Roger Stone: 'More FBI agents arrested me than took down bin Laden'
The president's campaign adviser speaks to Sky News about his arrest and being accused of lying by the Mueller investigation.
Tuesday 29 January 2019 09:53, UK
An adviser to Donald Trump has said US authorities tried to make him look guilty of lying about Russian collusion by bringing more agents to arrest him than took down Osama bin Laden.
Roger Stone told Sky News the Mueller investigation is doing everything it can to "make me look like a criminal" ahead of his court appearance on Tuesday morning in Washington DC.
A long-time confidant of the president's, Stone is expected to plead not guilty to seven charges, including lying to Congress, engaging in witness tampering and obstructing a congressional investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign.
He was arrested in a pre-dawn raid on his home on Friday as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.
The 66-year-old political consultant has denied the allegations, as he accused the investigation of treating him "like a drug kingpin".
He told Sky News: "I feel kind of violated. I mean, I'm accused of a series of non-violent process crimes - not conspiracy, not the receipt of stolen material from WikiLeaks, not the coordination of its release.
"It is alleged that I was less than truthful with Congress - that's false.
"They've leaked like a sieve, or they conduct raids on your home to depict you like a criminal, like a drug kingpin when you have no prior criminal record and you're not accused of a violent crime, but I shouldn't be allowed to go on Sky News to defend myself?
"So I do have a concern about that."
Stone said the way authorities arrested him was out of proportion to the crime he is accused of, even comparing his arrest with the raid that took down al Qaeda's leader in 2011.
He said: "The idea that they had to run a bin Laden-like assault - although they used more men on my home than they did to bring down bin Laden or El Chapo or Pablo Escobar - trying to make me look like public enemy number one.
"This is an attempt to poison the jury pool, to make me look like a criminal."
Stone appeared in court in Florida where he was released on $250,000 (£190,000) bail and outside said 29 FBI agents "terrorised his wife and dogs" during the arrest.
He said he is willing to tell Mr Mueller the truth, but will not "make up stories" about anybody, including Mr Trump, who he stood up for.
"The president has done nothing wrong - he certainly hasn't colluded with Russia and therefore I'm not going to make up false tales about him to ease the pressure on myself," he added.
Stone firmly denied ever discussing Russia with Mr Trump and said he "most definitely" has not spoken to the president, or anybody who works for him, about a presidential pardon.
"Right now, I don't need one", he added.
Among the charges against him are details of conversations Stone had about stolen Democrat emails posted by WikiLeaks in the weeks before the election.
The emails, belonging to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, are said to have been hacked by Russian intelligence officers.
Stone is the latest in an increasing line-up of Trump advisers who have been arrested and charged since the billionaire businessman took office in January 2017.