Roger Stone, a former adviser to the Trump campaign, said Sunday that he is the victim of a smear by Democratic lawmakers and that he volunteered to testify in public for the House intelligence committee probe into allegations the campaign colluded with Russian spies.
“I have had no contacts or collusions with the Russians,” Mr. Stone declared on ABC’s “This Week.”
He later added: “There is no collusion, none — at least none that I know about — in Donald Trump’s campaign for president.”
Mr. Stone said that Rep. Adam B. Schiff, the top Democrat on the committee, had targeted him and other associates of President Trump in a political witch hunt.
He said Mr. Schiff was “largely full of Schiff.”
“Let’s have the testimony,” Mr. Stone said. “You have a bunch of congressmen here who I believe have defamed me. I saw demagoguery, fear-mongering, red-baiting and half-truths. In many cases just flat-out lies.”
He said he is looking forward to testifying before the committee, although the committee only has accepted his offer and has not confirmed that he will testify or whether it would be in public.
“In America, we’re supposed to have a chance to see the evidence against us and face our accusers. I’m very anxious to do that,” said Mr. Stone, a veteran GOP strategist. “I think the whole Russian meme, which really starts as a Clinton campaign press release, is finally put to bed.”
Mr. Schiff last week cited Mr. Stone’s contacts with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and hacktivist Guccifer 2, who U.S. intelligence agencies believe works for the Kremlin, as circumstantial evidence of a conspiracy.
The California Democrat also noted a Twitter post that appeared to predict an embarrassing email hack of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, during the presidential race.
Mr. Stone tweeted: “It will soon be Podesta’s time in the barrel.”
On the Sunday talk show, Mr. Stone called it “a scandal in search of evidence.”
He said that his twitter exchanges with Guccifer 2 were all made public and his communications with Mr. Assange were through an intermediary. He also said there is a competing theory about whether Guccifer 2 is a Russian agent, adding that U.S. intelligence agencies had been wrong in the past, including about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction.
He said the tweet about Mr. Podesta had nothing to do with emails.
“I never made any reference to John Podesta’s email. There were a dozen stories about his business dealings published after that,” said Mr. Stone.
“Does it say #WikiLeaks, #Assange? [Mr. Schiff] said, ’Stone predicted that his emails would be hacked.’ No, I didn’t. I never said anything of the kind,” Mr. Stone said.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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