Roger Stone said in a new interview that he plans to campaign for President Trump after the president commuted his longtime adviser's prison sentence.
"I will do anything necessary to elect my candidate, short of breaking the law,” Stone told Axios.
“First, I'm going to write a book about this entire ordeal to, once and for all, put to bed the myth of Russian collusion,” Stone said.
Stone was sentenced to three years and four months in prison in connection with former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. He was convicted in November by a jury in Washington, D.C., of all counts he faced, including lying to Congress in connection with its separate investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, witness tampering and obstructing an official proceeding.
Trump has long railed against the Russia investigation, calling it a “witch hunt.” Stone has also maintained his innocence.
The president commuted Stone’s sentence Friday, just days before Stone was set to report to prison.
Stone, 67, told Axios he felt that going to a prison where he “could not be socially distanced” would be “a death sentence” amid the COVID-19 pandemic, adding that he is “asthmatic.”
Stone, who acted as a campaign adviser for Trump in the 2016 election, also predicted that Trump will win reelection in November.
"It'll be a very tough fight. He's got three obstacles: voter fraud ... internet censorship, which I have just recently experienced myself; and, of course, the constant falsehoods being pushed by the corporate-owned mainstream media. Those all make it a difficult race,” he said. Facebook earlier this month removed a network of more than 100 pages and accounts associated with Stone after determining that they engaged in "coordinated inauthentic behavior" focused on audiences in the U.S.
“But he is a great campaigner. He's a great communicator,” Stone added.
The Trump campaign said it welcomes Stone's commitment to support the president's reelection efforts.
“That’s great. All Americans should want to support President Trump," campaign spokesperson Tim Murtaugh told The Hill.
