WASHINGTON – Roger Stone, a flamboyant political operative and longtime confidant of President Donald Trump, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to seven criminal counts, including witness tampering and obstruction in a case that brings special counsel Robert Mueller deeper into the president’s inner circle.
The 66-year-old self-described “dirty-trickster” also is accused of lying to congressional investigators about his alleged work to inform the Trump campaign about the timing of document releases by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks that would be damaging to Trump’s then-Democrat opponent Hillary Clinton.
Stone’s lawyers entered his not-guilty plea Tuesday morning.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson ordered Stone to return to court for another hearing on Friday afternoon. She also ordered that Stone refrain from contact with witnesses in the case and that he check in with court authorities once each week.
“Yes, your honor,” Stone said when asked if understood the conditions of his release.
Hours before Stone’s arraignments, media tents sprouted on the plaza outside the federal courthouse in Washington and camera crews staked out each entrance. Stone entered the courthouse through a gauntlet of news cameras and jeering protesters Dressed in a blue suit and white shirt, he huddled briefly with his lawyers in the second-floor courtroom before the brief hearing began.
It was over in 13 minutes. Robinson ordered Stone to see federal marshals so they could book him, but said he would remain free on bond.
Stone’s relationship with WikiLeaks, which published troves of documents stolen from Democratic political organizations by a hacking group backed by Russian military intelligence, is at the heart of Mueller’s latest prosecution that has ensnared yet another former adviser to Trump in an investigation that has shadowed the president’s first two years in office.
Starting in the summer of 2016, as Trump was securing the Republican nomination for president and as the FBI was launching its initial inquiry into Russia’s election interference campaign, prosecutors alleged Friday that Stone communicated with senior Trump campaign officials about WikiLeaks and the politically charged material in its possession.
In those contacts, according to court documents, the campaign officials –who were not identified– referred to information that “would be damaging to the Clinton campaign.”
Among the most striking of the allegations contained in the new charging documents was a claim that after a July 22 release of stolen Clinton-related emails, “a senior campaign official was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information (WikiLeaks) had regarding the Clinton campaign.”
“Stone, thereafter, told the Trump campaign about the potential future releases of damaging material by (WikiLeaks),” prosecutors alleged.
Stone has denied serving as an intermediary between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks.
FBI agents arrested Stone before sunrise on Friday at his Florida home. He has since lambasted the raid as “an abuse of power.”
Stone has said he wouldn’t lie to implicate the president or to save himself, though he has not ruled out cooperating with Mueller’s investigators if a deal was offered.
