WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump's longtime friend Roger Stone pleaded innocent Tuesday to charges stemming from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
Stone was indicted last week and accused of lying about his efforts to gather information about Russian-hacked Democratic Party emails at the direction of an unidentified senior Trump campaign official before the election.
Appearing before U.S. Magistrate Deborah A. Robinson, Stone's plea was entered by his lawyer, Robert Buschel.
As Stone walked into the courthouse Tuesday morning, some onlookers chanted "lock him up!" while others screamed their support for him and the president. Afterward, some of those same people engaged in angry, profanity-laced arguments about the case.
After his indictment, Stone made several weekend media appearances to declare his innocence, criticize prosecutors, and repeat his pledge that he would not testify against the president.
He faces charges of lying, obstruction and witness tampering.
At an initial court appearance Friday in Florida after his arrest at his Fort Lauderdale home, the 66-year-old Stone appeared in shackles but was released on $250,000 bond.
Prosecutors asked for no change to the terms of Stone's release. He is limited to travel between south Florida, Washington and New York City, and barred from possessing or applying for a passport.
The judge scheduled the next court hearing for Friday.
Stone, a veteran GOP operative and friend of Trump for four decades, briefly advised the presidential campaign in 2015 and remained in contact with Trump and top advisers through the election.
The indictment centers on Stone's alleged efforts to learn when potentially damaging internal emails from Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign would be released by Julian Assange, WikiLeaks' leader.
U.S. authorities in July indicted a dozen Russian military intelligence officers on charges that they hacked Democrats' computers, stole their data and published those files to disrupt the 2016 election, using as one of their conduits WikiLeaks, the global anti-secrecy group, which publicized the emails during the campaign's final months.
In Stone's indictment, prosecutors charged that after the initial July 22, 2016, release of stolen emails, "a senior Trump campaign official was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information Organization 1 had regarding the Clinton campaign." The indictment does not name the campaign official or who directed the alleged outreach to Stone.
The indictment states that Stone later told the campaign about potential future releases by "Organization 1," which people familiar with the case said is WikiLeaks.
Information for this article was contributed by Rosalind S. Helderman, Lori Rozsa and Manuel Roig-Franzia of The Washington Post; and by Eric Tucker, Chad Day and Colleen Long of The Associated Press.
A Section on 01/30/2019