Roger Stone, a confidant of US President Donald Trump, was arrested on Friday morning in the special counsel’s Russia investigation and was charged with lying to Congress and obstructing the probe.
The seven-count indictment against Stone, a self-proclaimed “dirty trickster,” is the first criminal case in months from special counsel Robert Mueller and provides the most detail to date about how Trump campaign associates were aware in the summer of 2016 that emails had been stolen from the Hillary Clinton campaign and wanted them released.
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It alleges that unnamed senior Trump campaign officials contacted Stone to ask when the stolen emails might be disclosed.
Instead, it accuses him of witness tampering, obstruction and false statements about his interactions related to WikiLeaks’ release.
Some of those false statements were made to the House intelligence committee, according to the indictment.
The indictment lays out in detail Stone’s conversations about stolen Democratic emails posted by WikiLeaks in the weeks before the Republican beat Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
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Mueller’s office has said those emails, belonging to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, were hacked by Russian intelligence officers.
Stone is scheduled to appear in court in Florida later Friday. The indictment had been expected.
Stone has said for months he was prepared to be charged, though he has denied any wrongdoing.
A grand jury for months had heard from witnesses connected to Stone. And the intelligence committee last year voted to release a transcript of Stone’s testimony to Mueller as a precursor to an indictment.
Source: aljazeera.com