(CNN) Donald Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen is prepared to testify that Trump was aware of longtime adviser Roger Stone's efforts to reach out to WikiLeaks in advance of its release of damaging information about Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, according to a copy of his public testimony submitted to Congress and obtained by CNN.

In a stunning 20-page statement provided Tuesday night to lawmakers, Cohen details a wide range of allegations against Trump -- from making racist comments about African-Americans to participating during his presidency in an illegal hush-money scheme to keep his alleged extramarital affairs quiet -- as well as suggesting Trump faked a medical condition to get out of serving in the Vietnam War.

And Cohen will provide new details saying Trump was engaged in an aggressive pursuit of a major project in Russia in 2016, alleging the President's attorneys edited Cohen's 2017 testimony when he lied to Congress, downplaying the efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

He says Trump never directly ordered him to lie to Congress but he believed he was carrying out an order given his interactions with Trump, who was making public statements about not having any business dealings with Russia.

In short, Cohen calls Trump a "racist," a "conman" and a "cheat."

In the testimony, Cohen will allege that, in 2016, he witnessed Trump taking a phone call from Stone, who was on speakerphone.

"Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that, within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton's campaign," Cohen will say, according to his prepared testimony.

Trump responded, according to Cohen: "Wouldn't that be great."

Cohen's allegations, if true, would amount to the first time anyone with direct knowledge has said that the President had advance knowledge of the WikiLeaks dump of Clinton emails. Cohen also said the President's personal lawyers "reviewed and edited" his 2017 statements when Cohen lied to Congress about the Trump Organization's pursuit of a massive project in Moscow.

The special counsel indictment of Roger Stone made no mention of direct contact between Stone and Assange.

Stone -- who has been indicted on charges of making false statements, witness tampering and obstructing justice -- has denied discussing the matter with Trump or having any such interactions with WikiLeaks. He is fighting his charges in court.

Cohen's opening statement also suggests that Trump may have been aware in advance of a 2016 meeting set up by Donald Trump Jr. and Russians at Trump Tower -- something that Trump and his eldest son have long denied. Cohen will tell Congress that he witnessed Trump Jr., in June 2016, tell his father: "The meeting is all set."

Cohen acknowledges not knowing for sure that Trump's son's comments were in reference to the meeting with Russians.

"I also knew that nothing went on in Trump world, especially the campaign, without Mr. Trump's knowledge and approval," Cohen will say. "So I concluded that Don Jr. was referring to that June 2016 Trump Tower meeting about dirt on Hillary."

CNN reported in July 2018 that Cohen was willing to testify to the special counsel that Trump knew in advance about the planned meeting at Trump Tower.

The White House has attacked Cohen's credibility, calling him someone who cannot be trusted given he has already pleaded guilty to lying.

When asked for comment on Cohen's prepared testimony, the White House referred to press secretary Sarah Sanders' Tuesday statement on Cohen's testimony.

"Disgraced felon Michael Cohen is going to prison for lying to Congress and making other false statements," Sanders said in that statement. "Sadly, he will go before Congress this week and we can expect more of the same. It's laughable that anyone would take a convicted liar like Cohen at his word, and pathetic to see him given yet another opportunity to spread his lies."

According to a copy of the opening statement he prepares to deliver to the House Oversight Committee Wednesday, Cohen says Trump lied repeatedly about a number of matters -- and made a host of racist statements.

He also provides new details suggesting Trump was heavily involved in the pursuit of the Trump Tower Moscow project in 2016.

"To be clear, Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Tower negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it," Cohen will tell the committee. "He lied about it because he never expected to win the election. He also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow real estate project."

Cohen says that Trump did not "directly" tell him to lie to Congress. "That's not how he operates," Cohen says.

But he says that Trump would tell him and the public he has "no business" with Russia, even as he was negotiating the Moscow project.

"In his way, he was telling me to lie," Cohen says.

Cohen also says he's providing the panel with several documents to back up his allegations, including a check Trump wrote from his bank account to reimburse him for hush money payments to silence Stormy Daniels' story in 2016 about her alleged affair with Trump. Trump denies having an affair with Daniels.

