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Roger Stone

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The only thing worse in politics than being wrong is being boring, as Dick Nixon would say.

Roger Jason Stone Jr. (born 27 August 1952) is an American conservative political consultant and lobbyist. Since the 1970s, Stone has worked on the campaigns of Republican politicians, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Jack Kemp, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump. In addition to frequently serving as a campaign adviser, Stone was a political lobbyist. In 1980, he co-founded a Washington, D.C.–based lobbying firm with Paul Manafort and Charles R. Black Jr. The firm recruited Peter G. Kelly and was renamed Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly in 1984. During the 1980s, BMSK became a top lobbying firm by leveraging its White House connections to attract high-paying clients, including U.S. corporations and trade associations, as well as foreign governments. By 1990, it was one of the leading lobbyists for American companies and foreign organizations.

Quotes

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  • I strongly support Donald Trump for President. I think only Trump has the financial independence to take on the special interests. Trump doesn't need the lobbyists or the special interest money with the strings attached. He is the only one who can fix a broken system. Trump's pro-growth tax reform plan will supercharge the economy. Trump can actually cut waste because he is not beholden to the special pleaders. Trump will get in Hillary's face and confront her with her lies. Jeb gave Hillary a medal. The Bush and Clinton families profiteer off public service together. Is it civility or shared criminality? Only Trump can make America great again!
  • The only thing worse in politics than being wrong is being boring, as Dick Nixon would say.
  • Let's go find Swalwell. It's time to do it. Then we'll see how brave the rest of them are. It's time to do it. It's either Nadler or Swalwell has to die before the election. They need to get the message. Let's go find Swalwell and get this over with. I'm just not putting up with this shit any more.

"The Dirty Trickster" (2008)

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As quoted by Jeffrey Toobin, "The Dirty Trickster: Campaign tips from the man who has done it all" (June 2, 2008) The New Yorker.
  • He who speaks first, loses.
  • Attack, attack, attack—never defend.
  • Admit nothing, deny everything, launch counterattack.
  • The point that the Democrats missed was that the people who weren’t rich wanted to be rich.
  • The Democrats are the party of slavery; the Republicans are the party of freedom.
  • When that whole thing hit the fan in 1996, the reason I gave a blanket denial was that my grandparents were still alive,
    I’m not guilty of hypocrisy. I’m a libertarian and a libertine.

Get Me Roger Stone (2017)

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American documentary film written and directed by Dylan Bank, Daniel DiMauro and Morgan Pehme, released May 12, 2017 on Netflix.
  • It's better to be infamous than never to be famous at all.
  • I went to the cafeteria, and as each kid would go through the cafeteria line [in my elementary school] with their tray, I would tell them, "You know, Nixon has proposed having school on Saturdays." ...[T]he mock election [in my elementary school] was held and to the surprise of the local newspaper, Democrat John Kennedy swept this mock election. For the first time ever I understood the value of disinformation.
  • We could only give a Senate campaign, in a direct financial transfer of $5,000. But the loophole was, we could advertise on behalf of a candidate, without their cooperation or coordination, an unlimited amount. And that's why NCPAC [which Stone helped found in 1975] was successful.
  • Well, my attitude regarding those who criticize me for being friends with Roy Cohn or Richard Nixon is, "F—'em."
  • After the Reform Party cost the Republicans the White House in '92, again in '96... Yeah, I may have played some role in derailing them as a party.
  • Yeah, I live a pretty Machiavellian life, and I'm a sceptic. I tend to believe the worst of people because I understand human nature. Human nature has never changed. That's why one of Stone's rules is that hate is a stronger motivator than love.
  • Corey is now openly telling people he's got the goods on me. ...He's telling reporters that he has something on Manafort that will blow him out of the campaign. ...We gotta take the little prick out.

Quotes about Stone

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1980s

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  • Stone’s partner Lee Atwater recently told the Washington Post that [Stone] studies the National Enquirer every week, since it’s the literary staple of America’s swing voter. All this "expertise" amounts essentially to a respectable veneer for what Stone and his firm really offer: connections, hype, and hardball negative campaigning.
  • Three of the guys who ran the 1984 Reagan campaign - Charles Black, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone - get a million or so from a Marcos-dominated Philippine business association, and another million from the dictator of Nigeria. At Gray & Co., a one-month job for Japanese politicians to soothe American ire at trade restrictions was run by George Bush's former chief of staff and pulled in a quarter-million. I am not one to knock honest greed, but never has rainmaking seen such moneymaking.
  • A lobbyist can perform no greater favor for a lawmaker than to help get him elected. It is the ultimate political IOU, and it can be cashed in again and again. No other firm holds more of this precious currency than the Washington shop known as Black, Manafort. Legally, there are two firms. Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly, a lobbying operation... Black, Manafort, Stone & Atwater, a political-consulting firm, has helped elect... powerful... politicians... The partners... say that the lobbying and political-consulting functions are kept separate. ...Charges Fred Wertheimer, president of the public-interest lobbying group Common Cause: "It's institutionalized conflict of interest." ...The partners charge six-figure fees to lobby and six-figure fees to manage election campaigns. As a result, they take home six-figure salaries. ...They unabashedly peddle their access to the Reagan Administration.
  • As a political firm, Black, Manafort represents Democrats and Republicans alike--and sometimes candidates running for the same seat. ...Stone and Atwater's offices are right across the hall from each other, prompting one congressional aide to ask facetiously, "Why have primaries for the nomination? Why not have the candidates go over to Black, Manafort & Stone and argue it out?" Stone and Atwater present a contrast in styles. Stone, who practices the hardball politics he first learned as an aide to convicted Watergate Co-Conspirator Charles Colson...

