Roger Stone Interviewed by David Pakman (04/05/2017)

Supplemental document for: "Theory that Roger Stone's go-between for Wikileaks was Randy Credico", link: https://wakelet.com/wake/2d352ae9-febe-44a1-a7bb-51674a2e4bf5

David Pakman interviews Roger Stone. Full interview transcript. Broadcast on April 5, 2017.

File link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tek3kYUNG2g

DAVID PAKMAN
I'm joined today by Roger Stone, who is a political consultant and New York Times best-selling author. And author of the new book, _The Making of the President 2016: How Donald Trump Orchestrated a Revolution_. Roger, you're an in-demand guy these days. It seems that everybody, including people in government, want to talk to you. Did you predict that everything surrounding what is now going on with this presidency would blow up in the way that it has, and that you'd be such a part of it.

ROGER STONE
Well, in my book, _The Making of the President 2016_, I really went out of my way to lay the groundwork to expose this myth that Donald Trump's campaign somehow colluded with, or was assisted by, the Russians. It's all there, in chapter and verse, and, of course, it requires some update, with the new inferences by members of Congress, who have inaccurately and falsely accused me of such collusion. For which there is no evidence, whatsoever. Certainly, no evidence that would stand up in a U.S. court of law. So, I think it's becoming clearer and clearer, that the whole idea of Russian collusion with Trump or the Trump campaign, was the excuse, the justification, the rationale, if you will, for surveillance of Trump Tower, and the president, and some of his associates. Certainly, according to the New York Times of January 20, Page One, "Wiretapped Data Utilized [sic] In Probe [sic] of Trump Associates" is the headline, that would be me [print headline is "Wiretapped Data Used In Inquiry of Trump Associates", on-line title is "Intercepted Russian Communications Part of Inquiry Into Trump Associates", link: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/us/politics/trump-russia-associates-investigation.html ], that my conversations with Donald Trump, most certainly were monitored during the fall of last year.

PAKMAN
Well, now let's dig into that a little bit, right. Because at the center of a lot of this, is the allegation made by Devin Nunes, who, of course, is in charge of the House investigation into potential collusion between Trump and Russia...what he alleged, and whether it's true remains to be seen, is that in surveillance by American intelligence agencies, of _foreign entities_, that there were Trump associates picked up, because they were in communication with those foreign entities. That's very different from surveillance of conversations between you and the president, which I've not seen any evidence for.

STONE
Well, the evidence of course would be that all my communications were monitored, email, according to the January 30th New York Times [article] [sic], cell phone conversations [there is no such New York Times story on January 30th, but there is a Times story which matches this description on February 14, 2017 - "Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence" link: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/12/us/politics/paul-manafort-donald-trump.html ], my conversations, whether it was with...reporters, or my wife, or Donald Trump, candidate for president, were in fact, monitored. I also don't think we're at the end of this scandal...as I have written, the path, pardon me, the operation dragnet that was put in place by the NSA right after 9/11, has monitored a substantial number of Americans' phone calls, and the records indicate that...coming from a federal lawsuit in Arizona, that Donald Trump was among those being surveilled. So, I think this is a developing story. What Chairman Nunes showed us was disturbing, because to be very clear, the FBI Director, Mr. Comey, and Admiral Rogers, the NSA Director, both said under oath, there was no, _no_ surveillance, going on at Donald Trump's- at Trump Tower, and, of course, that now proves to be false.

PAKMAN
But it doesn't really. 'Cuz if someone at Trump Tower was being surveilled because they were in contact with a foreign entity that was being surveilled, that's very different than surveillance of Trump Tower itself. And I'm wondering if there's a sortof semantic game being employed here to muddy the waters.

STONE
I don't agree. Surveillance is surveillance. I think we're going to learn that there was more surveillance than we've been told. Like you, I also have sources, and I'm working this story very hard. So, let's let that play out.

PAKMAN
Oh. Okay.

STONE
I go back to this simple question, which is, when you look at the Times of the [January] 20th, and again on the 30th [again, most likely a reference to the February 14th story] intelligence sources tell the Times that they have email transmissions, they have copies of financial documents [this is the January 20th story], and then on the 30th [the February 14th story], they add, transcripts of telephone intercepts between Trump associates and some...Russian contact, as far as I'm concerned, I'd like to see them. Because in my case, they do not exist.

