Roger Stone says he met with a Russian named Henry Greenberg in 2016 in Florida. (Seth Wenig / AP)
Longtime President Trump associate Roger Stone said he never talked to anyone with Russian ties during the 2016 election — except for that time when he met with a Russian operative who promised dirt on Hillary Clinton in exchange for $2 million.
He talked with someone then.
It’s just that Stone, according to The Washington Post, didn’t remember the meeting, and now that he does remember the meeting, what he remembers about it is that it was a waste of time.
But, yes, he did meet with someone, a man named Henry Greenberg. And Greenberg was from Russia. And the Russian guy he met with was trying to influence the election.
It's doubtful President Trump knew about the meeting, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani says. (Olivier Douliery / TNS)
“You don’t understand Donald Trump,” Stone said he told Greenberg before rejecting the offer. “He doesn’t pay for anything.”
Stone’s admission about the meeting was a far cry from what he told the newspaper just a year ago.
“I’ve never been to Russia. I didn’t talk to anybody who was identifiably Russian during the two-year runup to this campaign,” he said.
“I very definitely can’t think of anybody who might have been a Russian without my knowledge. It’s a canard.”
Stone’s memory was apparently jogged by text messages. According to the Post, Stone and Trump campaign aide Michael Caputo, who set up the Florida meeting, traded text messages later about the sitdown.
Stone, a notorious dirty trickster in Republican campaigns since the Nixon administration, said the meeting was a “waste of time.”
Neither Caputo nor Stone told congressional investigators about the meeting. Caputo has reportedly since amended his House testimony.
Both Caputo and Stone told the Post they think the entire encounter was a setup by law enforcement officials “hostile to Trump.”
Greenberg, who also goes by the name Henry Oknyansky, denied to the outlet that he was acting as an FBI informant during the meeting, though he reportedly did claim to work as one in the past, as recently as 2013.
According to the Post, the meeting is now under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller as part of his Russia probe.
Meanwhile, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said Sunday morning on CNN that he doubts Trump was aware of the meeting.“Whatever differing recollections about this, it sort of gets resolved with the fact that Stone did nothing about it, came to the conclusion, according to the Post, that it was a waste of time,” Giuliani said on “State of the Union.”
“I can’t imagine anything got back to the then-presidential candidate that was of any substance if he had concluded it was a waste of time.”
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