President Donald Trump’s long-time friend and adviser Roger Stone has launched a legal defense fund because he’s convinced special counsel Robert Mueller is coming after him as part of his Russia investigation.
Just days ago, Stone said he thought Mueller would indict Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son. In emails on Monday asking “Fellow Patriot[s]” for money, Stone says he’s likely next on the “crooked special prosecutor’s hit list.”
“It is becoming clear that special counsel Robert Mueller intends to frame Roger Stone for some bogus ‘offense’ unrelated to Russian collusion, WikiLeaks, or perhaps even the 2016 election,” Stone’s defense fund website declares.
“To silence Roger and destroy him and his family, the Clinton/Obama DNC and their sore loser supporters are suing Roger because they lost the election. Don’t let it happen!”
Stone seemingly has a lot on his mind. On Monday, he posted a video on Instagram in which he claimed a source was “pushing” a “fake news” story to New Yorker journalist Ronan Farrow about overhearing Stone tell Trump he had advance knowledge of the content of the hacked Democratic emails that WikiLeaks released during the 2016 presidential campaign.
“This is categorically false,” Stone says in his video. “This is exactly the epitome of fake news.” He said the “false narrative” has also been “pushed” to The Washington Post and The New York Times.
So far, the outlets haven’t published anything of the sort.
Stone has previously acknowledged talking to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange before the email leaks. He has also said he communicated with Kremlin-linked Guccifer 2.0, identified by federal investigators as responsible for the hacks.
Stone told the conservative website Political Insider in an interview posted Friday that he believed Mueller would indict Donald Trump Jr. for lying to the FBI about the reason for his 2016 meeting with a Kremlin-linked lawyer at Trump Tower. Trump’s eldest son had hoped to get damaging information on Hillary Clinton during the campaign.
“The special counsel is going to charge Donald Trump Jr. with lying to the FBI. Notice they’re not charging him for having an illegal meeting with a Russian at Trump Tower because there’s nothing illegal about that meeting,” Stone said.
The idea that there was nothing illegal about the meeting echoes the president’s attitude after he finally admitted this month that the aim of the huddle was to get dirt on Clinton. But several lawyers have pointed out that colluding with a foreign power in a bid to win an election may constitute conspiracy against the United States.
