FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Roger Stone, a former campaign adviser to President Donald Trump, has settled a lawsuit accusing him of publishing lies on the InfoWars website.
The Wall Street Journal reports exiled Chinese businessman Guo Wengui sued Stone in March. In the settlement reached Monday, Stone acknowledges that he publicly stated that Guo had "violated U.S. election law" by donating money to Hillary Clinton's campaign. Stone also falsely accused Guo, who is also known as Miles Kwok, of funding a presidential run by Steve Bannon and being convicted of financial crimes.
Stone now says, "All of these statements are not true."
Guo fled China in 2014 and has since become a loud critic of the Chinese government, which has tried to have him arrested and returned to Beijing.
The settlement identifies Chinese-American media tycoon Bruno Wu as "the apparent source of the information" and says it was conveyed to Stone by former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg.
Wu is suing Guo for defamation over those assertions, The Wall Street Journal reports. A spokesman for Wu's company didn't immediately respond to a message about Stone's allegations.
In a statement sent to The Washington Post, Stone blamed the falsehoods on Nunberg, who has now testified before a special counsel's grand jury. "I made the error of relying on the representations of Sam Nunberg in my report on this matter, and for that I apologized," Stone said.
Nunberg declined to comment on the claims.
The settlement allows Stone to avoid paying any damages if he publishes national newspaper ads apologizing for the statements and retracts the statements online.
He still is of interest to investigators looking into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Information for this article was contributed by Tim Elfrink of The Washington Post and by staff members of The Associated Press.
A Section on 12/19/2018