Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Donald Trump’s presidency has introduced us to a veritable rogue’s gallery of kooky political power players. There’s Kellyanne Conway, Sean Spicer, Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon, Steven Miller, and so many, many more. However, there’s one person forever lurking in the shadows that you might not be all that familiar with and that’s Roger Stone. Here’s the thing with Roger Stone: once you figure out who he is, he’s actually ubiquitous. He’s the sneaky, showboating stench that has wafted over American politics since the 1970s.
The new Netflix documentary Get Me Roger Stone promises to be the most in-depth look we’ve gotten at Stone ever. The infamous strategist hasn’t exactly been shirking the spotlight lately — he was an architect behind Donald Trump’s campaign and has frequently popped up in news reports and on Showtime’s brilliant political docu-series, The Circus: Inside The Greatest Political Show On Earth — but this new doc puts him in the spotlight like never before. Get to know Roger Stone.
So who is Roger Stone?
Ugh.
He’s an audible sigh of frustration?
That’s what he wants you to believe.
Really?
No, okay, so here’s the deal: Roger Jason Stone, Jr. is a well-known political consultant and lobbyist. He’s best-known for the “dirty work” he did for the Richard Nixon re-election campaign — though, he denies being part of Donald Segretti and Karl Rove’s team of vicious young politicos not-affectionally termed “ratfuckers” — and was a consultant on Ronald Reagan’s early campaigns. He also was a major strategist for Donald Trump’s casino business and has been pushing Trump into politics since the early ‘80s. He’s known for his ruthlessness. In short, he is a professional political shit-stirrer — and one of the few people Donald Trump trusts.
Did he work on Donald Trump’s recent presidential campaign?
Technically, Stone left his advisory role on the campaign in August 2015. However, he maintained a close connection with Trump throughout the entire race and has been seen as a key advisor from the start. Even though CNN and MSNBC banned him from appearing on air (because of hateful comments), Stone still managed to influence the narrative of the race. He helped plant conspiracy stories about everyone from Ted Cruz to Huma Abedin.
Because Stone was always firmly in Trump’s corner, he’s managed to maintain a close relationship with the President. He’s considered one of the President’s closest confidents — and recently came under fire for supposedly convincing Trump to fire James Comey (which Stone denies).
Roger Stone has also been accused of being a key player in the Russian hacking scandal.
Wait. What? Huh? How?
During the 2016 campaign, Stone not only admitted to having backchannel communications with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and DNC hacker Guccifer 2.0, but he also seemed to know exactly when the DNC would be hit. Hillary Clinton’s main advisor and campaign chair John Podesta accused Stone of collusion.
Stone has repeatedly denied involvement in anything that could be construed as seriously treasonous and has welcomed the opportunity to testify to this extent.
Then again there’s the Paul Manafort connection.
Let’s start with one of those. What’s his connection to Paul “Was (Allegedly) In The Pocket of Russia” Manafort?
The two are old colleagues and pals dating back to when they were both principal partners in the Washington lobby firm Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly.
Does he really have a tattoo of Richard Nixon on his back?
Indeed.
Anything else?
Check out the new Netflix documentary Get Me Roger Stone.
