Roger Stone, a self-professed “dirty trickster” and advisor to President Donald Trump, has on his upper back a tattoo of Richard Nixon, or “Tricky Dick,” as the president was affectionately known.
“Women love it,” Stone says about the tattoo.
Stone didn’t say what kind of women love his Nixon tattoo.
But my response to Stone’s quote is probably the same as the response of Diane Chambers, played by Shelley Long, in the sit-com Cheers, to a bartender Sam Malone, played by Ted Danson, after he came on to her with a pick-up line.
“Do you know what bothers me?” Chambers said. “There are women upon whom this works . . . and they are allowed to vote and drive cars.”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0539854/characters/nm0001101
Stone, the son of Democrats, broke into politics as an elementary school student during the 1960 Presidential Election when he convinced his classmates that they should support the Democrat John K. Kennedy over the Republican Richard Nixon because if Nixon were elected, they would have school on Saturdays.
“It was my first political trick,” Stone said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/24/AR2007082402122.html
Before you know it, however, Stone was turning tricks for Nixon, who resigned from the presidency in disgrace.
Stone wears Nixon as a reminder: “One must always get up from the mat and fight again.”
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/01/29/roger-stone-donald-trump-watergate-224383/
Stone says his motto: “Attack, attack, attack — never defend. . . . Admit nothing, deny everything, launch counterattack.”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/06/02/the-dirty-trickster
This has become Trump’s raison d’etre.
Trump is the only president who was twice impeached. He also was the only one indicted after leaving the White House.
Trump faces 91 charges – 44 of them federal and 47 state.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/trump-charges-jan-6-classified-documents/
No character as repugnant as Trump has ever served as president.
Trump owes in some part anyway much to those who created him.
His mentors were his father, Fred Trump Sr.
SEE FRED TRUMP, Sr.
And Roy Cohn.
SEE ROY COHN
But where would Trump be without Roger Stone and his words of wisdom?
“Attack, attack, attack — never defend. . . . Admit nothing, deny everything, launch counterattack.”
The 2017 Netflix documentary, Get Me Roger Stone, chronicles the nastiness of conservative politics in America from Nixon to Trump by tracing the influence and machinations of Roger Stone.
“In the documentary, which was released six months after Trump’s election, Stone portrays himself as a dandy and a dirtbag, a sleazeball who embodies the rage and drive for fame that’s at the heart of the worst corners of American politics,” Vox writer Alissa Wilkinson said. “He’s an Infowars regular and an object of some marvel and fear to everyone, even those on his political side. He has principles, but they’re entirely in service of staying in the public eye; he calls them ‘Stone’s rules,’ and sprinkles them throughout the film. One such rule: “’It is better to be infamous than to never be famous at all.”’ Another: ‘Hate is a more powerful motivator than love.’”
https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/5/10/15597328/get-me-roger-stone-netflix-review
Stone became Trump’s brain.
Why not?
Trump wasn’t using it.
In November 2019, Stone was found guilty of obstructing a congressional investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential Election and other related offenses, five counts of making false statements to Congress, and tampering with a witness.
Three months later, federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson sentenced him to more than three years in federal prison.
President Trump defended Stone and attacked Judge Jackson and Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his office for prosecuting Stone.
Judge Jackson responded to Trump without mentioning him by name when sentencing Stone.
“He was not prosecuted, as some have complained, for standing up for the president. He was prosecuted for covering up for the president,” the judge said.
When Trump was asked whether he would pardon Stone, Trump said: “I’ll be looking at it. I think Roger Stone was very unfairly treated.”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-says-he-is-looking-at-clemency-for-roger-stone
Trump pardoned Stone in December 2020, shortly before Stone was scheduled to begin his prison term.
Trump’s pardon appeared to be a reward for Stone’s not testifying against the president.
Two Congressional committee chairmen suggested as much in a statement.
“No other president has exercised the clemency power for such a patently personal and self-serving purpose,” Democratic Representatives Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn B. Maloney said.
Senator Mitt Romney, a Republican of Utah, called the commutation “unprecedented, historic corruption.”
Robert Mueller wrote in an op-ed published in the Washington Post calling Stone a “convicted felon” and referred to Stone’s involvement with Russian intelligence officers in the run-up to the election.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/11/mueller-stone-oped/
A documentary, A Storm Foretold, which was made with Stone’s consent and participation, includes a segment that was filmed two days before the 2020 President Election that contradicts Trump’s claim that he thought he would win the election.
Stone, learning that Trump would probably lose, tells Trump to declare victory and, if that doesn’t convince the America people, then to do what needs to be done to seize the election.
Stone says in the video that aired on MSNBC that the campaign should have fake electors vote for the president in battleground states.
Two dozen fake electors have been indicted in Georgia, Michigan, and Nevada.
Ken Chesebro, one of Trump’s attorneys and an architect of the fake electors plot, is cooperating with law enforcement authorities in Georgia, Michigan, and Nevada, after pleading guilty to a single charge of conspiracy in the Georgia investigation.
SEE KEN CHESEBRO
The documentary also indicates Stone’s response to the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, telling the filmmakers the would be “really bad” for the pro-Trump movement.
It says that Stone wanted a blanket pardon that would cover him for the January 6 investigation. But the White House didn’t give it to him.
“Stone,” the Washington Post reported, “directed his rage at the man who had confided in him and consulted with him for decades, denouncing Trump as ‘a disgrace’ and expressing support for him to be impeached. ‘He betrayed everybody,’ Stone said.