PAKMAN
Okay. That's fair, let's focus on- let's wait for that to play out, and focus on what's happened so far. I'm genuinely curious, as one of Donald Trump's closest confidantes, I don't know how often you speak to him now, but at least at one point [you spoke to him frequently]...why do you believe that if there is nothing to hide with regard to the Russia connections, and _alleged_ collusion, why do you believe so many people have been caught lying about meetings with Russian associates? And I'm not making this list for you, I know you know it, but for our audience, this involves disgraced National Security Advisor Michael Flynn's lies about the content of communications with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, this includes Jeff Sessions and what we now know to be two or three meetings with that same ambassador...you could include Carter Page, Jared Kushner, et cetera...aside from whether or not you believe there was collusion, how do you explain the lies?

STONE
Well, I don't have to explain them, because I am _none of those people_. I can't tell you what General Flynn may or may not have done. I tend to believe Paul Manafort, who I've known for over forty years, was an usher at my wedding, we both come from Connecticut, we were active in college, and later, Young Republicans. I choose to believe that he also had no collusion or contacts with the Russians. The fact that he had a contract with a Russian oligarch [Oleg Deripaska] that ended in 2009, an oligarch who met privately, by the way, with John McCain while he was running for president...does not prove collusion in this campaign. And then there's the question of whether any of those-

PAKMAN
Okay, but we have to explore that in detail, though, Roger. We have to dig into that in detail. Because you're on record, I mean, on August 15th, on the Alex Jones show, which is a whole other set of conversations and questions that we could have, you said that Paul Manafort has never worked for the Ukrainian government or the Russian government. You said on August 18th on Breitbart News-

STONE
That is still accurate. And that is still accurate.

PAKMAN
Well, only if you want to play a very muddy semantic game because it's widely known now, that he had multiple contracts furthering Russian interests, and to- Only if you're going in a semantic direction is that true. You've been proven to have- either you didn't know or you lied about that.

STONE
I have to disagree with you. First of all, "Russian government" is very specific. That's the Russian state. You made reference to "multiple contracts", I only have read about one, with this fellow Deripaska...which I was not aware of, at the time, but I still don't think it proves Russian collusion. So, no, I wasn't lying-

PAKMAN
But again, Roger, I want to-

STONE
-I was very precise in my language.

PAKMAN
If we want to look at precise language, you did tweet on October 31st, that Paul Manafort has no Russian ties. That's different from saying he wasn't working for the Russian government. Having a ten million dollar contract is a tie, is it not?

STONE
I would concede that. And look, let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.

PAKMAN
But that aside, you made that tweet, when you made that tweet on October 31st, was it a lie, or did you not know?

STONE
Clearly, I didn't know about the Deripaska story, because if I had, I would not have said that. At the same time, I stil think his relationship with Deripaska does not constitute collusion during the 2016 campaign, when the contract ended in 2009.

PAKMAN
Okay. We are now starting to, starting to hear from...some Democrats exclusively, at this point, that they believe, ultimately, some of the individuals associated with what they believe is collusion or co-ordination with Russia, will end up in jail, or prison in the United States. What's your reaction? Do you think everybody's going to get off scott free here?

STONE
Uh, like you I would like to see the investigation, I'd like to see these hearings go forward.

PAKMAN
Right. But you know so much more than some of the people waiting for the investigation. Knowing what you know, what's your sense?

STONE
Well, that's an assumption on your part. I don't know General Flynn, I've never met him, I've never had any communications with him, I know him from watching him on television. And I cannot tell you what he may or may not have done. And, whether any of it rises to the level of collusion. He doesn't join the campaign until the fall, I have no contact with him. And I don't know. I've read Carter Page's book, he denies everything, I don't know the gentleman, never met him, had no dealings with him, best I can tell, he appended himself to a hundred member issue advisory committee, as some kind of "Russian expert". I'm not certain who else you're talking about, I don't have a crystal ball, but I do know as far as I am concerned, there is no collusion, or co-ordination of any kind, with any representative of the Russian state.