But in the testimony, Cohen recounts how he was visiting Trump in February 2017 in the White House when the President assured him his reimbursement checks were coming in the mail. He said Trump made 11 payments of $35,000 each to reimburse him in the hush-money scheme, saying he's providing the House panel with a copy of an August 2017 check signed by the President from his personal bank account.

"The President of the United States thus wrote a personal check for the payment of hush money as part of a criminal scheme to violate campaign finance laws," Cohen will say.

Cohen also says he's providing the committee with copies of letters he wrote threatening Trump's high school, college and the College Board not to release his grades or test scores.

Moreover, Cohen says he has documentation showing Trump arranging a bidder at an auction to purchase a portrait of himself, which he later reimbursed the bidder for from his charitable organization.

And he provides information about Trump's decision to avoid serving in the Vietnam War. Cohen was directed to avoid answering reporters' questions about the matter, he will say. Trump, who has long claimed his deferment was due to a bone spur, had no medical records to provide because there was no surgery, Cohen said.

"You think I'm stupid, I wasn't going to Vietnam," Cohen recalls Trump as saying.

In jarring testimony, Cohen also says Trump repeatedly made racist comments about African-Americans. While driving through a poor neighborhood in Chicago, Trump allegedly told Cohen that "only black people could live that way."

Cohen added that Trump said that African-Americans "would never vote for him because they were too stupid."

This story is breaking and will be updated. </s> WASHINGTON DC — Donald Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen is prepared to testify that Trump was aware of longtime adviser Roger Stone’s efforts to reach out to WikiLeaks in advance of its release of damaging information about Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, according to a copy of his public testimony submitted to Congress and obtained by CNN.

In a stunning 20-page statement provided Tuesday night to lawmakers, Cohen details a wide range of allegations against Trump — from making racist comments about African-Americans to participating during his presidency in an illegal hush-money scheme to keep his alleged extramarital affairs quiet — as well as suggesting Trump faked a medical condition to get out of serving in the Vietnam War.

And Cohen will provide new details saying Trump was engaged in an aggressive pursuit of a major project in Russia in 2016, alleging the President’s attorneys edited Cohen’s 2017 testimony when he lied to Congress, downplaying the efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

He says Trump never directly ordered him to lie to Congress but he believed he was carrying out an order given his interactions with Trump, who was making public statements about not having any business dealings with Russia.

In the testimony, Cohen will allege that, in 2016, he witnessed Trump taking a phone call from Stone, who was on speakerphone.

“Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that, within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign,” Cohen will say, according to his prepared testimony.

Trump responded, according to Cohen: “Wouldn’t that be great.”

Cohen’s allegations, if true, would amount to the first time anyone with direct knowledge has said that the President had advance knowledge of the WikiLeaks dump of Clinton emails. Cohen also said the President’s personal lawyers “reviewed and edited” his 2017 statements when Cohen lied to Congress about the Trump Organization’s pursuit of a massive project in Moscow.

Stone — who has been indicted on charges of making false statements, witness tampering and obstructing justice — has denied discussing the matter with Trump or having any such interactions with WikiLeaks. He is fighting his charges in court.

Cohen’s opening statement also suggests that Trump may have been aware in advance of a 2016 meeting set up by Donald Trump Jr. and Russians at Trump Tower — something that Trump and his eldest son have long denied. Cohen will tell Congress that he witnessed Trump Jr., in June 2016, tell his father: “The meeting is all set.”

Cohen acknowledges not knowing for sure that Trump’s son’s comments were in reference to the meeting with Russians.

“I also knew that nothing went on in Trump world, especially the campaign, without Mr. Trump’s knowledge and approval,” Cohen will say. “So I concluded that Don Jr. was referring to that June 2016 Trump Tower meeting about dirt on Hillary.”

The White House has attacked Cohen’s credibility, calling him someone who cannot be trusted given he has already pleaded guilty to lying.

When asked for comment on Cohen’s prepared testimony, the White House referred to press secretary Sarah Sanders’ Tuesday statement on Cohen’s testimony.

“Disgraced felon Michael Cohen is going to prison for lying to Congress and making other false statements,” Sanders said in that statement. “Sadly, he will go before Congress this week and we can expect more of the same. It’s laughable that anyone would take a convicted liar like Cohen at his word, and pathetic to see him given yet another opportunity to spread his lies.”

