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Roger Stone, with Alex Jones, leads chant of “lock her up” outside the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. From Netflix doc, “Get Me Roger Stone.”
Good day Austin:
There is no more prized real estate on Twitter than @realDonaldTrump and yesterday morning, amid the enormous blowback from his firing late in the day Tuesday of FBI Director James Comey, President Donald Trump devoted 140 characters at the prime tweeting time of 7:57 a.m. to instantly distance himself from a report that Comey’s firing came on the personal recommendation of Roger Stone.
Next thing, the president is going to be saying he doesn’t talk to Alex Jones either.
Which wouldn’t be true.
According to Alex Jones.
And Roger Stone.
From Media Matters for America, which describes itself as “comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media,” and closely tracks Austin’s Alex Jones and his Infowars broadcasts.
Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to President Donald Trump, said that conspiracy theorist Alex Jones speaks to the president “from time to time.”
Jones has claimed that the government perpetrated the 9/11 attacks and the tragedies at Sandy Hook, Columbine, Oklahoma City, and the Boston Marathon, among others.
Jones has repeatedly bragged about his access to Trump since the election. Jones said Trump called to “thank” his audience following his win; stated that Trump once called “like three times in a row”; said, “I talk to the president and I talk to people who talk to the president every day”; apologized to Trump for missing his phone calls; claimed Trump or his sons watch his videos and show “every night”; and said that the president calls him up to ask if he’s “happy” with his performance.
Stone is also a disreputable conspiracy theorist who is a regular contributor to Jones’ program and helped set up Trump’s December 2015 appearance on Jones’ show. Jones said today that his outlet Infowars has been given a weekly White House press pass and “we’re pending getting our regular passes.”
Stone appeared on the April 30 edition of The Jamie Weinstein Show and said that Trump speaks to Jones “from time to time”:
Jones has been all over the Comey story.
From yesterday’s show: “But it’s also the fact that Comey is seen as weak and as very, very manipulative but in a candy ass way. “Lordy, lordy. Lordy, lordy. I didn’t know. Oh my goodness, I had two doors I could go down. I had one door that was coverup and another door that was get involved in the politics and lordy, lordy.’”
But it is no surprise that Jones is all over the Comey story, because Jones is all over every story, especially involving Trump, with whom, as Media Matters notes, he suggests he has regular contact, both direct and indirect.
We may never know exactly how much one-on-one contact, or actual influence, Alex Jones has had with Donald Trump – unless and until those supposed (by Stone, Jones and Trump) wiretaps on Trump are released.
But in the meantime, it is clear that Jones and Stone are tight, and that for Jones, Stone was the crucial connection between him and Trump, and that Stone continues, in personal conversations with Jones and regular appearances on Infowars, to be the major source for Jones on what Trump is thinking and what is going on inside Trumpland.
And for Stone, who wrote in his book, The Making of the President 2016, that Alex Jones and his Infowars’ umbrella of radio shows, YouTube and Facebook broadcasts, Internet website and tweets turned out to be Trump’s secret weapon, Jones continues to be his go-to megaphone to Jones’ vast audience.
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Indeed, of all the places Stone, who created Trump as a political persona many years ago, could have been Election Night 2016, he was side-by-side with Jones in his Austin studio, where they toasted their hero’s improbable victory.
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If there were any doubt about the Stone-Jones bond, it was put to rest during Jones’ recent child custody trial in Austin when Stone spent most of the first week of the trial in Austin to do some filling in for the court-bound Jones hosting Infowars and building around that an itinerary of book events and speaking engagements in and around Austin, including this appearance before the Lake Travis Republican Club.
Stone talked a bit about Comey at that event. Here is a transcript thanks to the Statesman’s Rachel Rice, who was there.
June last year, my email and my phone conversations and text messages were being monitored because of my “collusion” with the Russians. I have never been to Russia, I have never spoken to anybody in the last 2 years from Russia, I have no contacts in Russia but I do understand why this phony argument is being used to try to delegitimize and destabilize our president.
