Roger Stone

Roger Jason Stone As ''The Washington Post'' put it: "He was born Roger Joseph Stone Jr. in Norwalk, Conn., on Aug. 27, 1952, the same year Eisenhower was elected to his first term. Birth and college records list his name that way, but at some point Stone adopted 'Jason' as his middle name".}} (born Roger Joseph Stone Jr.; August 27, 1952) is an American conservative political consultant and lobbyist. Since the 1970s, Stone has worked on the campaigns of Republican politicians, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Jack Kemp, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump. In addition to frequently serving as a campaign adviser, Stone was a political lobbyist. In 1980, he co-founded a Washington, D.C.–based lobbying firm with Paul Manafort and Charles R. Black Jr. The firm recruited Peter G. Kelly and was renamed Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly (BMSK) in 1984.

During the 1980s, BMSK became a top lobbying firm by leveraging its White House connections to attract high-paying clients, including U.S. corporations and trade associations, as well as foreign governments. By 1990, it was one of the leading lobbyists for American companies and foreign organizations.

His personal style of achieving his clients' goals have been described as, "a renowned infighter", "a seasoned practitioner of hard-edged politics", "a Republican strategist", and "a political fixer". Stone has referred to himself as "an agent provocateur". He has described his own political ''modus operandi as'' "Attack, attack, attacknever defend" and "Admit nothing, deny everything, and launch a counterattack."

Stone first suggested Trump run for president in early 1998 while he was Trump's casino business lobbyist in Washington.

Stone officially left the Trump campaign on August 8, 2015. However, two unnamed associates of Stone have alleged that he collaborated with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during the 2016 presidential campaign to discredit Hillary Clinton. Stone and Assange have denied these claims. Nearly three dozen search warrants were unsealed in April 2020 which revealed contacts between Stone and Assange, and that Stone orchestrated hundreds of fake Facebook accounts and bloggers to run a political influence scheme on social media.

On January 25, 2019, Stone was arrested at his Fort Lauderdale, Florida, home in connection with Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation and charged in an indictment with witness tampering, obstructing an official proceeding, and five counts of making false statements. In November 2019, a jury convicted him on all seven felony counts. He was sentenced to 40 months in prison. On July 10, 2020, days before Stone was scheduled to report to prison, Trump commuted his sentence. On August 17, 2020, he dropped the appeal of his convictions. Trump pardoned Stone on December 23, 2020. Provided by Wikipedia