Trump ally Stone denies Russian collusion, says Manafort expects to be indicted
Roger Stone/Lev Radin (Shutterstock.com.)
Roger Stone, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, told reporters after closed-door congressional testimony on Tuesday that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort expects to be indicted.
Stone said the source of the information was Manafort’s lawyers, Bloomberg News reports. Manafort’s Virginia home was raided in July, and he was reportedly wiretapped by the FBI. Stone said he didn’t know what kind of charges might be brought against Manafort. The Washington Post also has a story on Stone’s comments after the hearing.
In a statement released in advance of his testimony, Stone had denied collusion with Russia during the election, report the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.), the New York Times and an earlier story by the Washington Post.
“These hearings are largely based on a yet unproven allegation that the Russian state is responsible for the hacking of the DNC and [Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman] John Podesta and the transfer of that information to WikiLeaks,” Stone said in the statement.
Allegations that he knew about the hacking in advance are entirely false, Stone said in the statement. Stone said he learned through Twitter that WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange announced he had the emails in June 2016. Stone said he asked a journalist intermediary who had spoken with Assange to confirm the report. The journalist said it was true and the emails would be released in October.
Stone also said he communicated with a Twitter persona known as Guccifer 2.0, believed by some to be involved in the Russian hacking. Stone said the interactions were limited and entirely benign.
After his testimony, Stone said he refused to disclose one fact: the identity of his Wikileaks intermediary.
Stone testified on the same day that the Senate Judiciary Committee reached an agreement to subpoena documents from Manafort in its probe of Russian interference the Washington Post reports.
Two typos corrected at 4:40 p.m.