See the Democrats can’t admit we nominated a lousy candidate who was out of energy, out of ideas and epically corrupt. Therefore there had to be some other factor. As we now know, the reason they are so desperate to find some link between the Russian state and the Trump campaign, which I believe does not exist, because that is the rationale, the legal justification to surveil Trump associates and aids at trump tower.
The FBI director and the former NSA director testified under oath in the House intelligence committee that there was no surveillance at Trump Tower. That is a lie, and they called that perjury. That’s why they’re so desperate to prove this – because if they don’t prove it then what will become clear Trump and his aides were under surveillance for political reasons. Folks, that’s Watergate – times 10 – because that’s the utilization of government assets to spy on your political opponents. Which is why they won’t drop this nonsensical charge that the Trump campaign was in touch with the Russians.
Stone also did a book signing and talk at a Speaking of Liberty Toastmasters gathering at Big Daddy’s Burgers & Bar in North Austin.
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Stone also made time for a visit to the Capitol and a little time talking to legislators.
Here are some photos, courtesy Greg Lewis of Lubbock, Stone’s right-hand man, or one of them anyway.
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Stone and Sen. Bryan Hughes. When I told Hughes I had a photo of Stone stifling a yawn talking to him, Hughes said that happens to him all the time.
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Roger Stone and Sen. Dawn Buckingham
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Roger Stone and Rep. Dustin Burrows
The Comey firing has sharpened attention on Stone’s zone of influence for reasons that are a little puzzling to me.
After all, Stone was very public for a very long time about the need to fire Comey. Stone’s longstanding relationship with Trump is hardly a secret. For all the suspicions Stone has aroused, I doubt that any of the Russia stuff is going to stick to Stone. And why does it matter so much if Stone personally entreated Trump to fire Comey?
And also, why, after decades together, wouldn’t we assume that Stone and Trump have achieved a kind of Vulcan Mind Meld.
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Stone has played it typically cagey.
But that laid nothing to rest. On the contrary. Which is all to the good for Stone.
While Mr. Trump publicly insisted that he had confidence in Mr. Comey, the hostility toward the F.B.I. director in the West Wing in recent weeks was palpable, aides said, with advisers describing an almost ritualistic need to criticize the Russia investigation to assuage an anxious and angry president.
Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime informal adviser to Mr. Trump who has been under F.B.I. scrutiny as part of the Russia inquiry, was among those who urged the president to fire Mr. Comey, people briefed on the discussions said.
Mr. Trump denied on Twitter on Wednesday morning that he had spoken to Mr. Stone about the F.B.I. director, and Mr. Stone declined to describe his interactions with the president in an interview. But two longtime Trump associates with knowledge of the matter said the two had recently discussed their dissatisfaction with Mr. Comey and his inquiry.
Whatever the specifics, Mr. Stone ultimately reflected the president’s view of Mr. Comey. As Mr. Stone put it shortly after the dismissal became public on Tuesday, “There was a sense in the White House, I believe, that enough was enough when it came to this guy.”
And so, this morning Roger Stone was front and center – appearing on CNN’s New Day with Chris Cuomo for more than 16 minutes (!) and on the Today Show for more than 6 minutes – all about whether or not he persuaded Donald Trump, president of the United Sates, to fire the director of the FBI, and whether or not President Trump was lying when he tweeted that he had “not spoken to Roger in a long time.”
Well, Roger replied on CNN, “I won’t characterize private conversations [w/ Trump]. I’m a memo writer, there are ways to communicate besides the telephone.”
As to “a long time,” that would depend on what the meaning of long is which, I think it is fair to say, for Trump, the way his life is these days, could be 24 hours, or less.
Oh, and by the way, on both shows, Stone promoted Get Me Roger Stone, the new documentary about him out on Netflix on Friday.
The documentary was not made by Stone and is not necessarily positive, but Stone is happy with it regardless, bringing one of the filmmakers onto the Today Show with him this morning, where, getting a rare word in edgewise, the filmmaker noted helpfully that Stone “sometimes takes credit for things he hasn’t done,” even if those are things that most people wouldn’t take credit for.
