1. Roger Stone is Donald Trump's longest-serving political adviser, most well known for the Robert Mueller special counsel investigation, and his alleged involvement with and connections to Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election as a political consultant for the 2016 campaign of 45th US 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.
Roger Stone first suggested Trump run for president in early 1998 while he was Trump's casino business lobbyist in Washington.
Roger Stone officially left the Trump campaign on August 8,2015.
In 2018, two associates of Roger Stone alleged that Roger Stone claimed to have had contact with Julian Assange during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Roger Stone said he could recall only one occasion on which he mentioned meeting with Assange, and said that mention was made as a joke.
On January 25,2019, Roger 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.
On July 10,2020, days before Roger Stone was scheduled to report to prison, Trump commuted his sentence.
Roger Stone grew up in the community of Vista, part of the town of Lewisboro, New York, on the Connecticut border.
Roger Stone's mother was the president of Meadow Pond Elementary School PTA, a Cub Scout den mother, and occasionally a small-town reporter; his father "Chubby" was a well driller and sometime chief of the Vista volunteer Fire Department.
Roger Stone has described his family as middle-class, blue-collar Catholics.
In 2007, Roger Stone indicated he was a staunch conservative but with libertarian leanings.
Magruder agreed and Roger Stone then left college to work for the committee.
Roger Stone subsequently hired Michael McMinoway to infiltrate campaigns of candidates such as Edmund Muskie and Hubert Humphrey.
Roger Stone hired a spy in the Humphrey campaign who became Humphrey's driver.
The Richard Nixon Foundation later clarified that Roger Stone had been a 20-year-old junior scheduler on the campaign, and that to characterize Roger Stone as one of Nixon's aides or advisers was a "gross misstatement".
In 1975, Roger Stone helped found the National Conservative Political Action Committee, a New Right organization that helped to pioneer independent expenditure political advertising.
In 1977, at age 24, Roger Stone won the presidency of the Young Republicans in a campaign managed by his friend Paul Manafort; they had compiled a dossier on each of the 800 delegates that gathered, which they called "whip books".
Roger Stone met Donald Trump in 1979, introduced by Trump attorney and mentor Roy Cohn.
Roger Stone was the New York regional political director seeking to raise money for the 1980 Reagan campaign, of which Trump joined the finance committee.
Roger Stone said Trump directed him to visit his father, Fred Trump, who gave him $200,000 for the Reagan campaign.
Roger Stone went on to serve as chief strategist for Thomas Kean's campaign for Governor of New Jersey in 1981 and for his reelection campaign in 1985.
Roger Stone, the "keeper of the Nixon flame", was an adviser to the former President in his post-presidential years, serving as "Nixon's man in Washington".
Roger Stone was a protege of former Connecticut Governor John Davis Lodge, who introduced the young Roger Stone to former Vice President Nixon in 1967.
Roger Stone said Cohn gave him a suitcase that Roger Stone avoided opening and that, as instructed by Cohn, he dropped off at the office of a lawyer influential in Liberal Party circles.
In 1987 and 1988, Roger Stone served as senior adviser to Jack Kemp's presidential campaign, which was managed by consulting partner Charlie Black.
In 1995, Roger Stone was the president of Republican Senator Arlen Specter's campaign for the 1996 Republican Party presidential primaries.
Roger Stone was for many years a lobbyist for Donald Trump on behalf of his casino business and was involved in opposing expanded casino gambling in the state of New York, a position that brought him into conflict with Governor George Pataki.
Investigative journalist Wayne Barrett accused Stone of persuading Trump to publicly consider a run for the Reform nomination to sideline Pat Buchanan and sabotage the Reform Party in an attempt to lower their vote total to benefit George W Bush's campaign.
Sharpton denies that Roger Stone had any influence over his campaign.
Roger Stone denied leaving the message, despite the fact that his voice was recognized, claiming he was at a movie that was later shown not to have been screened that night.
Roger Stone was accused on an episode of Hardball with Chris Matthews on August 22,2007, of being the voice on an expletive-laden voicemail threatening Bernard Spitzer, father of Eliot, with subpoenas.
In January 2008, Roger Stone founded Citizens United Not Timid, an anti-Hillary Clinton 527 group with an intentionally obscene acronym.
Roger Stone was featured in Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, the 2010 documentary of the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal.
In February 2010, Roger Stone became campaign manager for Kristin Davis, a madam linked with the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal, in her bid for the Libertarian Party nomination for governor of New York in the 2010 election.
Roger Stone admittedly had been providing support and advice to both campaigns on the grounds that the two campaigns had different goals: Davis was seeking to gain permanent ballot access for her party, and Paladino was in the race to win.
