Roger Stone claimed Tuesday that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the 2016 elections will culminate in efforts to remove President Trump from the White House.
A former adviser to Mr. Trump’s presidential election campaign, Mr. Stone made the prediction during an interview conducted on the morning of his arraignment in D.C. federal court for charges brought as a result of Mr. Mueller’s ongoing probe.
“This isn’t about me,” Mr. Stone told Breitbart News. “It’s about the president. They’re coming for him. Anybody who doesn’t see that is naive. They’re coming for him, and they want me out of the way because I will speak out against it.”
“The president needs to wake up. This is a speeding bullet heading for his head. Not me. I’m just a small, collateral damage compared to him,” Mr. Stone continued.
Mr. Stone, 64, was arrested at his Florida home last Friday and charged with seven counts of lying to Congress, obstruction and witness tampering. He was released on bond within hours and pleaded not guilty to all counts during Tuesday’s arraignment.
The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential race, according to U.S. officials, and Mr. Mueller has been appointed to investigate allegations of election interference and related matters on behalf of the Department of Justice.
Federal prosecutors have filed criminal charges against 34 people as a result of the special counsel’s probe, including most recently Mr. Stone, a longtime Republican strategist and lobbyist who knew Mr. Trump for decades prior to briefly serving as a formal adviser to his campaign in 2015.
“They want to silence me because I see the big picture. I lived in 1974. I worked for Richard Nixon. I saw that takedown. It was very, very similar,” Mr. Stone said Tuesday.
Mr. Mueller’s office has previously filed criminal charges against several other members of Mr. Trump’s election campaign, including its former chairman, Paul Manafort; former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn; and former aides George Papadopoulos and Rick Gates. Along with Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, Manafort, Flynn, Papadopoulos and Gates have pleaded guilty.
Mr. Stone worked for Nixon’s 1972 re-election campaign.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.