"The Rise And Gall of Roger Stone" (1986)

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  • He's one of the great all-time frauds of American politics... His reputation vastly exceeds his ability. ...His personal effects... rival those of Imelda Marcos. ...In my view, the man's word is no good... Every meeting I've had with the guy, I wanted to wash my hands three times afterwards.
Quotes by Stephanie Mansfield, "The Rise And Gall of Roger Stone" (June 16, 1986) The Washington Post.
  • Stone likes to think of himself as a fixer -- "the next generation's Roy Cohn," in the words of one friend -- and identifies with the modern consultant-as-slick-salesman...
  • He has nicknames within the Republican party: "The Godfather," "The Prince of Darkness." The latter is a name Stone himself likes to repeat. It is, he has told more than one friend, good for his "aura."
  • The partners have been criticized by some fellow consultants for their brand of influence-peddling: first electing clients to office, then lobbying them. The political arm of the organization, formerly Black, Manafort, Stone & Atwater, is now known as Campaign Consultants Inc. ...Corporate clients are willing to pay six-figure fees to ensure the kind of access to top government officials Stone and his partners... like to flaunt.
  • You can parlay your short-term connections into making money, but administrations change. That's where Roger is going to end up short, because he doesn't have any real talent. He doesn't have any character. That's why questions have come up about his ethics and his way of doing business. He has to parlay connections to give himself credibility because he has no credibility on his own.
    • Herb Harman [former regional political director for the Reagan-Bush campaign], as quoted by Stephanie Mansfield, "The Rise And Gall of Roger Stone" (June 16, 1986) The Washington Post.

1990s

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  • Kenya and Nigeria have widely criticized human rights records. Last year, Kenya received $38 million in U.S. foreign aid, and spent over $1.4 million on Washington lobbyists to get it. Nigeria received $8.3 million and expended in excess of $2.5 million. Whom did both countries call upon to do their bidding before the U.S. government? The lobbying firm of Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly Public Affairs Co.. which received $660,000 from Kenya in 1992-1993 and $1 million from Nigeria in 1991.
  • Top Five Firms Receiving the Most Money from the Torturers' Lobby, 1991-1992... Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly) $3.3 [Fees, in Millions from] Nigeria, Kenya, UNITA [headed by Jonas Savimbi], Philippines.
    • Pamela Brogan, The Torturers' Lobby: How Human Rights-Abusing Nations Are Represented in Washington (1992) p. 7, Center for Public Integrity

2000s

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  • Pat Buchanan... seized control of the most successful third party in half a century... Once Buchanan became the party's presidential nominee, he mysteriously disappeared... The saga begins with a baby, allegedly born more than four decades ago... Roger Stone was using... a scandal to undermine Buchanan. Stone, who also spearheaded the pro-Bush mob shutdown of the Miami/Dade recount in 2000... pushed [the illegitimate baby scandal] aggressively on reporters early in the 2000 campaign, then just let it hover over Buchanan... The trail starts in June 1999... "it was Roger’s brilliant idea," recalls Nofziger, "that Pat ought to leave the party and become the candidate of the Reform Party." ...The master of convoluted chaos, double agent Stone has left his mark in the dark alleys of presidential politics since Watergate, but the sacking of the Reform Party may be his lasting legacy.