According to a copy of the opening statement he prepares to deliver to the House Oversight Committee Wednesday, Cohen says Trump lied repeatedly about a number of matters — and made a host of racist statements.

He also provides new details suggesting Trump was heavily involved in the pursuit of the Trump Tower Moscow project in 2016.

“To be clear, Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Tower negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it,” Cohen will tell the committee. “He lied about it because he never expected to win the election. He also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow real estate project.”

Cohen says that Trump did not “directly” tell him to lie to Congress. “That’s not how he operates,” Cohen says.

But he says that Trump would tell him and the public he has “no business” with Russia, even as he was negotiating the Moscow project.

“In his way, he was telling me to lie,” Cohen says.

ANALYSIS: What Michael Cohen needs to answer for

Cohen also says he’s providing the panel with several documents to back up his allegations, including a check Trump wrote from his bank account to reimburse him for hush money payments to silence Stormy Daniels’ story in 2016 about her alleged affair with Trump. Trump denies having an affair with Daniels.

But in the testimony, Cohen recounts how he was visiting Trump in February 2017 in the White House when the President assured him his reimbursement checks were coming in the mail. He said Trump made 11 payments of $35,000 each to reimburse him in the hush-money scheme, saying he’s providing the House panel with a copy of an August 2017 check signed by the President from his personal bank account.

“The President of the United States thus wrote a personal check for the payment of hush money as part of a criminal scheme to violate campaign finance laws,” Cohen will say.

Cohen also says he’s providing the committee with copies of letters he wrote threatening Trump’s high school, college and the College Board not to release his grades or test scores.

Moreover, Cohen says he has documentation showing Trump arranging a bidder at an auction to purchase a portrait of himself, which he later reimbursed the bidder for from his charitable organization.

And he provides information about Trump’s decision to avoid serving in the Vietnam War. Cohen was directed to avoid answering reporters’ questions about the matter, he will say. Trump, who has long claimed his deferment was due to a bone spur, had no medical records to provide because there was no surgery, Cohen said.

“You think I’m stupid, I wasn’t going to Vietnam,” Cohen recalls Trump as saying.

In jarring testimony, Cohen also says Trump repeatedly made racist comments about African-Americans. While driving through a poor neighborhood in Chicago, Trump allegedly told Cohen that “only black people could live that way.”

Cohen added that Trump said that African-Americans “would never vote for him because they were too stupid.” </s> Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to US President Donald Trump, was arrested Friday under an indictment issued by the special counsel examining possible collusion with Russia.

Stone was charged with seven counts, including obstruction of an official proceeding, making false statements and witness tampering, according to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office.

The indictment concerns Stone's communications with with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, whose group leaked tens of thousands of stolen Democratic Party emails that embarrassed Trump's rival Hillary Clinton in an apparent bid to influence the election.

It was the first indictment in months by the special prosecutor probing Russian efforts to tip the 2016 US election toward Trump and whether he and his people tried to obstruct justice.

FBI agents arrested Stone at his home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida before dawn, and he is due in federal court there later in the day. His lawyer did not immediately respond to questions for comment.

Stone, who launched his career as a campaign aide to Richard Nixon and has a tattoo on his back of the first US president to resign from office, has spent decades advising various US political campaigns.

He was one of the first members of Trump's team when the billionaire real estate magnate formally announced he was seeking office, but he left months later over a dispute.

The two men, however, remained in close contact, the indictment underlying that Stone "maintained regular contact with and publicly supported the Trump Campaign through the 2016 election."

Stone had previously said he was ready to face possible charges from Mueller's team, and publicly taunted the special counsel, echoing Trump's claims of a "witch hunt."

"This was supposed to be about Russian collusion, and it appears to be an effort to silence or punish the president´s supporters and his advocates," he told NBC's "Meet The Press" in May.

"It is not inconceivable now that Mr Mueller and his team may seek to conjure up some extraneous crime pertaining to my business, or maybe not even pertaining to the 2016 election," Stone said. "I would chalk this up to an effort to silence me."

Stone has also previously insisted that he would never testify against Trump.

