the summer of 2016, when WikiLeaks began publishing Democratic emails that Mueller has previously alleged were obtained by Russian government hackers in an effort to interfere with the presidential election.
Stone will make an initial appearance at 11 a.m. Friday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Lurana S. Snow at the federal courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, according to the special counsel’s office. His indictment was assigned to U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, the same judge who is presiding over one of two cases against former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort.
Stone, 66, faces seven counts: one count of obstruction of an official proceeding, five counts of false statements, and one count of witness tampering, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
It’s possible Mueller could bring new and more serious charges against Stone unless he cooperates. In other cases -- against Manafort, the former Trump campaign chief, and aide Rick Gates -- the special counsel added new charges after plea talks broke down.
Gates later cooperated with Mueller and is free on bail after testifying against Manafort, while Manafort remains jailed after losing a tax-evasion and bank-fraud trial. The former campaign chief is due to appear in federal court in Washington later on Friday.
“The specific charges that have been brought against Mr. Stone have nothing to do with the president,” the White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, told CNN.
Campaign Official
Mueller’s indictment describes how a “high-ranking Trump campaign official” was in touch with Stone in October 2016 ahead of the release of additional damaging information about Clinton’s campaign by WikiLeaks. That official was Stephen Bannon, according to a person familiar with the matter. Bannon, who later served as Trump’s top strategist, texted Stone after the release to say, “Well done.” Bannon didn’t respond to a request for comment.