PAKMAN
Alright, let's pick it up there, we've been speaking with Roger Stone, he is the author of the new book _The Making of the President 2016: How Donald Trump Orchestrated A Revolution_, he's not kidding that he talks about a lot of these issues in the book...I've been reviewing it before our interview for the last week or so. Let's pause there, and pick up the conversation with him tomorrow. [break] We're continuing our conversation with Roger Stone, he's a political consultant, the New York Times best-selling author, and author of the new book, _The Making of the President 2016: How Donald Trump Orchestrated A Revolution_. We wrapped up part one of the interview with some more general thoughts about what's going on, in the current investigation...let's see what we can sort out what's true and what isn't about your involvement and associations. Have you ever met ambassador Segey Kislyak?

STONE
I have not.

PAKMAN
You've never met him? And-

STONE
Never met him, didn't know his name until I read it in connection with Senator Sessions' meeting. And, of course, Senator Sessions is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and because he met with the ambassador, you can put a negative spin on it, but we don't know what the content is, or subject of the meetings is.

PAKMAN
No, and Jeff Sessions at first didn't even remember that the meetings even took place. So, I think Jeff Sessions might not be the best person to go to, to figure out what the content of the meeting was. With regard to what is known colloquially as "the Steele dossier", or the Trump-Russia blackmail dossier, call it what you will. Were you on the Miss Universe trip to Moscow, in October of 2013? Is that a trip you were on?

STONE
I was not.

PAKMAN
You were not. And-

STONE
I was not.

PAKMAN
With regard to that trip, and any others? Can you definitively say, that Donald Trump has not ever consorted with prostitutes, which is one of those claims made in the dossier?

STONE
Yeah, the dossier, as you think you know, kicked around for quite some time...it got shopped during the Republican primary, it got shopped during the general election, most responsible media organizations wouldn't touch it...it's rife with mis-spellings, among other things-

PAKMAN
And some correct assertions as well.

STONE
Well...the point I guess I would make is, is that at the time of the trip, I recall Keith Schiller, who was head of the security detail for now president Trump, telling me that his contact, the person assigned to be the contact with the Trump traveling party of the pageant, who presumably was an agent of the government, said that he planned to send girls to Mr. Trump's room, and was told under no circumstances, to do so...and that Keith, who is a very smart guy, posted guards both at the front and rear entrances of the hotel, as well as the door to Mr. Trump's room. Also, knowing him for forty years, knowing of his germophobia, knowing about his penchant for privacy, and...I just find it impossible to believe. I think that it is [spun from] whole cloth...the idea that Senator McCain would send this to the FBI, I think that should be examined. Because I'd like to know what he knew about the origins of this document. It appears to have been created by this fellow-

PAKMAN
Well, but- John McCain didn't create this document, wouldn't the obvious thing to do, would be to send it to somebody who could try to verify what the claims are, and who the source is...unless you're suggesting that McCain created the document-

STONE
No, I'm not suggesting that.

PAKMAN
-it seems the senator, that's what he should have done, right? Send it to the intel-

STONE
No, I'm suggesting- I'm suggesting that as an individual of some judgment, he might have looked at it and seen that it is highly questionable, to say the least. Too much has already been written about something that I believe is entirely fraudulent. This did not happen. It is so out of the realm of the possibilities for Donald Trump, if you knew him, that it just has no credibility. I also think that we have traced Mr. Steele to a number of the neo-cons, I believe that's where this was created, the fellow who makes these assertions, I think is not credible. I don't think this happened.

PAKMAN
Well, hold on a second, Roger. I think you're muddying the waters a little bit. This aggregates some of those claims. It seems as though Steele was initially hired to do opposition research on Trump by other Republican candidates. But Mr. Steele's credibility has not been called into question, by any serious individuals.

STONE
No, I don't agree with that. Continue.

PAKMAN
Who, that we can go to and say, they have the knowledge that we would believe-

STONE
People in the political community who are operatives like myself, are familiar with Mr. Steele, and his work. He was also involved, peripherally, in the case of the poisoning by, presumably the Russians, of a gentleman in London, he pops up again in the Billy Bush tape...matter, so, I am not sure he is the best source. But my understanding was that his source was an on the ground Russian, who made these claims.

