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As Roger Stone prepared to go on trial in 2019, Complaining that he was under pressure from federal prosecutors to incriminate Donald Trump, a close ally of the president repeatedly assured Stone that “the boss” would likely grant him leniency if convicted, show a recording.
At event at a Trump property in October, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) predicted that Stone would be found guilty at his trial in Washington the following month but that he “wouldn’t spend a day” in prison . Gaetz apparently did not know they were being recorded by documentarians following Stone, whom special counsel Robert S. Mueller III had charged with obstructing a congressional investigation.
“The chief still has a very favorable view of you,” Gaetz said, stressing that the president “has said so directly.” He also said, “I don’t think the big guy can let you down for that.”
At one point, Gaetz told Stone he was working to get him a pardon, but hesitated to say more backstage at the event, in which the speakers were being filmed for online streaming. “Because there are many, many recording devices out there right now, I don’t feel in a position to speak freely about the work I’ve already done on this topic,” Gaetz said.
(Video: “A Storm Foretold”)
The lawmaker also told Stone during their conversation that Stone was mentioned “a lot” in redacted portions of Mueller’s report, which appeared to refer to portions the Justice Department had shown to select members of Congress from confidentially in a secure room. “They’re going to make you, because you’re not going to have a defense,” Gaetz told Stone.
The 25-minute recording was captured by a microphone Stone wore on his lapel for a Danish film crew, which was making a feature-length documentary about the veteran Republican operative. The filmmakers allowed Washington Post reporters to review their footage ahead of the release of their film, “A Storm Foretold,” which is expected later this year.
The recording offers an unguarded glimpse of Trump confidants candidly discussing legal danger away from the public eye. Mueller’s report said it was possible that Trump had lied to investigators about his contacts with Stone and was aware that Stone could offer damaging testimony against him if he chose to cooperate with prosecutors.
Gaetz is a member of the House Judiciary Committee. At the time of the conversation, the committee was investigating whether Trump may have obstructed justice by offering possible pardons to Stone and other allies who were swept up in Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
In a statement to The Post, Gaetz’s office said he was not speaking for Trump during the pardon discussion with Stone. His remarks about secret parts of the Mueller report were not specific enough to violate the terms under which he had been allowed to see them, the statement said.
He also said the conversation was “illegally recorded”. Under Florida law, each participant in a discussion must consent to it being recorded, as long as they have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Christoffer Guldbrandsen, the film’s director, said the congressman’s comment about the recording devices suggested he had no such expectation. “There is nothing illegal about this recording,” Guldbrandsen told The Post.
In response to an email seeking comment, Stone complained about The Post’s past coverage of his case and Mueller’s report. He did not address questions about the conversation with Gaetz.
Stone, a friend and adviser to Trump since the 1980s, was accused by Mueller of lying to Congress about his communications with the Trump campaign regarding WikiLeaks’ 2016 release of emails from the Democratic National Committee and the campaign by Hillary Clinton. US authorities determined that the emails were hacked by Russian agents seeking to boost Trump’s candidacy. Trump and Stone denied to Mueller that they had discussed WikiLeaks, but testimony from other Trump aides contradicted their accounts.
Stone was convicted of seven felony counts that November and sentenced to 40 months in prison. But Trump, who publicly praised Stone for not “turning” on him, commuted his prison sentence before it began and eventually pardoned him.
Later, after the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, the Danish crew filmed Stone as he pressed for Trump to preemptively pardon him, Gaetz and other allies for their efforts to overturn the 2020 election, The Post previously reported. A former White House aide recently told the House Select Committee investigating Jan. 6 that several Republican members of Congress, including Gaetz, had sought preemptive pardons. Trump said last month that he might pardon supporters of the Jan. 6 attack if he regains the presidency, drawing criticism, even from some Republican lawmakers.
“We saw the poor writing”
Gaetz and Stone were speakers on October 11, 2019 at AMPFest, a conference held by the pro-Trump group American Priority at the president’s golf resort, National Doral, in South Florida. The event was headlined by a parody video showing Trump violently killing political opponents and media organizations.
Stone was due to stand trial in Washington about four weeks later. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson had placed him under a strict gag order earlier that year after an image of Jackson’s face was posted next to a crosshair-like logo on Stone’s Instagram account. Stone apologized but was barred from discussing the case in public settings.
Before his speech at AMPFest, Stone complained to several people backstage about his case, saying it was intended to damage Trump ahead of the 2020 election, the recording shows. He lamented his plight to Benny Johnson, a pro-Trump operative who emceed the event. Stone claimed he wouldn’t get a fair hearing in the capital, where Democrats far outnumber Republicans.
“I’m on trial in the District of Columbia. You can imagine the makeup of the jury, politically,” Stone said.
He also vented his frustration to an unidentified event organizer before bragging about his ability to sway Trump.
“I have a 40-year track record of being able to convince the big man to do whatever is in his best interest,” said Stone, who has worked as a consultant to Trump companies and acted as an informal adviser to the his 2016 campaign.
“He’s not easy to deal with,” Stone said. “It’s complicated. And one of the problems is that those who try to deal with him don’t understand how much he resents any implication that he’s managed, managed, or directed. You can’t just say, ‘Here are your talking points, read them.” That will never work.”
After walking offstage after his speech in the Donald J. Trump Grand Ballroom, Stone was joined backstage by Gaetz, a Trump favorite who spoke later in the afternoon. With event staff coming and going nearby, their conversation quickly turned to Stone’s trial and Mueller’s investigation.
The Justice Department had publicly released a version of Mueller’s final report that redacted some sections to protect classified information, grand jury secrecy and active investigations or prosecutions.
Stone had asked Jackson to order prosecutors to show him a full, unredacted version of Mueller’s report. On August 1, 2019, Jackson granted Stone access to some redacted sections relating to him on the flight. 1 of the report, which focused on Russian interference in the 2016 election. Jackson said in his ruling that most of the material redacted in Vol. 2, which covered Trump’s alleged obstruction of justice, related to Stone, but she refused to let him see it.
The material was covered by a protective order barring Stone from sharing it with anyone other than his attorneys and using it “for any purpose” other than his legal defense, Jackson wrote.
Backstage at AMPFest, Stone discussed Mueller’s material with Gaetz at length, claiming that thanks to Jackson’s decision, he had seen “the entire unredacted report,” which he said was free of damaging details about him . It is not clear what Stone meant by this remark. Jackson’s order had specified that he could see only certain parts, and Stone complained in his email to The Post this week that parts of the report were withheld from him.
Separately, the Justice Department had also shown varying amounts of the redacted material to congressional leaders, members of the House and Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees and a limited number of aides. As of mid-June, members of judicial committees, such as Gaetz, were able to see some sections drafted in the vol. 2 of the Mueller report.
Committee members and some aides could review the material in a “secure space” and “were allowed to discuss the report only among themselves,” Stone’s prosecutors told Jackson in a court filing. As they negotiated access to the material, committee chairman Jerrold Nadler (DN.Y.) wrote to then-Attorney General William P. Barr that the committee had agreed that they “cannot discuss what they have seen with anyone else.”
Speaking backstage at AMPFest, Gaetz discussed the material he and Stone wrote.
“We saw the lean draft, and there was, you know, there was a lot of stuff about you that was in the full draft that came out in the lean draft,” Gaetz said, before asserting that Stone “wouldn’t have any defense”. .” He didn’t explain what he meant by “skinny writing”.
(Video: “A Storm Foretold”)
A person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said the committee’s agreement not to discuss the redacted material with outsiders was formalized in a written agreement with the Department of Justice. A Justice official reminded committee members and aides the…