Roger Stone plans to deny collusion, evidence of Russia hacking to Congress

By Karoun Demirjian and Tom Hamburger September 26 at 9:20 AM

Former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone plans to fiercely deny to the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that he had any contact, much less colluded, with Russian operatives during the 2016 presidential election, according to a prepared opening statement he shared with The Washington Post.

Stone also plans to deny that he had any advance knowledge that emails of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta would be hacked or that his emails would then be released by WikiLeaks — despite tweeting just days before that Podesta’s “time in the barrel” would soon be coming.

In his prepared opening statement, Stone decries the nation’s intelligence agencies as “politicized,” and questions the findings of the intelligence community regarding Russia’s efforts to meddle in the 2016 election, including the hacks of the Democratic National Committee and Podesta.

“Mantra-like repetition of the claim by our vaunted 17 intelligence agencies that the ‘Russians’ colluded with the Trump campaign about Russia’s efforts to sway the election, does not make it so,” he wrote — voicing doubts similar to those President Trump has expressed.

Stone’s prepared comments are lengthy, and include several addendums, including images of private communications he had with hacker Guccifer 2.0 on Twitter in August and September of last year. Stone has publicly questioned the assertion that Guccifer 2.0 is connected to the Russian-directed hacking operation, but insists the newly disclosed messages show his contact with them began only after he made that claim.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/roger-stone-plans-to-deny-collusion-evidence-of-russia-hacking-to-congress/2017/09/25/e0c0f074-a24f-11e7-b14f-f41773cd5a14_story.html