WASHINGTON �� Roger Stone, a longtime Republican operative and adviser to the campaign of President Donald Trump, called his indictment in the special counsel's investigation "thin" but didn't rule out cooperating if asked.
"That's a question I would have to, I'd have to determine after my attorneys have some discussion," Stone said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "If there's wrongdoing by other people in the campaign that I know about �� which I know of none �� but if there is, I would certainly testify honestly."
Stone was charged Friday with obstructing special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, and lying to congressional investigators. Stone has said the charges are politically motivated and that he will plead not guilty.
The indictment says Stone was a link between the Trump campaign and an organization matching the description of WikiLeaks, which in July 2016 released Democratic National Committee emails stolen by state-sponsored Russian hackers to embarrass Trump's opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Stone said any evidence against him is being taken out of context, and that he expects to be acquitted and vindicated. "All I did was take publicly available information and try to hype it to get it as much attention as possible," he said.
The filing describes how Stone, who left Trump's campaign in 2015, continued communicating regularly with unidentified senior campaign officials about WikiLeaks and its plans. It also says Stone "was directed" by an unidentified campaign official to find out about the group's plans. The indictment suggests that Mueller knows who those officials are and is examining the roles they played.
Stone denied destroying evidence, said he had never spoken to Trump as a candidate or as president about Russia and replied "absolutely, positively not" when asked whether the president has ever suggested pardoning him.
While Stone is presumed innocent, the charges against him are very specific and "easily provable," Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a former federal prosecutor, said on ABC.
"White-collar defendants always make some variation of the same argument, and that is, 'I have a perfectly innocent explanation for this fact, and as for this other fact, I can come with an innocent explanation for that, and likewise for all these other facts,' " Schiff said. "'But whatever you do, don't look at their totality.'''
