Who The **** Is Roger Stone?

Roger Stone, Jr., political strategist and conspiracy theorist, is scheduled to testify July 24 in closed session before the House Intelligence Committee regarding the investigation into ties between the Trump team and the Russian Federation.

Stone is a longtime associate of Donald Trump who has been involved in politics since working on Richard Nixon’s infamous Committee to Re-elect the President. He was partners in a Washington, D.D. lobbying firm with Paul Manafort and Charles R. Black, Jr. that served many high paying clients, including corporations, trade associations, and foreign governments.
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During the presidential campaign, Stone bragged repeatedly that he had contact with Guccifer 2.0, the hacker that is now known to be a group made up of members of the GRU (Russian intelligence service) working for the Kremlin to help the Trump campaign Additionally, Stone predicted last summer that there would be an “October surprise” that would damage the Clinton campaign, and suggested that John Podesta would be a target of damaging leaks, before stolen emails from Podesta began appearing on Wikileaks.
John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff, testified in closed session before the House Committee today. Roger Stone said the following in an email to Politico, regarding Podesta:
“With John Podesta appearing before the committee I do feel it is essential that I have the opportunity to rebut his serial lies. I may not be able to sue a member of Congress but I sure as hell can sue the f--- out of Podesta. The claim that I had knowledge of the hacking of his email by WikiLeaks in advance is a demonstrable lie.”

Stone posted a message on Twitter in August suggesting that Podesta would soon be the target of trouble. 

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On October 7, WikiLeaks posted stolen documents from Podesta, some of which may have been doctored to damage the Clinton campaign.

​Earlier on October 7, the Obama administration released a report describing Russian Federation hacking of the Democratic National Committee. Later in the day, a video from 2005 was released, which contained audio of Donald Trump bragging about assaulting women. Very shortly after that, the Podesta emails were posted on WikiLeaks.
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An article in The Hill describing Stone’s contentious interactions on Twitter can be found here.
http://thehill.com/homenews/322431-roger-stone-claims-legal-back-channel-to-assange

An article from Mother Jones about Roger Stone can be found here.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/06/roger-stone-nigel-farage-donald-trump-russia-fbi/

A Politifact article explaining the Podesta emails can be found here.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/oct/23/are-clinton-wikileaks-emails-doctored-or-are-they-/

A link to the audio of Trump bragging about assaulting women can be found here.
http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/10/07/donald-trump-women-lewd-comments-origwx-cs.cnn

A link to the intelligence report from the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, about Russian theft of data, released on October 7, can be found here.
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/07/joint-statement-department-homeland-security-and-office-director-national

A New York Times article about the report can be found here.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/us/politics/us-formally-accuses-russia-of-stealing-dnc-emails.html

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