Roger Stone, a longtime Trump confidant who was convicted and sentenced for witness tampering, lying and obstruction, was in contact with at least one Israeli at the height of the 2016 presidential campaign who offered “critical intell” to help Trump win the election, according to newly unsealed FBI documents.
Nearly three-dozen search warrants unsealed on Tuesday reveal contacts between Stone and one or more apparently high-ranking Israeli officials, as well as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and other key figures in Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, Politico reported.
Stone was among six Trump associates charged in the Mueller investigation. A judge in February sentenced him Stone to 40 months in prison.
One of the FBI documents appears to show an Israeli warning Stone that Trump was “going to be defeated unless we intervene” and promised “we have critical intell,” according to Times of Israel.
The documents — FBI affidavits submitted to obtain search warrants in the criminal investigation into Stone — were released after a lawsuit filed by The Associated Press and other media organizations.
“The FBI material, which is heavily redacted, includes one explicit reference to Israel and one to Jerusalem, and a series of references to a minister, a cabinet minister, a ‘minister without portfolio in the cabinet dealing with issues concerning defense and foreign affairs,’ the PM, and the Prime Minister,” TOI reported. “In all these references the names and countries of the minister and prime minister are redacted.”
Stone and his contacts appeared to acknowledge that Trump seemed doomed in the 2016 election and needed outside intervention, according to Politico.
Benjamin Netanyahu was the Israeli prime minister in 2016. Tzachi Hanegbi was an Israeli minister without portfolio, appointed in May and responsible for defense and foreign affairs. One reference to the unnamed PM in the material reads as follows: “On or about June 28, 2016, (NAME REDACTED) messaged STONE, “RETURNING TO DC AFTER URGENT CONSULTATIONS WITH PM IN ROME.MUST MEET WITH YOU WED. EVE AND WITH DJ TRUMP THURSDAY IN NYC.” Netanyahu made a state visit to Italy at the end of June 2016, TOI reported.
Another document relates to communication between Stone and Jerome Corsi, an U.S. author, commentator and conspiracy theorist: “On August 20, 2016, CORSI told STONE that they needed to meet with (NAME REDACTED) to determine ‘what if anything Israel plans to do in Oct,’ the affidavit states”.
Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 70: Jamarlin Martin Jamarlin goes solo to discuss the COVID-19 crisis. He talks about the failed leadership of Trump, Andrew Cuomo, CDC Director Robert Redfield, Surgeon General Jerome Adams, and New York Mayor de Blasio.
The newly released documents reveal the extent of communications between Stone and Assange, TOI reported. Assange’s anti-secrecy website, WikiLeaks, published Democratic emails hacked by Russians during the 2016 presidential election to embarrass Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
In the end, Stone was not charged for his dealings with the intermediaries, but a federal judge sentenced him to 40 months in prison for lying to House investigators and impeding their investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Stone is appealing his sentence as he awaits his start-date to go to prison.