From yesterday’s review from Alissa Wilkinson at Vox:
Roger Stone shows up everywhere in American politics — as journalist Jeffrey Toobin puts it early on in the new Netflix documentary Get Me Roger Stone, he’s the “sinister Forrest Gump of American politics,” popping up everywhere from Watergate to the Trump campaign.
If you think this is overblown lefty rhetoric, think again: Stone wears such monikers like a badge of honor. Get Me Roger Stone traces the history of American conservatism from Nixon’s downfall to Donald Trump’s victory in 2016. And while it brings in talking heads to add background — New Yorker writers Toobin and Jane Mayer, who have intimate knowledge of the history, along with Fox News personality Tucker Carlson — its main narrator is Stone himself, who has no qualms about what he’ll say on camera.
Stone portrays himself as a dandy and a dirtbag, a sleazeball who embodies the rage and drive for fame that’s at the heart of the worst corners of American politics. He’s an Infowars regular and an object of some marvel and fear to everyone, even those on his political side. He has principles, but they’re entirely in service of staying in the public eye; he calls them “Stone’s rules,” and sprinkles them throughout the film. One such rule: “It is better to be infamous than to never be famous at all.” Another: “Hate is a more powerful motivator than love.”
The trailer begins with Trump, in an interview with the filmmakers, saying of Stone:
He loves the game. He has fund with it. And he’s very good at it
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The trailer also includes Roger and Alex at a rally the threw outside the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, and where Stone, wearing a Bill Clinton RAPE shirt, designed by Stone and marketed by Jones, led the crowd, through a bullhorn, in “Lock her up,” the chant popularized by Jones.
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The trailer also, of course, includes some of Stone’s Rules.
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“So you made the headlines again?” Matt Lauer said to Stone at the outset of their interview this morning.
Yeah.
Like clockwork.
Here are some highlights from each of the shows.
And here are some clips from Stone’s even more extensive interview with Chris Cuomo.
Meanwhile, here is Alex Jones on Stone and Comey on Wednesday’s Infowars, transcript courtesy Media Matters.
ALEX JONES (HOST): Obviously I hate to tell folks even the general area where we get our information from concerning the White House, because the media has a big field day with it and then tries to shut off those sources. But I was on the phone very, very late last night talking to multiple sources, and then I called Roger Stone about 11 Texas time, midnight his time, we talked for over an hour and he confirmed a lot of what I was learning from other sources. And of course Roger is one of the only people now that Trump still routinely talks to outside of the White House.
Now I don’t know how much Roger will get into today, but I from my other sources separately have exactly what happened with Comey. Comey was compromised and had been compromised for a long time. And was being clearly manipulated by deep state sources to try to exert pressure onto the White House to have the White House carry out the deep state’s political aims with this whole fake Russia narrative that if they didn’t basically do what John McCain and others wanted they would continue on with hearings and try to impeach the president. So they’re blackmailing the president with this fake Russia narrative. Senator Rand Paul obviously knows all about this, he has come out and said that’s basically what it is as well, said good riddance to Comey.
Comey ignored crimes that were ultramassive. And he followed the orders of the attorney general who was so corrupt she would sit there and meet on airplanes with Bill Clinton on the tarmac while he was under criminal investigation by her agency. Loretta Lynch. That’s one area.
But it’s also the fact that Comey is seen as weak and as very, very manipulative but in a candy ass way. “Lordy, lordy. Lordy, lordy. I didn’t know. Oh my goodness, I had two doors I could go down. I had one door that was coverup and another door that was get involved in the politics and lordy, lordy.”
Comey has the FBI standing in the way of prosecuting the Clintons for being on the Russian payroll, being on the Chinese payroll 50 times what the Russians were. I mean, it’sthe Chinese that are up our you know what. It’s the Chinese that are almost in control of this country in many respects. I mean we are in deep trouble as a sovereign nation.
