The political world continues to reel from the recent arrest of past Trump adviser Roger Stone — and President Donald Trump says he has nothing to do with it. In an interview with The New York Times, he insisted that despite prosecutors insisting his campaign maintained contact with Stone over the emails Russian hackers stole from the Democrats, he personally never discussed the emails with Stone and never directed anyone else to.
According to the indictment Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team handed down against Stone, in July 2016, he got in touch with the Trump campaign about soon-to-be-dropped emails, and after some emails actually appeared, an unnamed senior official in the campaign directed an underling to get in touch with Stone about possible future releases. Although eventually, he’s confirmed to have consulted with individuals as high-ranking as former Trump campaign chairman Steve Bannon about the emails, it’s unknown who that senior official in the campaign who did the directing actually is.
Besides distancing himself from the actual content of the allegations against Stone, Trump has also derided the manner in which the FBI took him into custody. Early one morning last week at his Florida home, a large, well-armed team showed up at his door, with apparent concern that he could either destroy evidence or prove a flight risk. Stone has dismissed the raid “Gestapo tactics” — while somehow also claiming the agents were all “courteous” — and Trump has called the situation “a very, very disappointing scene.” He added, when pressed to that effect by conservative publication The Daily Caller, that he would “think about” asking the FBI to review its policies surrounding use of force.
He has lambasted authorities including the FBI numerous times before for their conduct surrounding the Russia scandal. He’s at times suggested the entire federal Justice Department is corrupt, and he’s found allies for that stance in Congressional Republicans, many of whom have taken up the mantle of investigating the investigators, so to speak.
Still, the evidence against him keeps piling up. Despite his claims of personal innocence, his campaign definitely got in touch with Stone about stolen emails — and at times, Stone knew things the public did not and attempted to know more. Trump’s own son carried on similarly, eagerly accepting a meeting with Kremlin lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in Trump Tower after she’d been promised to bring dirt from the Russian government on Hillary Clinton.
As he’s done in the past, Trump claimed this week while speaking with The Times that he’s been assured he’s not an actual target of the Russia investigation. Previously, he claimed former FBI Director James Comey told him as much, and now, he pins the claim on Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller in the first place.
Whether or not those comments actually transpired is open to speculation. Trump has been documented to have lied thousands of times while in office, so who knows.
Clarity does, however, continue to surround the mountains of evidence against the Trump team — and the fact that Mueller’s final report is only getting closer.
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