"The Dirty Trickster" (2008)

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Quotes by Jeffrey Toobin, "The Dirty Trickster: Campaign tips from the man who has done it all" (June 2, 2008) The New Yorker.
  • Roger was a fringe player around town. He always had this reputation of being a guy who exaggerated things, who pretended he did things. Roger was never on Nixon’s staff, was never on the White House staff. I don’t think you’ll find anyone in the business who trusts him. Roger was always a little rat.
  • He was able to use the Democratic teachings on voter turnout and class warfare and turn it against us... He knew what populism was in reverse. He thought like a Democrat and dressed like a plutocrat. He once said to me, "Are you black? Are you Hispanic? Are you gay?" When I said no, he said, "Then why the f— are you a Democrat? You should be with us."
    • Hank Sheinkopf [Democratic political consultant], as quoted by Jeffrey Toobin, "The Dirty Trickster: Campaign tips from the man who has done it all" (June 2, 2008) The New Yorker.
  • Roger is a stone-cold loser... He always tries taking credit for things he never did.
    • Donald Trump, as quoted by Jeffrey Toobin, "The Dirty Trickster: Campaign tips from the man who has done it all" (June 2, 2008) The New Yorker.
  • [E]arly on I saw myself as living in kind of a bridge between two cultures, the white working class and the white upper class.
  • He was just nineteen when he played a bit part in the Watergate scandals. He adopted the pseudonym Jason Rainier and made contributions in the name of the Young Socialist Alliance to the campaign of Pete McCloskey, who was challenging Nixon for the Republican nomination in 1972. Stone then sent a receipt to the Manchester Union Leader, to “prove” that Nixon’s adversary was a left-wing stooge.
  • Stone served as a senior consultant to Bob Dole’s 1996 campaign for President, but that assignment ended in a characteristic conflagration. The National Enquirer, in a story headlined "Top Dole Aide Caught in Group-Sex Ring," reported that the Stones had apparently run personal ads in a magazine called Local Swing Fever. ...Stone claimed that he had been set up by a "very sick individual," but he was forced to resign from Dole’s campaign. Stone acknowledged to me that the ads were authentic. "...the reason I gave a blanket denial was that my grandparents were still alive," he said. "I’m not guilty of hypocrisy. I’m a libertarian and a libertine."

2010s

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  • I asked longtime Donald Trump advisor Roger Stone, who is working on the unofficial "Donald Trump" effort... why Trump would embrace discredited theories about Obama's birth. Stone emails... five reasons: "...4) Personally, I think it is brilliant. It's base building. It gives voice to a concern shared by many on the right. ..." ...[A]n official copy of Obama's birth certificate—the same thing Trump would have to prove his own birth—has been available online for three years.
  • Political trickster Roger Stone who... was involved in tricks such as the "Brooks Brothers Riot," in which he led pro-Bush protestors, disarmingly dressed in suits and ties, loudly claiming the Miami-Dade County election board, which stopped the recount, when the 2000 Bush vs. Gore election outcome was uncertain. Stone has a number of rules: "Lay low, play dumb, keep moving... Nothing is on the level. ...Hate is a stronger motivator than love. ...Use a cut-out [a front-man stand-in so the prominent candidate doesn't have to do the dirty work]." The results... are toxic to the democratic process. Exploiting fears and stirring prejudices are tricks used by those whose ideas lack intrinsic strength to prevail. ...Winning a hand of poker is not on the same scale as winning an election by acts that destroy people's faith in their nation's entire political system's integrity. The trick of putting a man lacking depth perception in the driver's seat of a great nation is bound to have serious consequences.
    • William J. Jackson, American Tricksters: Thoughts on the Shadow Side of a Culture's Psyche (2014) p. 183.
  • Roger Stone has been Donald Trump's chief political advisor. He planned and ran his presidential campaign, and he's been his hatchet man. He spent forty years as a hatchet man. But not only that, the head of the National Enquirer, a guy named David Pecker, is good friends with Donald Trump. ...You know the National Enquirer in its history has never endorsed a candidate, until Donald Trump. ...Donald Trump suggested that David Pecker... should take over Time magazine. Who in their right mind...
  • What made Stone stand out in that tawdry scene was his utter shamelessness. He bragged about being a 19-year-old bit player in the Watergate scandal and about his friendship with Roy Cohn, Joe McCarthy’s notorious henchman. Along with his partners, among them Trump adviser Paul Manafort, he engaged in campaign tactics no one else would admit to and took lobbying clients no one else would represent, including murderous foreign dictators. ...Stone was less power player than con artist. ...[H]e was mostly shaking down his clients, who paid him a lot of money based on the largely false impression that he had real influence. He was a bluffer... and a leaker, ratting out his allies in pursuit of his own agenda. ..He would emerge every so often at the center of some bizarre gambit or scandal... publishing preposterous conspiracy books... giving interviews in Miami sex clubs, he was the definition of a marginal political figure.
    ..
    For many years, Stone was a lobbyist for Trump’s casino business. He was also the perennial leader of the “Draft Trump” campaign—the person who encouraged Trump’s birther obsession and finally got Trump to run this year. ...[H]e remains a Trump surrogate and dirt-dealer, most recently smearing Khizr Khan as a terrorist and predicting a “bloodbath” if the Democrats try to “steal” the election. Thirty years ago, I called him the state-of-the-art political sleazeball. And I’ve got to hand it to him—in the years since, no one has come close...
  • In a December 2006 post on the Dark Cavern web site, the couple advertised for a male partner who “must be 22-40, lean, muscular and hung like a horse.” The ad, which included Stone’s Hotmail address, offered a graphic description of Nydia’s body
  • Stone is a thug who relishes personal insults, character assassination, and offensive Gestapo-like tactics that should be unequivocally dismissed by civil society, most especially those who might give him a platform from which to spew his hatred... He is the David Duke of politics. Those with whom he is affiliated should denounce him in no uncertain terms.
    • Brent Bozell [President, Media Research Center (MRC) praising CNN and MSNBC for banning Roger Stone], as quoted by Media Research Center; and by Adam C. Smith "Meet longtime Trump ally Roger Stone, an attention-craving political hit man" (May 4 2017/May 7 2017) Tampa Bay Times.
  • One problem for reporters relying on Stone for information? He happens to be among the least trustworthy political players.
    ..
    Stone has so effectively burnished his reputation for sinister, win-at-all-cost black bag ops that it seems remarkable it has taken so long for him to be at the center of an FBI investigation, suspected of helping the Russians meddle in the presidential election.
  • By 1972, Stone was working for Nixon’s re-election campaign. His official title was scheduler. His real job, he said, was dispatching people to spy on the campaign of Hubert Humphrey, the Democratic nominee. ...He worked for successful presidential campaigns of George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan and later opened a mega-successful Washington lobbying firm with Manafort that included GOP political strategist Lee Atwater. Not only did Black, Manafort & Stone work for Republicans, they also earned a fortune representing brutal dictators... When Trump ran for president in 2016, Stone served for a time as an adviser and knee-capper of Trump critics. ...Stone also became Trump’s ambassador to fringe right figures and bogus conspiracy mongers like Alex Jones, on whose “Info Wars” program he was a frequent guest.
  • I googled this guy, Roger Stone, because he looks like he pays black guys to bang his wife,
    ..
    And I found out in 1996 he was forced to resign from Bob Dole’s campaign for asking black guys to bang his wife. Not kidding! Look it up!
    • Michael Che on 27 January 2019
      • Stone resigned in response to a National Enquirer controversy about a "swingers" advertisement, however it did not specify anything about race, so this claim is unsubstantiated

