Trump aide Roger Stone said the FBI leadership has turned the agency into “Joe Biden’s personal Gestapo” as he solicited donations to cover his legal expenses. The remark came after he was subpoenaed by the January 6 committee.
Stone was among five individuals who were subpoenaed last week by the Democrat-led select committee investigating the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill. He denies any wrongdoing and claims to be a victim of persecution.
Making his case in a fresh interview, Stone accused top officials at the FBI of turning the law enforcement agency into a partisan secret police.
“We have a group of politicized thugs at the top of the FBI, who are using the FBI – and I hate to say it – as Joe Biden’s personal Gestapo,” he said, referring to the notorious Nazi secret police service.
He claimed that many rank-and-file FBI agents, including those who participated in the infamous January 2019 pre-dawn raid on his house, had expressed their support for him. But senior figures are corrupting the agency, he believes.
Stone was previously convicted in federal court of seven felonies committed when he obstructed investigations involving his longtime boss, Donald Trump. The former president initially rejected his call for a full pardon, instead commuting his sentence to time served. However, Stone was among the people he pardoned in the final weeks of his presidency.
In the interview with WABC 770 AM radio, Stone claimed the committee’s interest in him is the continuation of a pattern of legal harassment of people in Trump’s orbit. He complained that the subpoena, which he said had only added “insult to injury,” looked to him more like a “press release” and was disclosed to the public before his own lawyers received it.
I’m clickbait for the far left. That’s what I am.
He joked that his immediate thought about the new development was “how many of my ‘Roger Stone still did nothing wrong’ T-shirts” he would be able to sell. He said legal expenses had led to his financial ruin, and he solicited donations to fund his defense in several civil lawsuits filed against him.
Stone said he will wait till the December 17 deadline given to him by the committee before choosing whether to comply with or defy the subpoena. Regardless, he added, his previous experience with the justice system would come in handy.
“It’s kind of been there, done that, got the T-shirt and the pardon,” he quipped.