Roger Stone

Roger Jason Stone (born Roger Joseph Stone Jr.; August 27, 1952) is an American political assistant and lobbyist. He is most well known for the Robert Mueller special counsel investigation, and his involvement with and connections to Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election as a political consultant for the campaign of 45th U.S. president Donald Trump.

Since the 1970s, Stone has worked on the campaigns of Republican politicians, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Jack Kemp, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, and Trump. In addition to frequently serving as a campaign adviser, Stone was a political lobbyist. In 1980, he co-founded a Washington, D.C.–based lobbying firm with Paul Manafort and Charles R. Black Jr. The firm recruited Peter G. Kelly and was renamed Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly (BMSK) in 1984.: 124  During the 1980s, BMSK became a top lobbying firm by leveraging its White House connections to attract high-paying clients, including U.S. corporations and trade associations, as well as foreign governments. By 1990, it was one of the leading lobbyists for American companies and foreign organizations.: 125  His personal style of achieving his clients' goals have been described as "a renowned infighter", "a seasoned practitioner of hard-edged politics", "a Republican strategist", and "a political fixer". Stone has referred to himself as "an agent provocateur". He has described his own political modus operandi as "Attack, attack, attack – never defend" and "Admit nothing, deny everything, and launch a counterattack."

Stone first suggested Trump run for president in early 1998 while he was Trump's casino business lobbyist in Washington. Stone officially left the Trump campaign on August 8, 2015. In 2018, two associates of Stone alleged that Stone claimed to have had contact with Julian Assange during the 2016 presidential campaign. In response, Assange told The Washington Post that he had not met with Stone in the spring of 2016 and WikiLeaks said it had had no contact with Stone. Stone said he could recall only one occasion on which he mentioned meeting with Assange, and said that mention was made as a joke. Court documents released in 2020 showed Stone and Assange exchanged messages in June 2017. Nearly three dozen search warrants were unsealed in April 2020 which revealed contacts between Stone and Assange in 2017, and that Stone orchestrated hundreds of fake Facebook accounts and bloggers to run a political influence scheme on social media.

On January 25, 2019, Stone was arrested at his Fort Lauderdale, Florida, home in connection with Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation and charged in an indictment with witness tampering, obstructing an official proceeding, and five counts of making false statements. In November 2019, a jury convicted him on all seven felony counts. He was sentenced to 40 months in prison. On July 10, 2020, days before Stone was scheduled to report to prison, Trump commuted his sentence. On August 17, 2020, he dropped the appeal of his convictions. Trump pardoned Stone on December 23, 2020.