"There's no circumstance under which I would testify against the president, because I'd have to bear false witness against him," he told ABC's "This Week" in December. "I'd have to make things up, and I'm not going to do that." </s> Roger Stone, a long-time associate of US president Donald Trump, was charged with obstruction and witness tampering on Friday, becoming the latest figure to be indicted by special counsel, Robert Mueller.

Mr Stone was arrested by the FBI shortly before daybreak on Friday at his home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

He later appeared at a federal court where he was released on bail on a $250,000 bond.

Speaking outside the court, Mr Stone protested his innocence: “I will plead not guilty to these charges. I will defeat them in court,” he said to the assembled crowd.

Some shouted “Lock him up”, a reference to Mr Stone’s taunting of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The 66-year-old political operative said there was no evidence of collusion with Russia, adding: “I am a fervent supporter of the president. I think he is doing a great job of making America great again... There’s no circumstance under which I would bear false witness to the president.”

He made a double “v” sign as he addressed the crowd, a symbol that appeared to recall Richard Nixon’s famous gesture as he left the White House for the last time after his resignation in 1974.

Mr Stone worked for Nixon’s campaign in the early days of his career and famously has a tattoo of the former president on his back.

Mr Stone was charged with seven counts, according to the indictment: one count of obstructing an official proceeding, one count of witness tampering and five counts of false statements.

The court documents shed light on a key issue that has dogged Mr Stone in recent months – what he knew about the hacking of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) server by Russian intelligence in 2016, which led to the release of documents by Wikileaks.

The email hack, which contained damaging information about Mrs Clinton, played a central role in the final months of the 2016 presidential campaign.

The documents state that Mr Stone told “senior Trump campaign officials” about the emails between June and July of 2016.

After the first batch of emails were released by Wikileaks on July 22nd, it is claimed that a senior campaign official was directed to ask Mr Stone to find out information about possible further damaging information about Mrs Clinton that might be forthcoming.

The documents show that these interactions continued into the autumn, revealing email exchanges between Mr Stone and former Trump aide Steven Bannon, as well as with Donald Trump jnr in October, just before 6,000 emails relating to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta were released.

Prior to the 2016 election, Mr Stone suggested several times in public comments that he had advance knowledge of the email leak.

In a tweet in October 2016, he seemed to suggest that he knew that the Podesta leak was imminent.

“I have total confidence that @wikileaks and my hero Julian Assange will educate the American people soon. #LockHerUp” he tweeted.

The emails were released later that week.

Mr Stone’s indictment provides the strongest link yet between the Trump campaign and Wikileaks’ efforts to disrupt the Clinton campaign.

A colourful figure who has been well known in the US political scene since his work for the Nixon administration in the 1970s, Mr Stone’s friendship with Mr Trump stretches back decades.

He worked as a formal adviser to Mr Trump in 2015, continuing to advise him in a more informal capacity during the presidential campaign.

He is the 33rd person to be indicted in relation to the special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, and the sixth Trump associate to be charged.

Jay Sekulow, a lawyer for Mr Trump, said the indictment showed no evidence of collusion. “The indictment today does not allege Russian collusion by Roger Stone or anyone else. Rather, the indictment focuses on alleged false statements made to Congress.”

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders sought to broadly distance Mr Trump from the charges. “The charges brought against Mr Stone have nothing to do with the president,” she said.

In a morning tweet, Mr Trump appeared to lash out at the investigation, questioning how CNN, which aired footage of the FBI raid on Mr Stone’s home, had known in advance of the arrest.

“Greatest Witch Hunt in the History of our Country! NO COLLUSION! Border Coyotes, Drug Dealers and Human Traffickers are treated better. Who alerted CNN to be there?”

However, CNN said that, through research, it deduced that Mr Stone’s arrest could be forthcoming and, as a result, the network sent a camera crew to his home on Thursday. </s> Michael Cohen, former lawyer to President Donald Trump, departs following his appearance in Federal Court on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, in New York. Cohen, has pleaded guilty to charges including campaign finance fraud stemming from hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels and ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal. less

Michael Cohen, former lawyer to President Donald Trump, departs following his appearance in Federal Court on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, in New York. Cohen, has pleaded guilty to charges including campaign finance ... more

Michael Cohen, former lawyer to President Donald Trump, departs following his appearance in Federal Court on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, in New York. Cohen, has pleaded guilty to charges including campaign finance fraud stemming from hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels and ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal. less

Michael Cohen, former lawyer to President Donald Trump, departs following his appearance in Federal Court on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, in New York. Cohen, has pleaded guilty to charges including campaign finance ... more

Michael Cohen, former personal lawyer to President Donald Trump, leaves federal court after reaching a plea agreement in New York, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018.

