OMAHA, Neb. — Roger Stone, the political provocateur and strategist who was pardoned by Donald Trump for multiple felony convictions, accompanied his longtime ally on the road Friday. They were together at a campaign stop in Iowa and aboard the former president’s personal jet on a flight to Las Vegas, two sources familiar with the trip told NBC News.
Trump was in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on Friday to launch his “Farmers for Trump” coalition; Stone was present but did not take the stage for the event. The former president will meet with grassroots activists in Las Vegas on Saturday.
Stone did not immediately return a request for comment Friday night.
Stone has not served as a formal adviser to Trump since the early days of his first presidential bid in 2015, but his actions before the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol drew scrutiny from the Committee Selective of the Chamber. during his investigation last year.
The select committee described Stone’s connections to leaders of extremist groups, including a leader of the Oath Keepers who was sentenced in May to 12 years in prison on charges of seditious conspiracy.
Stone also spoke to Trump in late December 2020, after he had already used some violent rhetoric in images captured by a documentary team.
“I said the vote, go straight to violence,” Stone said.
Cassidy Hutchinson, then-aide to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, also testified to Congress that Trump had ordered Meadows to call Stone the day before the Capitol attack.
But Stone’s legal intersection with Trump is extensive. He was at the center of probes into Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 election as well. The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee wrote in its findings that Stone “took steps to obtain insider knowledge” to the Trump campaign about when WikiLeaks would release new troves of its hacked material aimed at damaging Democrat Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid.
In 2019, Stone was found guilty in federal court of interfering with the congressional investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign and its ties to Russia. He was convicted of seven counts, including witness tampering and making false statements. He was later sentenced to more than three years in federal prison, but Trump eventually commuted his sentence and later pardoned his longtime ally.
