Senators Ask Trump Adviser to Preserve Any Russia-Related Documents

Source: New York Times | March 18, 2017 | Maggie Haberman

Roger J. Stone Jr., an informal adviser to President Trump, has been asked by the Senate Intelligence Committee to preserve any records he may have in connection to a broader inquiry into Russian attempts to interfere with United States elections.

The letter sent to Mr. Stone, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, represents the first public indication of the scope of the committee’s inquiry, and possible connections to Mr. Trump’s campaign.

The Senate committee asked Mr. Stone, who is also under scrutiny from other federal investigators, to “preserve and retain all hard copies and electronically stored information as specified below in furtherance of the committee’s ongoing investigation into Russian actions targeting the 2016 U.S. elections and democratic processes globally.”

Mr. Stone confirmed the existence of the letter, which was dated Feb. 17. However, he said he had received it only on Friday, by email. Mr. Stone has acknowledged trading messages over Twitter with Guccifer 2.0, the online persona that officials believe was actually Russian intelligence officers.

The letter to Mr. Stone was signed by the committee’s chairman, Senator Richard M. Burr, Republican of North Carolina, and its ranking Democrat, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia. Press officers for Mr. Burr and Mr. Warner declined to comment on the letter.

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Democrats and some investigators, as well as some Republicans, have been watching Mr. Stone, a Richard M. Nixon acolyte and self-described “dirty trickster,” more closely since he posted on Twitter in August 2016 about John D. Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, whose private emails were hacked and provided to WikiLeaks.

Mr. Stone said on Twitter that Mr. Podesta would soon face his “time in the barrel,” two months before the emails were made public. Mr. Stone maintained that he was alluding to business activities he attributed to Mr. Podesta, not prior knowledge of the hackings.

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In 2016, Mr. Stone said at a public event that he had been in communication with Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, and suggested they had a large collection of material to publish on Mrs. Clinton and her husband, Bill, in the weeks before Election Day. Mr. Stone later clarified that it was through an intermediary and, he said, “perfectly legal.”

In February 2016, the Smoking Gun website approached Mr. Stone about private messages exchanged on Twitter with Guccifer 2.0. Mr. Stone, who initially told the site that he did not recall the messages, later sent captured shots of the brief exchange to The Washington Times, describing them as “innocuous.”

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