Trump associate Roger Stone defended his failure to mention to the FBI a meeting he had with a man offering valuable information for President Trump’s campaign during an interview Thursday with Hill.TV’s “Rising.”
Stone said a man identifying himself as Henry Greenberg lured him into a meeting by offering valuable information. The man at the meeting then tried to get him to pay $2 million of Trump’s money for dirt on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, Stone said.
Stone said the man calling himself Henry Greenberg was a longtime FBI informant.
“Missing from that narrative is the fact that Henry Greenberg is an alias,” Stone said on “Rising.”
“Mr. Greenberg is a longtime FBI informant, a convicted violent felon of Russian nationality who was in the country on nine separate occasions with informant visas vouched by the Miami office of the FBI,” he told hosts Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton.
When asked for evidence that Greenberg was an FBI informant, Stone broadly said convicted felons can’t fly into the U.S. without government sponsorship.
Stone, who failed to mention the meeting to federal investigators, said the quick exchange took place before there was any serious concern about Russia and that he didn’t accept the offer, which he called “ludicrous.”
Stone told Greenberg that Trump does not “pay for anything,” according to The Washington Post, which first reported the meeting on Sunday.
Stone said the FBI was trying to entrap him.
“The real question is not why I forgot an insignificant meeting – in which I did nothing wrong, nothing illegal or improper happened the meeting or after – it’s why someone who has worked as an informant for the FBI is trying to entrap me,” Stone said.
“I admit that I forgot this, but there’s no reason for me to dissemble or hide the meeting,” he added.
Former Trump campaign aide Michael Caputo, who arranged the meeting, also failed to initially tell investigators about such contact.
Mueller, who is investigating ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, reportedly jogged Caputo’s memory, and then Caputo subsequently reminded Stone of the meeting.
“In multiple respects now, the testimony of Roger Stone appears inaccurate or deliberately misleading,” Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told NBC News earlier this week.
— Olivia Beavers
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