Roger Stone
Roger Jason Stone Jr. (born August 27, 1952) is an American political consultant, strategist, and lobbyist renowned for his extensive involvement in Republican campaigns and operations spanning over five decades.[1][2] Stone entered politics as a teenager, initially supporting Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy before aligning with Republicans during the Nixon era, where he worked as a scheduler in the 1972 campaign and embraced aggressive tactics amid the Watergate scandal.[2][3] In the 1980s, he contributed to Ronald Reagan's campaigns and co-founded the influential lobbying firm Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly, which specialized in opposition research and advocacy for Republican causes.[4] His career emphasized direct-mail fundraising, media manipulation, and building coalitions, earning him a reputation as a pragmatic operative focused on electoral victories over ideological purity.[5] Stone's association with Donald Trump dates to the late 1980s, when he urged the real estate developer to pursue the presidency, later advising informal strategies during the 2016 campaign until his departure in August 2015, after which he continued public support and commentary.[6][7] In 2019, he was convicted on seven felony counts—including obstruction, false statements to Congress, and witness tampering—stemming from a special counsel investigation into 2016 election interference, with charges centered on his communications regarding WikiLeaks releases; President Trump commuted his sentence in July 2020 and issued a full pardon in December 2020.[8][9] Stone has authored books critiquing political opponents and maintains that his legal troubles reflected partisan overreach rather than substantive wrongdoing.[10]