Roger Stone volunteered as an unpaid adviser to comedian Steve Berke in his 2011 campaign for mayor of Miami Beach, Florida in 2012.
In February 2012, Roger Stone said that he had changed his party affiliation from the Republican Party to the Libertarian Party.
Roger Stone predicted a "Libertarian moment" in 2016 and the end of the Republican party.
In June 2012, Roger Stone said that he was running a super PAC in support of former New Mexico governor and Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson, whom he had met at a Reason magazine Christmas party two years earlier.
Roger Stone considered running as a Libertarian candidate for governor of Florida in 2014, but in May 2013, he said in a statement that he would not run, and that he wanted to devote himself to campaigning in support of the 2014 Florida Amendment 2 referendum legalizing medical cannabis.
Roger Stone served as an adviser to the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump.
Roger Stone had considered entering the 2016 United States Senate election in Florida to challenge white nationalist Augustus Invictus for the Libertarian nomination.
In February 2016, CNN said that it would no longer invite Roger Stone to appear on its network, and MSNBC followed suit, confirming in April 2016, that Roger Stone had been banned from that network.
Roger Stone planned the Trump campaign, and he is Trump's henchman and dirty trickster.
The 2017 Netflix documentary film Get Me Roger Stone focuses on Stone's life and career.
Roger Stone called Saudi Arabia "an enemy" and criticized Trump's visit to Riyadh in May 2017.
In December 2018, as part of a defamation settlement, Roger Stone agreed to retract a false claim he had made during the campaign: that Guo Wengui had donated to Hillary Clinton.
Roger Stone has repeatedly indicated he would back Trump if he decided to run for a second non-consecutive term in the 2024 United States presidential election, and criticized Ron DeSantis for "disloyalty" amid rumors that he would run his presidential campaign.
Roger Stone supported Russia during its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, claiming that Vladimir Putin was "acting defensively" in order to halt a purported US-funded biological weapons program, which, in fact, did not exist.
In June 2023, Stone launched The Roger Stone Show on WABC radio, which became syndicated in September 2024.
Roger Stone became a weekday host on WABC in February 2025.
In early 2018, ahead of an appearance at the annual Republican Dorchester Conference in Salem, Oregon, Roger Stone sought out the Proud Boys, a radical right group known for street violence, to act as his "security" for the event; photos posted online showed Roger Stone drinking with several Proud Boys.
Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes said Roger Stone was "one of the three approved media figures allowed to speak" about the group.
When Roger Stone was asked by a local reporter about the Proud Boys' claim that he had been initiated as a member of the group, he responded by calling the reporter a member of the Communist Party.
Roger Stone is particularly close to the group's former leader, Enrique Tarrio, who has commercially monetized his position.
At a televised Trump rally in Miami, Florida, on February 18,2019, Tarrio was seated directly behind President Trump wearing a "Roger Stone did nothing wrong" tee shirt.
The Washington Post reported in February 2021 that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was investigating any role Roger Stone might have had in influencing the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers in their participation in the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol.
Roger Stone said he had established a back-channel with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to obtain information on Hillary Clinton and said this intermediary was the source for his advance knowledge about the release of Podesta's e-mails by WikiLeaks.
Roger Stone ultimately named Randy Credico, who had interviewed both Assange and Roger Stone for a radio show, as his intermediary with Assange.
In February 2017, The New York Times reported that as part of its investigation into the Trump campaign, the FBI was looking into any contacts Roger Stone may have had with Russian operatives.
Roger Stone acknowledged contacts with the mysterious persona and made public excerpts of the messages.
Roger Stone said the messages were just innocent praise of the hacking.
In March 2017, the Senate Intelligence Committee asked Roger Stone to preserve all documents related to any Russian contacts.
Roger Stone knew about [John] Podesta being 'in the barrel,' and he acknowledged recently, he had contact with a Russian agent.
The Committee's final report of August 2020 found that Roger Stone had access to WikiLeaks and that Trump had spoken to Roger Stone and other associates about it multiple times.
Immediately after the Access Hollywood tape was released in October 2016, Roger Stone directed his associate Jerome Corsi to tell Julian Assange to "drop the Podesta emails immediately", which WikiLeaks did minutes later.
On September 26,2017, Roger Stone testified before the House Intelligence Committee behind closed doors.
Roger Stone provided a statement to the Committee and the press.
Roger Stone made personal attacks on Democratic committee members Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell and Dennis Heck.
Roger Stone said in 2018 that he did not contact Assange in 2016 and did not know in advance about the leaked emails.
