by John Symank
First published in Resist the Mainstream
Roger Stone, the conservative lobbyist and repeated political adviser for former Presidents Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon and Donald Trump, responded to claims from the January 6 House Select Committee on his role in the January 6 Capitol riot.
Stone has been accused of inciting violence in a speech made the evening prior to the incident when at a Stop the Steal rally several blocks away from the Capitol he made a speech to the hundreds of audience members.
While much of the mainstream media has covered the many accusations against Stone, they have neglected to speak of his defenses and arguments against those accusations. Stone has not been quiet on the matter. In fact, he has come out with multiple statements defending himself against the various attacks thrown at him.
Stone began the speech by discussing his previous arrest, trial and conviction after he was arrested in a raid on his home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and accused of witness tampering, obstructing an official proceeding and five counts of making false statements in connection with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
His sentence was commuted just days before he was set to report to prison by former President Trump, whose campaign he had served as an adviser for up until late 2015.
Stone spoke about his faith in God during the beginning of the speech, later confirming that he supported Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, saying, “I thank God for giving the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln the wisdom, the courage, the strength to correct this injustice.”
Stone went on to say that the Democratic Party now sought “nothing less than the heist of the 2020 election, and we say no way!” He later suggested that the audience had been subjected to a “very sophisticated psyop” after media and other sources had repeatedly claimed that it was impossible for Trump to win.
“Let’s be very clear,” Stone continued. “This is not an election between Republicans and Democrats. This is not a fight between liberals and conservatives. This is nothing less than an epic struggle for the future of this country between dark and light. Between the godly and the godless. Between good and evil. And we will win this fight, or America will step off into a thousand years of darkness. We dare not fail.”
In a statement to Gateway Pundit, Stone commented on the claims made by the January 6 committee, saying that “Any claim or assertion that I knew about, either in advance or contemporaneously with, participated in or condoned any act — by any person or group — at or anywhere near the United States Capitol or anywhere in the District of Columbia, the United States, or Planet Earth — on January 6th, or any other date, that was either unlawful, illegal, or otherwise intended in any way to cause damage or disrupt any proceedings of Congress, or any other governmental body, is categorically false.
“Any claim or assertion that I was involved at any time in any effort of any kind by any person or group to delay, hinder or otherwise obstruct the certification of presidential electors by Congress, pursuant to the Constitution of the United States, is also categorically false,” Stone continued.
“Nothing presented in today’s January 6th committee hearing contradicts any of this. What we did see today was a continuation of the tactic of ‘guilt by association.’ Just because I know someone or have met them does not constitute proof that I was aware of any impending criminal conspiracy. The committee today provided no evidence to the contrary,” he said.
Later in the statement, he also discussed the speech and stated that he had earlier in the day denounced any violence during the protest.
“Let’s be very clear. We renounce violence. They are the violent ones.” he said in the video, taken earlier in the day on January 5.
Stone also posted a clip of the speech, saying, “as you can see, there is no incitement to violence, and all of my statements are consistent with the my First Amendment right to question the results of the 2020 election. My views reflect my religiously based apocalyptic view of the struggle in America today. This is not an incitement to violence as CNN has claimed.”
The Jan. 6 committee also claimed that Stone was responsible for conspiring alongside Oath Keeper Stewart Rhodes, reporting that there was a “one-way transmission” between Rhodes and Stone. George Washington University professor and ex-federal prosecutor Randall Eliason told The Washington Post that Stone is being treated “as an unindicted co-conspirator” in the government’s “seditious conspiracy” case against Rhodes and other Oath Keepers.
However, The Post also cited Barbara McQuade, another ex-federal prosecutor and current University of Michigan law professor, who said that “A ‘one-way transmission’ from Rhodes does not establish that Stone or any other Trump advisers were part of any conspiracy.”
In the conclusion of his statement to Gateway Pundit, Stone reiterated his claims of innocence, saying, “The January 6th committee continues to traffic in conspiracy theories but has yet to turn up any actual evidence or proof that I engaged in any improper activity in connection with January 6th, other than the exercise of my free speech rights which they now claim is illegal.”
Stone says that he’s a victim of the “Mueller witch hunt”, and is taking donations for his legal defense.
