Political strategist Roger Stone said Sunday he or his lawyers have not yet been contacted by the FBI concerning an investigation into allegations of connections between President Donald Trump's campaign staff and Russians, and even if he is, there's no evidence against him.
"This is a scandal in search of evidence," Stone told ABC "This Week," while insisting that any surveillance that he's under was on the basis of "no probable cause."
Stone is under scrutiny by the FBI and the Senate after former Clinton campaign manager John Podesta accused the Trump associate of having advance knowledge that WikiLeaks was planning to release thousands of emails from his account.
Stone has offered to testify voluntarily before the House Intelligence Committee, but said Sunday he wants that testimony to be made public because many of the charges against him are incorrect.
He has admitted to communicating with "Guccifer 2.0", a person accused of hacking into the Democratic National Committee's email server, but he said Sunday the exchanges were "entirely on Twitter, public and private, in which I have now made entirely public."
Further, he said the accusation of collusions with Russians "is absurd. Number one, I don't concede that Guccifer is a Russian agent."
"My communication is now entirely public," Stone said. "It's benign. Not exactly 007 stuff. Secondarily, the timing of my communication is after, not before, I write a story for Breitbart regarding the hacking."
Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort has also agreed to speak with the Intelligence Committee, and Stone said he is sure Manafort, a friend of his for almost 50 years, also did nothing wrong.
"He has vehemently denied any wrongdoing," said Stone. "I choose to take him at his word."
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Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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