Roger Stone to appear in DC federal court Tuesday

Roger Stone, a longtime informal adviser to President Trump, will be arraigned in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday at 11 a.m. 

Stone was indicted late Thursday on seven charges, including false statements to Congress, obstruction of a congressional investigation and witness tampering in connection with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the election.

{mosads}Stone was arrested by FBI officials early Friday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and appeared in federal court in that state later in the morning. The charges were unsealed in federal court in D.C. following his arrest.

Stone said he plans to fight the charges in court, describing himself as falsely accused and the investigation as “politically motivated.”

Stone will be arraigned before Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson on Tuesday morning, according to the D.C. District Court. 

Prosecutors allege that Stone lied about his interactions regarding WikiLeaks in closed-door testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in connection with its own investigation into Russian interference in 2017.

In his congressional testimony, Stone “made deliberately false and misleading statements to the committee concerning, among other things, his possession of documents pertinent to [the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s] investigation; the source for his early August 2016 statements about Organization 1; requests he made for information from the head of Organization 1; his communications with his identified intermediary; and his communications with the Trump Campaign about Organization 1,” the indictment reads. “Organization 1” is widely believed to be WikiLeaks.  

Stone is also accused of obstructing the congressional investigations into Russian interference and attempting to persuade associates of contradicting his testimony to Congress.

WikiLeaks is the organization that released troves of Democratic emails hacked by Russian operatives before the 2016 election. During the campaign, Stone made multiple public statements that appeared to forecast WikiLeaks’s releases. Stone has maintained he had no inside knowledge about what WikiLeaks planned to release.

“I am falsely accused of making false statements,” Stone said at a brief press conference Friday, saying that he looked “forward to being vindicated.”