Longtime GOP operative and Trump confidante Roger Stone denounced Donald Trump as ‘a disgrace’ who ‘betrayed everybody’ in new footage from Inauguration Day after he high-tailed it out of Washington on the day of the Capitol riot to avoid being associated with the chaos.
‘I really want to get out of here,’ he told an aide, as they were followed by a Danish film crew as rioters ransacked the Capitol on Jan. 6. He said he feared prosecution by incoming attorney general Merrick Garland. ‘He is not a friend,’ Stone said.
Stone allowed a Danish film crew to follow him around for two years for a documentary, A Storm Foretold. Footage, first reported by the Washington Post, was obtained by DailyMail.com.
He told the filmmakers the riot was a mistake and would be ‘really bad’ for the Trump movement. ‘I think it’s really bad for the movement. It hurts, it doesn’t help. I’m not sure what they thought they were going to achieve.’
Since Election Day, Stone had worked with other right-wing operatives to raise money and put the Jan. 6 protest into action. Dictating text messages to an aide, Stone said he would resurrect the Stop the Steal campaign on Nov. 5. He told another aide his brand would be ‘quite a bit hotter.’ ‘We’re going to raise money from Stop the Steal — it will be like falling off a log,’ he added.
And though Stone closely associated with several far-right operatives who have since been convicted for their role in the riot, he himself has maintained he was not associated with the violence and had no prior knowledge it would occur.
Stone has refused to testify before the Jan. 6 committee, invoking the Fifth Amendment, and sued members of the panel to prevent them from subpoenaing his phone records.
Stone allowed a Danish film crew to follow him around for two years for a documentary, A Storm Foretold
‘I really want to get out of here,’ he told an aide, as they were followed by a Danish film crew as rioters ransacked the Capitol on Jan. 6
He said he feared prosecution by incoming attorney general Merrick Garland. ‘He is not a friend,’ Stone said
Four months before voters even cast their ballot, Stone predicted Democrats would try to steal the election and devised a plot for Trump to hold onto the White House.
‘It’s going to be really nasty,’ Stone said in front of the filmmakers at his home on July 9, 2020.
He told a staffer that Trump should reject the election results and pressure courts whose judges he had appointed rule in his favor.
‘ ‘I’m the president. F— you,’ ‘ Stone said, imagining Trump’s remarks. ‘ ‘You’re not stealing Florida, you’re not stealing Ohio. I’m challenging all of it, and the judges we’re going to are judges I appointed.’ ‘
On Nov. 5, Stone drew up the Stop the Steal plan on his laptop in footage captured by the filmmakers. As protesters were to mobilize, Trump acolytes were to lobby state lawmakers to reject election results.
As rioters breached the Capitol, Stone packed up his belongings and fled D.C.
He told the filmmakers the riot was a mistake and would be ‘really bad’ for the Trump movement. ‘I think it’s really bad for the movement. It hurts, it doesn’t help. I’m not sure what they thought they were going to achieve’
Stone was publicly downplaying his role in the Stop the Steal movement, as he sought a pardon from the president. He wrote in a Nov. 30 blog post that he was ‘not a participant’ in any of the organizations using the Stop the Steal name in 2020.
On Dec. 23, the White House announced that Trump would pardon Stone for his convictions in the Mueller case. By Dec. 30, Stone had launched a fundraising drive to help fund the rallies and pay for private security.
In early January, Stone returned to Washington and stationed himself near the White House at the Willard hotel, a hub of pro-Trump activity at the time. Stone, surrounded by four members of the far-right group Oath Keepers, attended a Save America rally on Jan. 5. Two of the group’s members were charged with seditious conspiracy for allegedly storming the Capitol.
He told the crowd at the Jan. 5 rally he would stand ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with them the next day in what he described as a fight between good and evil.
But the next day, Stone did not show up for the rally at the Ellipse. He told aides that some of the rally’s organizers were trying to exclude him. He told aide Kristin Davis that he had complained to Julia Fancelli, Publix supermarket heiress who bankrolled the day’s events, that organizers had prevented him and InfoWars’ Alex Jones from appearing on stage.
‘I just caused a little problem for them with Julie Fancelli,’ Stone said. ‘I just told her, ‘You spent 300 grand and neither Jones nor I are speaking.’
In the days following Jan. 6, Stone put forth his ‘Stone Plan,’ where Trump would preemptively pardon himself, Stone, allies in Congress along with other Trump backers including convicted mobsters.
Stone has since encouraged Trump to run again in 2024, and not shown any daylight between himself and the former president. Trump commuted Stone’s sentence after he was convicted of obstructing the Russia investigation, but Stone was furious that Trump had put to bed his plan. He blamed White House counsel Pat Cipollone.
‘Clearly, Cipollone f—ed everybody,’ Stone said in a phone conversation with Steven Brown, who was in federal prison on a fraud conviction. The conversation was recorded by the filmmakers.
‘See you in prison,’ Stone texted to another Trump associate.
And in an Inauguration Day call with a friend, Stone denounced Trump as ‘a disgrace,’ and said he supported his impeachment. ‘He betrayed everybody,’ Stone said.
The plan included securing preemptive pardons for Sens. Ted Cruz, Texas, and Josh Hawley, Mo., and Reps. Matt Gaetz, Fla., and Jim Jordan, Ohio.
Stone was also running a side business pleading felons’ cases to Trump for a pardon while he was still in office, and charging hefty fees for his work.
In his Willard hotel room, Stone, wearing a mic, could be heard on the phone with a man representing someone named Henry who, the attorney said ‘would be willing to pay up to $100,000.’ ‘Everything would have to be legal,’ the lawyer stressed.
‘Actually, it is legal,’ Stone said of the arrangement.
Stone then wanted to secure a second pardon for himself for Trump in the former president’s final hours of his presidency. Trump was hesitant. He then issued a pardon for Steve Bannon, but not another one for Stone. Stone was enraged, calling Bannon a ‘grifter scumbag’ and other expletives on camera.
By Inauguration Day, Stone ranted about Jared Kushner, whom he blamed for the Stone plan’s failure. ‘He’s going to get a beating. He needs to have a beating. And needs to be told, ‘This time we’re just beating you. Next time we’re killing you,’ Stone said on camera.
Aware that cameras were on, an aide urged Stone to say he was joking. ‘No, no, it isn’t joking. Not joking. It’s not a joke.’
Stone said Kushner needed to be ‘punished in the most brutal possible way’ and would be ‘brain dead when I get finished with him.’
Stone then said that Trump was the ‘greatest single mistake in history.’ He added that Trump could face prosecution by federal prosecutors in Manhattan.
‘A good, long sentence in prison will give him a chance to think about it, because the Southern District is coming for him, and he did nothing,’ Stone said.
He mocked the idea of Trump running again in 2024. ‘Run again! You’ll get your f—ing brains beat in.’
