Roger Stone decries FBI's 'Gestapo tactics' but doesn't rule out cooperating with Mueller

A defiant Roger Stone denounced the "Gestapo tactics" of federal authorities Sunday and denied the allegations against him two days after being arrested by the FBI on seven felony charges, including witness tampering, obstruction and lying. 

The charges against the longtime political operative and associate of President Donald Trump stem from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Stone is charged with lying about his role in the Trump campaign's attempts to communicate with WikiLeaks about Clinton campaign emails stolen by Russian agents. 

Stone, 66, denied doing anything wrong, calling the indictment against him "thin as piss on a rock" during an interview on ABC's "This Week." He said his emails and texts that the special counsel used against him in the indictment were taken out of context. 

He called the manner of his arrest – which took place in a pre-dawn raid at his Florida home Friday – "extraordinary." He said the number of agents who were involved was unnecessary because he does not own a firearm and does not pose a flight risk because his passport is expired.

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"I've been under investigation for two years. I have destroyed nothing. But if I were going to destroy evidence, wouldn't I have done it a long time ago?" he said. "They could simply have called my lawyers, and I would have turned myself in."

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., did not share Stone's dismissive attitude of the indictment against him. 

"Look, he’s presumed innocent. But these are very specific allegations of lies and witness intimidation. They’re matters that will be easily provable," said Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, on "This Week" after Stone's interview. "And I think he’s going to need a much better defense than the one you just heard."

Schiff, a former prosecutor, said white-collar criminals often dismiss each individual piece of evidence as innocent and explainable while trying to get investigators to ignore the "totality" of the evidence. 

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who also worked as a prosecutor, agreed. 

"The fact of the matter is that every white-collar defendant in this circumstance, when they’re confronted with a bunch of documents of their own making, try to say that they're out of context," said Christie, who added that Stone faces a "pretty damning indictment."

After his arrest, Stone was released on $250,000 bail.

Stone claimed the FBI made "an expensive show of force to try to depict me as Public Enemy No. 1, the O.G.," he said, using the acronym for "original gangster."

"It's an attempt to poison the jury pool," he said. "These are Gestapo tactics." 

Stone said that everything he said or wrote about the Clinton campaign emails in 2016 was based on what had been made public and that he had no advance knowledge about what WikiLeaks would publish. 

In the indictment against Stone, Mueller's team alleges that "a senior Trump campaign official" was directed to talk with Stone about further WikiLeaks releases. Stone said he believes that official was Rick Gates, an associate of former campaign manager Paul Manafort. 

Stone said Gates is lying if he is the one claiming such a conversation took place. 

"I never spoke about this matter with Rick Gates. But I'm mindful of the special counsel's ability to induce people to say things that are not true, particularly people who are seeking a reduction in their sentence," he said.

Gates pleaded guilty in February to conspiracy and lying to investigators. As part of his plea deal, he testified against his former business partner at Manafort's trial in August about helping file false tax returns, failing to disclose multiple foreign bank accounts and providing fake documents to banks to acquire millions of dollars in loans. Gates may have cooperated with Mueller in other parts of his investigation.  

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Stone implied former White House adviser Steve Bannon might be behind the claims in the indictment because he has an "ax to grind." 

"I urged the president to fire Steve Bannon," Stone said. "I suspect that I am not his favorite person." 

Stone said he "categorically" never spoke to Trump about WikiLeaks, Russia or the Mueller investigation. 

He said the investigation into where the emails came from is "meant to distract from the content of those emails, which demonstrated the corruption and dirty tricks of the Clinton campaign." 

Stone said it was an "unproven" claim that Russians stole those emails and he compared himself to Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, who exposed White House dishonesty about progress in the Vietnam War. 

"I tried to do the same thing that Daniel Ellsberg did, for which The New York Times and The Washington Post called him a hero, although I never received any stolen or hacked material and handed it to anyone," he said.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., did not agree that there was anything heroic about WikiLeaks' publication of the stolen emails. 

"I think it should have been clear to people a long time ago that WikiLeaks and others like that could have been tools of foreign intelligence used to divide America," Rubio said on "Meet The Press." "And so I do believe that anyone who is cooperating with them, wittingly or unwittingly, is doing the work of a foreign intelligence agency to harm us."  

Stone vowed outside the federal courthouse Friday that he would "not bear false witness" against the president, but Sunday, he did not rule out the possibility of cooperating with Mueller. 

He said that was something he would have to "determine after my attorneys have some discussion." 

"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 said. 

"I’d also testify honestly about any other matter, including any communications with the president," he said. "It’s true that we spoke on the phone, but those communications are political in nature, they’re benign, and there is certainly no conspiracy with Russia." 

Contributing: Brad Heath, Bart Jansen, Kevin Johnson and Brett Molina