NEW YORK (AP) — What other dirt might Michael Cohen have on Donald Trump?

Cohen's lawyer says the president's former "fixer" has information "on certain subjects that should be of interest" to the special prosecutor beyond his allegations made while pleading guilty Tuesday that Trump directed him to make hush-money payments to fend off damage to his White House bid.

Cohen has been said to be willing to tell special counsel Robert Mueller that Trump knew in advance of a 2016 meeting at Trump Tower in which the Republican candidate's eldest son sought damaging information from a Russian lawyer about Hillary Clinton.

But his lawyer, Lanny Davis, on Wednesday hedged a suggestion he made on television Tuesday night that Cohen could tell Mueller about whether Trump was aware of and encouraged Russian hacking during the 2016 campaign before it became publicly known.

"It is my observation that what he knows will be of interest," Davis said during a battery of television interviews. "Whether Mr. Trump knew ahead of time will remain to be seen."

Cohen, who showed fierce loyalty as Trump's personal lawyer, said in court that Trump directed him to arrange payments of $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels and $150,000 to former Playboy model Karen McDougal to buy their silence about alleged affairs before the election. Trump denies the affairs.

Trump tweeted on Wednesday that the campaign finance violations Cohen pleaded guilty to "are not a crime." He told "Fox & Friends" that, because the payments came from him and not the campaign, it's "not even a campaign violation." Both claims are wrong.

Nothing made public so far from Cohen's criminal case indicates he has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, but Davis said that was simply a "distinction without a difference." Cohen is intent on telling the truth to whoever asks him and is "more than happy" to tell Mueller all that he knows, Davis said, calling that pledge, "the functional equivalent of cooperation."

Cohen forged his new path amid months of scrutiny from federal investigations and a public falling-out with the president, for whom Cohen once said he would "take a bullet." But what compelled him to take a plea deal and potentially flip on Trump?

Cohen told confidants he was disappointed and angry that Trump and his team — namely his lawyer Rudy Giuliani — had repeatedly bashed his reputation and character.

Cohen suggested that the attacks helped pave the way for his guilty plea and possible cooperation, according to a person who has spoken to the lawyer in the last 24 hours but was not authorized to discuss private conversations and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Davis made the claim during his media tour Wednesday that Trump's deference to Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on July 16 was a "significant turning point" and that it galvanized Cohen's thinking that Trump was unsuitable to hold office.

But, that summit was about two weeks after Cohen made clear to ABC's George Stephanopoulos in an off-camera interview that he was putting his "family and country first" and wouldn't be a "punching bag as part of anyone's defense strategy."

Working out of a Trump Tower office next to his boss, Cohen likely has vast knowledge of the innerworkings of Trump's empire, his business dealings and his campaign. Federal agents in April seized more than 4 million items from his home, hotel room and office, including recordings of Trump and others.

Investigators from New York state's tax department entered the mix on Wednesday, subpoenaing Cohen to share what he knows about the Trump Foundation, the president's embattled charitable foundation.

Cohen, who turns 52 on Saturday, wiped away tears as he gazed out a courthouse window after pleading guilty on Tuesday. He is free now and allowed some limited travel. He could get about four to five years in prison at sentencing Dec. 12.

Believing that his arrest was imminent, Cohen turned himself in to the FBI because he wanted to spare his children the image of him being perp-walked in handcuffs, according to the person who spoke with Cohen.

Even as his legal fate approached, Cohen tried to project normalcy in recent days: he went on a family trip to Florida and he oversaw moving back into his upper East Side apartment after spending months in a nearby hotel after a water main break.

When the judge asked him if he had taken any drugs or alcohol in the past 24 hours, Cohen confessed: "Last night at dinner, I had a glass of Glenlivet 12 on the rocks."

It was the only moment of levity at an otherwise glum proceeding.

"Is it your custom to do that, sir?" the judge responded.

"No, your honor," Cohen said.

