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About 20 months ago, special advocate Robert Mueller had been appointed to investigate Russian electoral interference and potential collusion with the Trump campaign. Stone seemed to be an obvious target.
Stone publicly stated that he was waiting to be indicted and he believes he has been under surveillance since 2016. He has strengthened his legal team. He proclaimed his innocence since more than a dozen of his associates were interviewed by the Mueller team or appeared before the grand jury.
Yet no word from Mueller.
"Everything is calm," said Grant Smith, one of Stone's four attorneys. One of the lawyers contacted Mueller's team about a year ago to let them know that Stone had legal representation. It was a type of contact "if you need us, here is an address," Smith said. The Mueller team has never approached.
However, it is clear that Mueller's team is still interested in Stone. Jerome Corsi's son-in-law, curator and conspiracy theorist Andrew Stettner, appeared before Mueller's grand jury on Thursday as investigators continued to interfere in conversations between Corsi and Stone in 2016. [19659006] Mueller also requested access to Stone's in-camera testimony in September 2017. The House's Intelligence Committee, which is now under democratic control. The committee agreed to disclose the testimony to Mueller, but so far it has not been made public. Stone's team does not have a copy, Smith said, although Stone's lawyers are allowed to view it in a secure room known as SCIF (Sensitive Compartment Information System).
"There is nothing out there that suggests collaboration or collusion, so we are now at the issue of perjury," Stone said in an interview with CNN . He insists that his testimony was "accurate and true".
A spokesman for the special council declined to comment.
The attention to perjury came after Mueller had taken a crazy look at the rest of Stone's life, including his finances.
"None of this disturbs me if it's much less than people think," Stone said. "It's the price to pay to be well dressed, I guess."
Waiting for "Stone Stone Day"
Stone especially challenged the entire Mueller saga, insisting that he was unjustly targeted and that he was fighting let's go back to public platforms such as InfoWars right-wing fringe sites and Daily Caller conservative sites. But he also expressed his exhaustion and irritation over recurring questions about "Roger Stone's day" – the day he could be arrested by the FBI.
"There was a time when those predictions really hit Roger hard," said Michael Caputo, a long-time friend of Stone and a former Trump campaigner, who was interviewed by Mueller investigators. "They do not land so hard anymore because Roger Stone's day has arrived a thousand times and you realize that Roger Stone's day might never come."
"There was a time Roger did not plan on Fridays," added Caputo, referring to the day of the week when Mueller's grand jury tends to come together and lay charges. But he's back from spending Friday nights with his family at his favorite New Haven pizzeria, Caputo said.
Davis, known as Ms. Manhattan, once headed a high-level prostitution ring and went to jail for a few months as part of the scandal surrounding the then-democratic governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer. Davis was not involved in Spitzer's specific prostitution service that had led to his resignation in 2008.
Stone said he was drawing strength from the support of his family, and his wife Nydia in particular. Davis said his son Carter, who is Stone's godson, was also a source of joy for him in the midst of the tumult. Last September, Stone and his wife held a birthday party for two years at their home in Florida, with a dinosaur cake and a mountain of gifts.
"Financial Deficit"
Keeping a legal team on hold and seeing some of its private consulting work run out of steam was "financially disappointing" said Mr. Stone. Recently, he has used more creative fundraising techniques than the typical email explosion.
His family, with the help of editing software, recently created videos of their dogs proclaiming: "Roger Stone did nothing wrong!" The slogan is also available on a t-shirt for $ 33. The back of the shirts is adorned with portraits of Stone and former President Richard Nixon, echoing the Nixon tattoo on Stone's back. On the back of the shirts: "If I was not effective, you would not hate me."
Stone stated that he had also amassed thousands of dollars by selling signed stones – "Roger stones" – for $ 10 each.
"I noticed, as you will surely see, that if people have the choice to give you $ 25 or $ 25 and receive a signed paperweight, they would rather have something to keep in their books. the hand, "said Stone. "It's marketing."
Stone's team declined to say how much he had spent on legal fees up to now. They also refused to say how much his legal defense fund had raised.
Stone discovers his "true friends"
"People have this:" Oh, Roger Stone is a dirty guy, "and nothing disturbs him," Davis said. "But he is still a human being, these are always people he's known for years, and in the end, they've somehow made him dirty."
Stone himself said, "Here is the only way to salvation: It's in the hard times that you will find Know who your true friends are."
With regard to Stone and Trump, their decades-long relationship has been punctuated by periods in which the two men spoke every day and all, barely. According to Stone, they are no longer in contact these days.
"I am sure we will communicate again when it is finished, one way or another," Stone said.
In the meantime, Stone intends to continue to fight in the court of public opinion.
"He always said: do not let any negative go unanswered," Caputo said. "It's what he's always said to all his customers."
Stone follows his own advice and pleads his case on right-wing platforms, cable news organizations and social media sites that have not suspended his accounts (you will not find him on Twitter , who suspended it in 2017).
"It still compares to what happened to Paul Manafort," said Caputo, referring to the former president of the Trump campaign and Stone's former trading partner in the 1980s. Manafort has been sentenced to trial for eight counts of financial crimes and is sitting in a Virginia prison cell.
"Paul, who was silent about the charges, saw his public figure crumble," added Caputo. this stone "wakes up every day ready to fight."
Stone's lengthy role in the Mueller investigation and the accompanying media coverage have made it, according to Stone's narrative, more famous than ever.
"When I go out in public, you have very well piloted my ID," Stone said. "They always break down at about 50-50 Half of the people want to take a selfie and shake my hand, the other half want to tell me to leave myself It's always better to be infamous than never to be famous at all. "
