Trump Ally Arrested on Seven Mueller Probe Charges
Mr Stone will appear
in court later in the city of Fort Lauderdale.
The indictment includes one count of obstruction of an official
proceeding, five counts of false statements, and one count of witness-tampering.
The charges are
linked to an alleged Russian-led hack into the emails of Democratic Party
officials.
The information
contained in the emails was released by WikiLeaks during the 2016 US
presidential election campaign.
CNN reports that FBI
agents arrested Mr Stone in a pre-dawn raid on Friday. One pounded on the door
and said, "FBI... Open the door," the US outlet says.
Hillary Clinton's
2016 campaign chairman John Podesta, who was targeted in the email hack,
accused Mr Stone of knowing about it beforehand.
According to
investigators, Mr Stone said he had "communicated" with WikiLeaks
founder Julian Assange before the emails' release and had described the contact
as "perfectly legal".
The indictment
accuses the lobbyist of lying to the House Intelligence Committee about what
passed between him and WikiLeaks, and of falsely claiming not to have records
of it.
Mr Stone is said to
have spoken to senior Trump campaign officials - who are not identified - about
"organization 1" [believed to be WikiLeaks] "and information it
might have had that would be damaging to the Clinton Campaign".
Prosecutors say Mr
Stone was also "contacted by senior Trump campaign officials to inquire
about future releases" by WikiLeaks.
His campaign
activities have long been under scrutiny by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who
is investigating allegations of collusion between Russia and the Trump
campaign.
In 2016, US
intelligence agencies concluded that Russia had tried to turn the election in
Mr Trump's favour through a state-authorised relay of cyber attacks and fake
news stories planted on social media.
Mr Trump has branded
the Mueller inquiry a political "witch-hunt". The Kremlin has always
denied meddling in the US election.
Mr Stone has
repeatedly said in interviews that he expected to be indicted. In May he told
NBC's Meet The Press: "It is not inconceivable now that Mr Mueller and his
team may seek to conjure up some extraneous crime pertaining to my business, or
maybe not even pertaining to the 2016 election.
"I would chalk
this up to an effort to silence me."
Through past
indictments Robert Mueller has been building the case that Russians were behind
the hacking of senior Democratic and Hillary Clinton campaign officials. He
alleges they then used Wikilieaks to inject damaging information they garnered
into the US political bloodstream at a time most harmful to Democrats.
What the special
counsel's office had yet to allege is that there were any ties between
Wikileaks and the Donald Trump presidential campaign.
On Friday Mr Mueller
charged longtime Trump adviser and confidant Roger Stone with being that
missing link, citing communications between Mr Stone and "senior"
Trump campaign officials before and after the Wikileaks documents were
released.
The move marks a
significant development in this nearly two-year legal drama. For the first time
a member of Mr Trump's inner circle, albeit an informal one, is facing charges
directly related to Russian election meddling - the central thrust of the
special counsel's investigation.
Mr Stone has denied
suggestions of criminal misconduct. But the man who has boasted of being a master
of the political dark arts, and who seemed to crave the notoriety that went
along with such claims, now finds himself directly in the centre of a withering
legal spotlight.
Mr Stone is the 34th
person to be charged as part of the Mueller investigation. Those indicted
include 12 Russian military officers and 13 Russian nationals accused of
leading a campaign to interfere in the US election.
Another three
Russian entities, including the notorious Internet Research Agency "troll
farm", have also been charged.
Several people
connected directly with Mr Trump have been indicted, including his former
national security adviser Michael Flynn, and Paul Manafort, the former chairman
of his election campaign, who is in jail.
Mr Trump's former
personal lawyer Michael Cohen and former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos
have also been charged.
A long-time friend
of Donald Trump, Roger Stone has worked on Republican political campaigns since
the 1970s.
The 66-year-old
favours three-piece suits and reportedly refuses to wear socks.
He began his career
working on Richard Nixon's 1972 re-election bid, and has a tattoo of the 37th
president across his shoulder blades.
Mr Stone became
embroiled in the Watergate scandal after congressional hearings revealed that
he hired an operative to infiltrate the campaign of George McGovern, Mr Nixon's
Democratic opponent.
He went on to work
for Ronald Reagan's successful presidential campaigns in 1980 and 1984, and
advised George HW Bush in his bid for the White House in 1988.
Mr Stone published a
book, The Making of the President 2016, after helping Mr Trump to power.
FROM .bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-
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