A longtime Donald Trump associate who has became a recurring topic in conversations about the relationship between the Trump campaign and Russian officials said that the US intelligence community has become “politicized.”
Political adviser Roger Stone was asked Tuesday if he thought Americans should stop trusting recommendations from the intelligence community.
“To think that our intelligence community has not been politicized would be naive,” he said on CBS “This Morning.”
Stone said he does not think Trump should apologize or admit that he was wrong for making unsubstantiated claims that former President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower during the presidential election. FBI Director James Comey said Monday he had “no information” to support the President’s accusations.
“The people you are referring to are the same people that said there were weapons of mass destruction and (Saddam) Hussein had them, who lied about rendition, who lied about torture at Abu Ghraib,” Stone said.
It was pointed out to Stone that Comey was not involved in those incidents.
“The intelligence services, the ‘deep state,’ as a group,” Stone replied.
Comey declined to answer repeated questions about Stone at Monday’s House Intelligence Committee hearing, but the former Richard Nixon aide said he’s long assumed that he’s been under investigation.
“I assumed that I have been under surveillance now for some time,” he said. “What probable cause there is or what evidence that would dictate that, I don’t know.”
Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, pressed Comey and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers about Stone during the hearing.
“On August 8th, Roger Stone, a longtime Trump political adviser and self-proclaimed political dirty trickster, boasts in a speech that he ‘has communicated with (WikiLeaks founder Julian) Assange,’ and that more documents would be coming, including an ‘October surprise,'” the California Democrat said. “In the middle of August, he also communicates with the Russian cutout Guccifer 2.0, and authors a Breitbart piece denying Guccifer’s links to Russian intelligence.”
“Then, later in August, Stone does something truly remarkable, when he predicts that John Podesta’s personal emails will soon be published. ‘Trust me, it will soon be Podesta’s time in the barrel. #Crooked Hillary,'” Schiff added.
But Stone pushed back on the insinuations Tuesday.
“The inference that my now completely public exchange with a hacker Guccifer 2.0 who may or may not be a Russian agent somehow constitutes collusion is not true based on either the facts, on the actual texts which I released, or on the timing,” he said.
Speaking to CBS Tuesday, Stone reiterated that he longs for the day when he can share his side of the story.
“Let me have my day in court,” he said.
Asked about Stone at a White House briefing Monday, press secretary Sean Spicer acknowledged that Trump has known him for a long time but didn’t believe the two had spoken “any time recently.”