PAKMAN
Okay. Let's finalize this topic, and then we'll move on to some other things. So, you said a lot of things about how the prostitution story is not coherent with your forty year knowledge of Trump...

STONE
Correct.

PAKMAN
...but are you saying, to your knowledge, that Donald Trump has never consorted with a prostitute?

STONE
Uh, not to my knowledge, no. Absolutely not.

PAKMAN
Okay. You've talked about your willingness to testify on this issue, but you want to do it openly, rather than behind closed doors.

STONE
Yes!

PAKMAN
Simultaneously, you've declined to say, who your mutual friend with Julian Assange is. If asked about your mutual friend, during the open testimony that you want, will you reveal who that individual is?

STONE
Well, I think you'd call it a source. I mean, I reported this on my syndicated radio show, I reported it on my show on Infowars, I reported it in my weekly column, uh, no, I'm not going to give away a source, who turns out to be right. This person is a reporter for a reputable news organization...in the United States. And what they told me was...exceedingly limited. That there would be a data dump on Hillary Clinton in October, and it would be devastating, and that it would include everything, which I took to mean, it would include some emails, or some documents, that had allegedly been erased, or deleted, at the State Department. Now, Wikileaks, essentially on July 31, in a tweet, says, really, pretty much the same thing. A tweet I was unaware of, at the time.

PAKMAN
Mmmmhmmm.

STONE
So, my source is correct, I don't intend to give them up, because I don't want to cost them their job. I'm not going to expose a reporter in that way...but the information they gave me does not fit the narrative that I knew in advance, and co-ordinated the scope, or thrust, or content, of the Wikileaks disclosures. I also don't buy the idea that Wikileaks is a Russian asset, it doesn't matter how many times the intelligence services want to say this, it doesn't make it true, even if FBI Director Comey said, when asked, in the House Intelligence Committees, that their assessment is that Assange had- or the Russians had used some kind of cut out.

PAKMAN
That's right, some sort of middle person.

STONE
Yeah, assesssment to me, is usually code for "we don't know, but we're guessing".

PAKMAN
You have talked about the poisoning, that you believe you suffered in January.

STONE
Yes.

PAKMAN
And uh, I want to talk a little bit about that. The symptoms I've read you had, were rash and hair loss, and you've attributed to a poisoning of some kind-

STONE
Well, vomiting, diarrhea, night sweats, delirium, yeah, this was not a day at the beach...I don't recommend it for, for weight loss. My doctor is convinced that I was poisoned with some exogenous substance, which may have been radioactive, I have another blood test this Friday. I was very sick. Can I prove who might have done this? Or their motive. No.

PAKMAN
Okay, but let's pick it up- Number one, have you, or would you be willing to release something from your doctor, saying that their belief is that the most likely explanation was that you were poisoned?

STONE
For what purpose? I'm not an elected official, or a public official. I have written my experience. People can make their judgments-

PAKMAN
Okay.

STONE
I don't want to dwell on this, I understand others do, because it diverts attention.

PAKMAN
Because- If indeed someone tried to poison you, that's a very interesting story. Do you have any sense of how you might have contracted the poison?

STONE
Before we leave this...it could have been consumed, ingested in food, drink, it could have been surface absorbed, that has evidently been done. As you probably also know, I was involved in a hit and run accident. The very same day, or the day after, the House Committee expressed an interest in my testimony. Where we were broadsided, the car that hit us, we couldn't detect who was driving it, because the windshield was so deeply tinted, and they took off. Now: I find that very suspicious, the car I was riding in was very badly damaged, and perhaps totalled, the airbags went off, but whoever hit us, didn't sustain enough damage to their car that it didn't run, like ours, [the driver of the other car] threw it in reverse and took off. So, that's twice. The sickness around Christmas, when I believe I was poisoned, happens immediately after Senator McCain calls for my testimony...the accident, if you want to call it that, the hit and run, which was filed with the police, with the sheriff's office, happens the day after congressman Schiff and others express an interest in my testimony.

PAKMAN
But Roger-

STONE
Coincidental? Perhaps.