Get Me Roger Stone (2017)

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American documentary film written and directed by Dylan Bank, Daniel DiMauro and Morgan Pehme, released May 12, 2017 on Netflix.
  • I wrote a lot about Roy Cohn. I started hearing about Roger from people who were close to Roy. ...Roy Cohn is the single most evil person I have ever covered. If that's a magnet for you as a young man, it says you're soulless before you start.
  • Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and I had worked together through the Reagan campaign. When the Reagan campaign got short of cash, [we] decided to start a political consulting firm. Paul Manafort came in one day and said, "You know we ought to start a lobbying firm, because I'm getting a lot of calls from people who all know we work for Reagan and [that we] know the people who are going to be in the Reagan administration, and they want lobbying." So we did.
  • He is an expert in stabbing people in the back. That guy's got an incredible capacity for treachery.
  • Roger Stone has been Donald Trump's chief political advisor. He planned and ran his presidential campaign. ...His entire business has been dirty tricks, has been lies, has been personal smears.
  • What Roger Stone says and what the truth are, are two factually different things.
  • Lobbying had been considered kind of a sleazy business, but Roger Stone unabashedly came out and said, "I'm going to make a pile of money off of this and no apologies."
  • When people think of Washington corruption, they think of organizations like Black, Manafort & Stone, that shook down dictators, took all their money, and then tried to take America's government and make them serve the dictator's interest. You know, it is the swamp.
  • They [Black, Manafort & Stone] elected people. As soon as those people were in office, they turned around and lobbied them. And so they crossed a line that hadn't been crossed. Washington's been worse for it ever since.
  • [H]e's been everywhere dark and ugly in our politics for many, many years. In 2004, he's blamed for forging the documents that destroyed Dan Rather's career and also helped to re-elect President Bush. ...That same year, Stone consulted for Al Sharpton's presidential run that helped disrupt the Democratic primary process. ...A few years later, he took credit for bringing down his nemesis, New York governor Eliot Spitzer. He says he got a tip from a hooker in a sex club. ...Stone's so desperate to stay in the public eye, that he peddles garbage conspiracy theories.
  • I had a lawyer who was a very good lawyer, a tough lawyer, named Roy Cohn. He introduced me, at one point, to Roger Stone. Roy thought Roger was a very tough guy. Roy knew some very tough guys, I will tell you that. But Roy always felt that Roger was not only tough, but a smart guy, and very political.
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