Tuesday night, hours after entering his guilty pleas, Cohen took his wife out to dinner.

Associated Press reporter David Klepper contributed from Albany, New York.

Follow Lemire at twitter.com/JonLemire and Sisak at twitter.com/mikesisak </s> United States President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen on Wednesday claimed that as a Republican presidential candidate in 2016, Trump knew beforehand that Wikileaks would release hacked Democratic National Committee emails. In a congressional testimony before the US House of Representatives committee, Cohen accused Trump of being “a racist”, “a conman” and “a cheat”.

The testimony is part of an investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller who is looking into ties between Trump’s campaign officials and Russia. It is also looking into other ways Russia may have influenced the 2016 presidential polls. Russia is also accused of attempting to meddle in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

In December 2018, Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for multiple offences, including lying to the US Congress and for facilitating bribes to two women who allegedly had affairs with Trump. In August 2018, Cohen had pleaded guilty in a New York court to eight counts of tax crimes, making illegal campaign contributions and admitted that he made pre-election payments.

Cohen claimed that Trump’s longtime political advisor Roger Stone in July 2016 had told him that he had been speaking to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and that there would be “massive dump” of emails that would affect Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton’s, presidential campaign.

He also claimed that Trump wanted him to lie about a property deal in Moscow amid his presidential campaign for 2016 elections. “At the same time I was actively negotiating in Russia for him, he would look me in the eye and tell me there’s no business in Russia and then go out and lie to the American people by saying the same thing,” Cohen said. “In his way, he was telling me to lie.”

Cohen claimed that Trump had also asked him to pay off an adult film star, Stephanie Clifford, with whom Trump had had an affair, Reuters reported. Cohen submitted a copy of $130,000 wire transfer made during the closing days of the presidential campaign to Clifford, whose screen name is Stormy Daniels.

Cohen said while Trump has publicly courted white supremacists and bigots, “in private, he is even worse”. “He once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that wasn’t a ‘shithole’,” he told the committee, according to BBC. “This was when Barack Obama was president of the United States.”

He claimed Trump had also said that black people would never vote for him “because they were too stupid”. Since becoming the president, Trump has become the worst version of himself, Cohen said, adding that Trump is “fundamentally disloyal”.

“Donald Trump is a man who ran for office to make his brand great, not to make our country great,” Cohen said. “He had no desire or intention to lead this nation – only to market himself and to build his wealth and power.”

Meanwhile, the US president, who is currently in Vietnam to attend a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, hit back at Cohen saying the lawyer was “lying in order to reduce his prison time”. </s> The FBI has arrested Roger Stone, the longtime adviser to President Donald Trump, as a part of special counsel Rober Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. He was charged with seven counts that include witness tampering, false statements, and obstruction of an official proceeding.

Stone is expected to make an appearance in federal court later on Friday.

You can read the indictment below:

This is a breaking news post. We will update as more information becomes available. </s> Roger Stone has said that Donald Trump was put on earth to be president. Hollis Johnson

Editors note: This article was first published in March 2017. It has been updated in light of Roger Stone being i ndicted by the Mueller probe.

It took nearly 20 years for Roger Stone to realize his dream.

Since the 1980s, the self-described "dirty trickster" who's been in and around Republican politics for half a century, had made it something of a mission to make Donald Trump president.

Despite parting ways with the Trump campaign in August 2015 — Trump says he fired Stone for hogging the media spotlight; Stone says he quit because Trump attacked Megyn Kelly — Stone has remained one of Trump's most loyal true believers.

And now Special Counsel Robert Mueller has indicted him with one count of obstruction, five counts of false statements, and one count of witness tampering, according to a Justice Department filing on Thursday.

Stone was put in the crosshairs of the FBI over communications with a Russian hacker and his alleged communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as the FBI look for connections between Trump's campaign and Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Thursday's filing repeatedly referred to Stone's contact with "Organization 1," which had "posted documents stolen by others" from the US government and citizens.

The filing said it "released tens of thousands of documents stolen from" people including the Democratic National Committee and the personal email account of Clinton campaign chairman, John Podesta.

"Organization 1" is widely believed to be WikiLeaks.

The filing also said Stone deliberately obstructed investigations by the FBI, House Intelligence Committee, and Senate Intelligence Committee into Russian interference in the election.

