Roger Stone: Mueller likely trying to snag Trump over Flynn, Comey firings
Longtime Trump adviser and Republican operative Roger Stone believes special counsel Robert Mueller may be attempting to snag President Trump in his Russia probe on a technicality, he said in an interview Sunday.
Stone suggested that Mueller, the top investigator on the independent probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, may try to charge the president on "some kind of process crime: perjury or obstruction of justice, something relating to either the firing of Gen. [Michael] Flynn or the firing of FBI Director [James] Comey."
Congress heard testimony from Comey — the previous top official leading the Russia investigation, who Trump fired in May — in June, when he told a Senate panel that the president urged him to find a way to lessen the scrutiny on former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
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Flynn, who also advised Trump on his campaign, later admitted to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russians during the election.
"You cannot underestimate the deep animus of the two-party establishment to Donald Trump, and their resolve to remove him no matter what," Stone told New York radio host John Catsimatidis, jabbing at Mueller's long-running investigation and parallel probes by congressional committees.
Stone said the recently uncovered FBI surveillance of a Trump campaign associate, which he and Republican lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee contend was opened on the basis of shoddy opposition research on Trump, made the Watergate scandal of the Nixon administration look like "small potatoes" in comparison.
Former Attorney General Eric Holder also said this week he believed Mueller to be building an obstruction of justice case against Trump, suggesting the former FBI director was biding his time to make the case airtight before bringing it to a federal grand jury.
Stone himself has faced questions in the Russia probe from the House Intelligence Committee, who asked about his communications with WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange.
In his testimony, Stone insisted that he never communicated directly with Assange, and instead spoke through an intermediary.
Months later, Stone said he had a "backchannel" to the controversial investigative group, which now appears to be his direct messages to WikiLeaks on Twitter dating back to 2016, recently obtained by The Atlantic.
“I have never spoken to Assange. I never met with him. I did not speak to him in 2016. I had a limited exchange with the flack for WikiLeaks," he told the radio host, and insisted that he told the truth in his testimony.
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