PAKMAN
-I ask this in a completely honest and open way. If indeed the goal of either or both of these incidents is to prevent your testimony from coming out, don't you think it's almost, sortof, too obvious to do it when the idea of you testifying is suggested. Why- It's not like you were going to testify the next day. Why not wait a little bit? It seems incredibly haphazard.

STONE
Well, if you are trying to make the case, implausibly and incredibly crazy as this is, that the Russians wanted to take out Stone to silence him- Perhaps not.

PAKMAN
No, I'm not making that implication- I'm just genuinely curious why it happened in that way. In a way that would clearly draw so much attention.

STONE
Me too, me too. It has a certain illogic to it, but then...you know, I don't know if there is a perp, and I don't what the perp's thinking is, if one exists. Again, I don't want to distract from the fundamental question of whether we can prove there were substantial and meaningful contacts between anyone in a position of authority or influence, in the Trump campaign, and the Russians. I still don't think that's the case.

PAKMAN
No, I know you don't think that. I know you don't think that. The last thing I wanna touch on, and I know you have just a couple of minutes left...in retrospect, you were one of the individuals propping up the birther theories of Barack Obama not being born in the United States, certainly you encouraged Donald Trump that this is something he should be public about, and look into...number one...

STONE
I think that's a slight overstatement. I was never an advocate for this point of view. But I learned about his interest in it, and he asked me what I thought, and, you know, follow your conscience, if everything you've read convinces you there's something there. That's the thing about Donald Trump, no one puts words in his mouth, or ideas in his head. He does not work like a conventional politician, [PAKMAN laughs] I've written talking points for several presidents, Trump just doesn't operate that way.

PAKMAN
What's your current belief about the birthplace of the former president?

STONE
Uh, you know, I don't know, I have looked on-line, at the document that he produced, I've also read a number of appearingly [sic - apparently] dispassionate, you know, "Internet experts", question whether it's real, I have no idea whether it's real, but he's no longer president, I'm not sure why this is significant, if you look at my tweets, and the things that I've written at Stone Zone, or Stone Cold Truth dot com, I've never written on this, I've never tweeted on it-

PAKMAN
That's fine, but you're saying that you don't know the president was born in the United States. What would convince you-

STONE
Well, he said-

PAKMAN
What would convince you that President Obama was born in the United States?

STONE
I'm not sure that I can ever know for sure. By the way, I'm not saying that he wasn't. All I'm saying is that I'm not sure.

PAKMAN
But what you're saying is you can't even imagine hypothetical evidence, if it existed, that would convince you that Barack Obama was born in the U.S.

STONE
I think it is odd that all of his personal records are sealed. I think it is odd that it took this long to produce the birth certificate, when he could have made fools of his critics, much earlier. Instead, this has festered. I think it is true, Donald Trump, in a certain sense, was able to bring it from the fringe into a more mainstream discussion.

PAKMAN
Yeah, but Roger-

STONE
I know elites hate this argument, but whatever.

PAKMAN
Yeah, but Roger...if you're telling me that there's not even hypothetical evidence that would convince you the former president was born in the U.S., you're not really dealing in the world of facts, you've just decided you'll never be convinced. That doesn't seem like a very objective position. You're saying that I couldn't even imagine evidence that would convince me of it.

STONE
I don't think, obviously, if someone wants to present me with the actual document we've seen copies of, and it were certified to be real, of course I would accept it. But that's not going to happen. So, I only know what I've read about this, and I think it's curious that in a number of turns in the road, the president says he was born here...it's irrelevant as far as I'm concerned. His presidency is over.

PAKMAN
It is indeed. A fascinating guy- Yeah?

STONE
Far more important to me, far more important to me, is whether people in his administration illegally unmasked the names of certain U.S. citizens [PAKMAN laughs] who were active in the Trump campaign-

PAKMAN
Yes! [said like this: "Haha! Again, with this shit."]

STONE
-and how this particular move went.

PAKMAN
Well, hopefully we will get answers to a lot of the questions you and I have raised, during both parts of this interview. The book...is _The Making of the President 2016: How Donald Trump Orchestrated a Revolution_, we've been speaking with the book's author, Roger Stone. Thanks for talking to us, I know you've been busy this last few weeks.

STONE
Many thanks for having me today. I enjoyed it.