Stone has repeatedly said he has nothing to do with Russia, but messages he has sent to the hacker accused of a cyberattack on the DNC, as well as Stone's own provocative statements, continued to raise questions.

"It's rare that I'm accused of something that I'm not guilty of," Stone told the New Yorker in 2008.

Stone said in July it's "a possibility" that he could be indicted over his communications with Russian hacker Guccifer 2.0 and WikiLeaks, which experts had warned could implicate him in a conspiracy to defraud the United States by interfering in the 2016 election.

On August 12, nearly a year after he left Trump's campaign and a few weeks after WikiLeaks, a radical-transparency group, published the first set of stolen emails from the DNC, Stone reached out through a private message to a Twitter user named "Guccifer 2.0."

Earlier that August, Stone had written on the alt-right website Breitbart, then controlled by Steve Bannon, that it was "a hacker who goes by the name of Guccifer 2.0" — and not the Russians — who hacked the DNC and fed the documents to WikiLeaks.

But experts quickly linked Guccifer 2.0 back to Russia and concluded that the so-called hacker was the product of a Russian disinformation campaign. When the special counsel's office indicted 12 Russian security officers for hacking the DNC and the Clinton campaign in July, they said the hacker was a front for Russian military intelligence.

In his messages with Guccifer 2.0, Stone asked if the hacker could retweet his Breitbart column about the 2016 presidential election possibly being "rigged."

Guccifer 2.0 responded: "i'm pleased to say that u r great man. please tell me if i can help u anyhow. it would be a great pleasure to me."

Stone later told Business Insider that the interaction he had with the hacker was so "brief and banal" that he "had forgotten it."

"Not exactly 007 stuff even if Gruccifer [sic] 2.0 was working for the Russkies," Stone said. "Meaningless."

Stone's tweets in the days after his communications with Guccifer 2.0 have raised questions about whether he knew in advance that Podesta's emails would be imminently published by WikiLeaks.

On August 21, Stone sent a series of famously prescient tweets. "Trust me, it will soon the Podesta's time in the barrel. #CrookedHillary." On October 1 Stone tweeted: "Wednesday @HillaryClinton is done."

On October 3 he tweeted: "I have total confidence that @wikileaks and my hero Julian Assange will educate the American people soon #LockHerUp."

Four days later, WikiLeaks published its first set of emails stolen from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta.

In October, Stone said he had "back-channel communication with Assange," but has denied having any direct contact with WikiLeaks, saying that he had been getting his information from a mutual friend he shares with Assange, later revealed to be radio host Randy Credico, who has since been subpoenaed to testify in the Mueller probe.

But in February, The Atlantic reported that Stone was in direct communication with WikiLeaks via Twitter in the days leading up to the election.

Mike Pompeo, then the director of the CIA, described WikiLeaks as a "hostile, non-state intelligence service" last year.

"Since I was all over national TV, cable and print defending wikileaks and Assange against the claim that you are Russian agents and debunking the false charges of sexual assault as trumped up bs you may want to reexamine the strategy of attacking me- cordially R," Stone wrote to Wikileaks on October 13, 2016, according to The Atlantic.

Wikileaks responded the same day, "We appreciate that. However, the false claims of association are being used by the democrats to undermine the impact of our publications. Don't go there if you don't want us to correct you."

"Ha!" Stone wrote back on October 15. "The more you 'correct' me the more people think you're lying. Your operation leaks like a sieve. You need to figure out who your friends are."

On November 9, the morning after Trump won the presidential election, Wikileaks wrote to Stone, "Happy? We are now more free to communicate."

It is unclear whether Stone and Wikileaks had any other private communications either before October 13 or after November 9, 2016.

Stone told the House Intelligence Committee in a prepared statement last September that his communications with Wikileaks were always conducted through Credico, an associate of Assange who tweeted a selfie outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where Assange lives, two days before WikiLeaks released a trove of Clinton campaign manager John Podesta's emails. The email dump came the same day as a damning Access Hollywood tape surfaced in which Trump discussed groping women without their consent.

"I have never said or written that I had any direct communication with Julian Assange and have always clarified in numerous interviews and speeches that my communication with WikiLeaks was through the aforementioned journalist," Stone told the committee.