On July 3,2018, US District Judge Ellen Huvelle dismissed a lawsuit brought by political activist group Protect Democracy, alleging that Trump's campaign and Roger Stone conspired with Russia and WikiLeaks to publish hacked Democratic National Committee emails during the 2016 presidential election race.
The next week, Roger Stone was identified by two government officials as the anonymous person mentioned in the indictment released by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that charged twelve Russian military intelligence officials with conspiring to interfere in the 2016 elections, as somebody the Russian hackers operating the online persona Guccifer 2.0 communicated with, and who the indictment alleged was in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign.
On January 25,2019, in a pre-dawn raid by 29 FBI agents acting on both an arrest warrant and a search warrant at his Fort Lauderdale, Florida, home, Roger Stone was arrested on seven criminal charges of an indictment in the Mueller investigation: one count of obstructing an official proceeding, five counts of false statements, and one count of witness tampering.
Roger Stone said he would fight the charges, which he called politically motivated, and would refuse to "bear false witness" against Trump.
Roger Stone thereafter told the Trump campaign about potential future releases of damaging material by WikiLeaks, the indictment alleged.
The indictment alleged that Roger Stone had discussed WikiLeaks releases with multiple senior Trump campaign officials.
On February 18,2019, Roger Stone posted on Instagram a photo of the federal judge overseeing his case, Amy Berman Jackson, with what resembled rifle scope crosshairs next to her head.
Later that day, Roger Stone filed an apology with the court.
Jackson then imposed a full gag order on Roger Stone, citing her belief that Roger Stone would "pose a danger" to others without the order.
Roger Stone's trial began on November 6,2019, at the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
Randy Credico testified that Roger Stone urged and threatened him to prevent him testifying to Congress.
Roger Stone had testified to Congress that Credico was his WikiLeaks go-between, but prosecutors said this was a lie in order to protect Jerome Corsi.
Roger Stone became the sixth person in Trump's inner circle to be convicted of charges brought by the Mueller investigation.
The judge wrote that the testimony of Steven Bannon and Rick Gates was sufficient to conclude that Roger Stone lied to Congress.
On February 10,2020, prosecutors from the US Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia requested that Roger Stone be sentenced to seven to nine years in prison for his crimes after securing convictions on all seven charges.
Roger Stone had asserted that a juror was biased against him.
All jurors in the Roger Stone trial had been vetted for potential bias by Judge Jackson, the defense team, and prosecutors.
Trump personally called Roger Stone to inform him that his sentence was being commuted.
Roger Stone was treated very unfairly, as were many others in this case.
Roger Stone's commutation followed a number of occasions in which Trump granted executive clemency to his supporters or political allies, or following personal appeals or campaigns in conservative media, as in the cases of Rod Blagojevich, Michael Milken, Joe Arpaio, Dinesh D'Souza, and Clint Lorance, as well as Bernard Kerik.
Democrats condemned Trump's commutation of Roger Stone's sentence, viewing it as abuse of the rule of law that distorted the US justice system to protect Trump's friends and undermine Trump's rivals.
On November 5,2020, two days after the presidential election, Roger Stone dictated a message saying that "any legislative body" that has "overwhelming evidence of fraud" can choose their own electors to cast Electoral College votes.
The Washington Post reported that video footage showed Roger Stone meeting with the Oath Keepers, a militia group indicted for seditious conspiracy for their role in the storming of the Capitol, on the day of the attack.
Roger Stone agreed to appear before the committee, but invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer the committee's questions during a 51 minute period.
On December 23,2021, Roger Stone urged a judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed against him by eight Capitol Police officers, alleging that he is responsible for inciting a crowd of former President Donald Trump's supporters to riot on January 6,2021.
In January 2024, further controversy arose from a tape being released in which Roger Stone discusses assassinating Democratic politicians Eric Swalwell and Jerry Nadler.
Roger Stone denied the recording as a "poorly fabricated AI-generated fraud", while it was reported that the US Capitol Police were investigating the matter after the audio's release.
Roger Stone married his first wife Anne Elizabeth Wesche in 1974.
Roger Stone, she founded the group Republicans for Choice in 1989.
Roger Stone has written of his dislike for jeans and ascots and has praised seersucker three-piece suits, as well as Madras jackets in the summertime and velvet blazers in the winter.
Since 2010, Roger Stone has been an occasional contributor to the conservative website The Daily Caller.
Roger Stone writes for his own fashion blog, Roger Stone on Style.
Roger Stone has written five books, all published by Skyhorse Publishing of New York City.
Roger Stone's books have been described as "hatchet jobs" by the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times.