By Steve Neavling
Ticklethewire.com
Roger Stone, a Republican strategist and long-time confidant of President Trump, said his excitement over Wikileaks dirt on Hillary Clinton was nothing more than politics.
Stone, in an interview with CNN on Saturday, distanced himself from connections he reportedly had to email leaks, saying he never colluded with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
Stone said he had “no advance notice” of Wikileaks information and simply learned from the media that the hacked emails were going to be leaked.
In October 2016, Stone tweeted that Clinton’s campaign “is done” and that he has “total confidence” in Assange, whom he called a “hero.”
Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Stone’s role in the Trump campaign.
In the CNN interview, Stone said he “testified truthfully” to the House Intelligence Committee and “never had any direct contact” with Wikileaks or Assange.
“What I have done here is perfectly legal,” Stone said Saturday. “I took a solid tip and entirely public information that could be gleaned from the Wikileaks’ Twitter feed and by setting a Google News alert on Julian Assange and reading every interview to hype and punk and promote and posture and bluff the Democrats. That’s politics, but it’s not collusion.”
