Jerome Corsi, 'Person 1' in Roger Stone indictment, says he's done nothing wrong

Jerome Corsi, a right-wing political commentator and conspiracy theorist, confirmed on Friday he is “Person 1” cited in the indictment of Roger Stone and said he no longer believed he would be charged as part of the U.S. special counsel’s Russia probe.

Stone, a self-proclaimed “dirty trickster” and ally of U.S. President Donald Trump for 40 years, was arrested on Friday on charges of lying to Congress about the release of stolen Democratic Party emails during the 2016 campaign.

The indictment details multiple communications about the emails and WikiLeaks’ plans to release them to the public between Stone and “Person 1” and “Person 2”, who are described in broad terms but not identified by name.

Corsi confirmed to Reuters that he was “Person 1”.

“I can confirm everything they report in the indictment about ‘Person 1’,” Corsi said. “I don’t see that I am being charged with any wrongdoing of any kind. I think that’s appropriate because I’ve done nothing wrong.”

Among other communications, the indictment references an email from Stone in late July 2016 in which he urged Corsi to go to see Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks who is living in Ecuador’s embassy in London, and to “get the pending... emails”.

Corsi, who was in Europe at the time, responded to Stone in an email on Aug. 2: “Word is friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps. One shortly after I’m back. 2nd in Oct. Impact planned to be very damaging,” Corsi wrote, according to the indictment.

Corsi has said he did not receive any inside knowledge or advance notice of the planned email releases from Wikileaks and figured it out on his own based on his own research.

Corsi said in November that he had received a plea offer from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office under which they were asking him to plead guilty to one felony count of providing false information to them in return for a lighter sentence.

Corsi, who said he rejected the deal because he never intentionally lied during his 40 hours of interviews with Mueller’s team, expressed concerns at the time that he would be indicted as part of the special counsel’s probe.

Corsi said he would advise Stone not to underestimate the amount of information already in Mueller’s possession.

“The Special Counsel has everything and they are extremely thorough,” said Corsi, who has filed a lawsuit against Mueller, the FBI and other agencies, claiming the government violated his Fourth Amendment due process rights.

Reporting by Nathan Layne in New York; Editing by James Dalgleish