[…]
JONES: We’re not looking for trouble. We’re not looking for revolution. We’re not looking for bloodbaths. The globalists and their leftist hordes and their “rapeugees” are here to destabilize the west and are trying to push a narrative of violence, and overthrow, and kill the police, and war in the streets, and all this garbage. And we are involved in dereliction of duty if we don’t do something about it. Now they’re saying Trump took a gamble by firing Comey. The Democrats wanted him fired three months ago, now they wake up on the other side of the bed and suddenly they love Comey. Trump has to drop the hammer on them. His attorney general has to start the moves for the indictments right now. So, that’s what needs to happen right now. And then Trump will be the superstar president we need, he restores the republic, which he is already doing economically and militarily. Obviously he’s an American president. We haven’t had that in awhile. Say what you want about him, but that’s why the elites are pissed because we actually got somebody in there that really does care about the interests of this country. All the special interests that have been raping us forever are now freaking out and realizing there’s a new sheriff in town.
ALEX JONES (HOST): Obviously I hate to tell folks even the general area where we get our information from concerning the White House, because the media has a big field day with it and then tries to shut off those sources. But I was on the phone very, very late last night talking to multiple sources, and then I called Roger Stone about 11 Texas time, midnight his time, we talked for over an hour and he confirmed a lot of what I was learning from other sources. And of course Roger is one of the only people now that Trump still routinely talks to outside of the White House.
Now I don’t know how much Roger will get into today, but I from my other sources separately have exactly what happened with Comey. Comey was compromised and had been compromised for a long time. And was being clearly manipulated by deep state sources to try to exert pressure onto the White House to have the White House carry out the deep state’s political aims with this whole fake Russia narrative that if they didn’t basically do what John McCain and others wanted they would continue on with hearings and try to impeach the president. So they’re blackmailing the president with this fake Russia narrative. Senator Rand Paul obviously knows all about this, he has come out and said that’s basically what it is as well, said good riddance to Comey.
Comey ignored crimes that were ultramassive. And he followed the orders of the attorney general who was so corrupt she would sit there and meet on airplanes with Bill Clinton on the tarmac while he was under criminal investigation by her agency. Loretta Lynch. That’s one area.
But it’s also the fact that Comey is seen as weak and as very, very manipulative but in a candy ass way. “Lordy, lordy. Lordy, lordy. I didn’t know. Oh my goodness, I had two doors I could go down. I had one door that was coverup and another door that was get involved in the politics and lordy, lordy.”
Comey has the FBI standing in the way of prosecuting the Clintons for being on the Russian payroll, being on the Chinese payroll 50 times what the Russians were. I mean, it’sthe Chinese that are up our you know what. It’s the Chinese that are almost in control of this country in many respects. I mean we are in deep trouble as a sovereign nation.
[…]
JONES: We’re not looking for trouble. We’re not looking for revolution. We’re not looking for bloodbaths. The globalists and their leftist hordes and their “rapeugees” are here to destabilize the west and are trying to push a narrative of violence, and overthrow, and kill the police, and war in the streets, and all this garbage. And we are involved in dereliction of duty if we don’t do something about it. Now they’re saying Trump took a gamble by firing Comey. The Democrats wanted him fired three months ago, now they wake up on the other side of the bed and suddenly they love Comey. Trump has to drop the hammer on them. His attorney general has to start the moves for the indictments right now. So, that’s what needs to happen right now. And then Trump will be the superstar president we need, he restores the republic, which he is already doing economically and militarily. Obviously he’s an American president. We haven’t had that in awhile. Say what you want about him, but that’s why the elites are pissed because we actually got somebody in there that really does care about the interests of this country. All the special interests that have been raping us forever are now freaking out and realizing there’s a new sheriff in town.
And here is Jones a little later in the day yesterday with Stone on the line from the airport on his way to New York for the Today Show, in which, aside from talking Comey, Stone says that National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster is on the skids and he is on his way out. He has not meshed with the president in terms of his operating style and I do not think he has the president’s confidence in this role. I think he will be appointed to a position for which he is better suited.”
Huh. Kimberly Guilfoyle.
After Comey was sacked, there was this.
Well, one place, always, is the tattoo on Stone’s back.
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That’s it, but as a bonus for reading all the way through, here is Italian night with Roger Stone, in which Stone, assuming the mantle of populist chef and following on “the popularity of a recent video in which I put together my quick Friday night marinara sauce for the average American,” reveals the secrets of his seafood linguini, which include throwing the pasta against the wall to see if sticks.
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Mangia.
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