Newly released FBI documents reveal extent of Roger Stone’s direct communications with Julian Assange: report

Veteran GOP operative and long-time Donald Trump ally Roger Stone, who was sentenced to three years in federal prison in February for felonies that included witness tampering and lying to Congress, continues to vie for a presidential pardon. Meanwhile, FBI documents continue to offer insights on Stone’s past communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange: according to FBI documents made public this week, Stone asserted in a 2017 direct message via Twitter that if prosecutors came for him, “I will bring down the entire house of cards.”

The Associated Press (AP) is reporting that FBI documents show that Stone sent that message weeks after former FBI Director Robert Mueller was appointed to head the Russia investigation. According to AP reporters Eric Tucker, Colleen Long and Michael Balsamo, the FBI records “reveal the extent of communications between Stone and Assange, whose anti-secrecy website published Democratic e-mails hacked by Russians during the 2016 presidential election, and underscore efforts by Trump allies to gain insight about the release of information they expected would embarrass Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.”

FBI records, according to AP, show that in a direct Twitter message sent in June 2017, Stone “reassured Assange that the issue was ‘still nonsense’ and said, ‘As a journalist, it doesn’t matter where you get information — only that it is accurate and authentic.”

Stone, AP reports, mentioned a 1971 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that paved the way for newspapers and magazines to publish the Pentagon Papers — documents about the Vietnam War that had been classified. The Trump ally, via Twitter, told Assange, “If the US government moves on you, I will bring down the entire house of cards. With the trumped-up sexual assault charges dropped, I don’t know of any crime you need to be pardoned for — best regards. R.”

Stone, in that message, appeared to be referring to the Swedish government’s sexual assault case against Assange, which was dropped.