Meanwhile, NBC News reported in October 2018 that Jerome Corsi, a right-wing conspiracy theorist and close friend of Stone who was subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury, knew in advance that Clinton campaign emails had been stolen and given to WikiLeaks.

Stone told Business Insider in March 2017 that he "had no contacts or communications with the Russian State, Russian Intelligence or anyone fronting for them or acting as intermediaries for them," he said. "None. Nada. Zilch. I am not in touch with any Russians. don't have a Russian girlfriend, don't like Russian dressing and have stopped drinking Russian Vodka."

The New York Times reported in October 2018 that Stone discussed the WikiLeaks document dumps with both Steve Bannon, then the chairman of the Trump campaign, and Matthew Boyle, who at the time was the Washington editor of the far-right website Breitbart, which was previously spearheaded by Bannon.

In an exchange on Oct. 3, 2016, Boyle reportedly asked Stone, "Assange — what's he got? Hope it's good," to which Stone replied, "It is."

Boyle then reportedly pressed Bannon to contact Stone about the impending WikiLeaks dump, telling Bannon, "clearly he knows what Assange has." Just 4 days after that exchange on Oct. 7, WikiLeaks released the trove of John Podesta's emails.

"Mere knowledge alone might not be enough to establish criminal responsibility," Cornell Law School Professor Jens David Ohlin told Business Insider about Stone's potential liability with regard to his contacts with WikiLeaks and Guccifer.

"However, if Stone was not just aware of what WikiLeaks was doing but actually intended for it to happen, then he could be considered a member of the criminal conspiracy and just as guilty as its other members," he added.

Also in October 2018, Mother Jones reported that Stone had pushed the Trump administration to issue a pre-emptive presidential pardon to Assange, who has not been charged with a crime in the United States.

Ohlin told Business Insider at the time that "if someone offered Assange a pardon in exchange for Assange releasing hacked emails to influence the election, this would constitute a criminal conspiracy. If Trump or those close to him were part of these discussions, they would all be part of the same criminal conspiracy."

And then emailed leaked which shows top Trump campaign officials and right-wing media allies said they were convinced Stone was closer to Wikileaks than he let on, and Mueller was reported to have several emails from 2016 between the GOP strategist Roger Stone and Corsi that showed Stone anticipated a WikiLeaks document dump at the height of the 2016 election.

The White House, for its part, has worked to distance itself from Stone. During a press conference on March 20, 2017, then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Stone and Trump talk occasionally but that Stone's work for the campaign ended in August 2015.

"I don't know at all when the last time they even spoke was," Spicer said.

In December, Stone invoked his Fifth Amendment right and declined to provide documents requested of him by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The Washington Post reported in December that Mueller's office has reached out to the House Intelligence Committee, seeking an official transcript of Roger Stone's testimony to the panel — signalling that proscutors were moving closer to an indictment.

Stone was perhaps the first, and most influential, person to believe in Trump's political potential.

In 1988, Stone tried to persuade him to run for president. Trump decided against it, but 12 years later he launched a presidential exploratory committee, which Stone chaired.

Since the 1980s, Stone and Trump have fostered a close professional and political relationship. Stone has been characterized as Trump's longest-serving adviser.

Stone and Trump share remarkably similar worldviews and approaches to politics. Like Trump, Stone has a penchant for making bold, unsubstantiated claims, promoting conspiracy theories, and being unafraid of controversy. He told The New Yorker in 2008 that "The only thing worse in politics than being wrong is being boring."

Stone encouraged Trump's infamous "birther" conspiracy, which claimed that President Obama wasn't born in the US, and promoted unsubstantiated theories that Bill Clinton was a serial rapist and fathered a son.

Roger Stone, left, with Ed Rollins and Lee Atwater, right, discuss the meeting they had during the president's re-election campaign with former president Richard Nixon in Washington on Nov. 13, 1984. They are looking for advice on strategy for Reagan's second term effort. Nixon advised them to target Ohio as one of their main states. Ira Schwarz/AP

Trump has apparently adopted many of Stone's ideas and methods. Stone told The New Yorker in 2008 that "Politics is not about uniting people. It's about dividing people. And getting your fifty-one per cent." One of his cardinal rules was "Attack, attack, attack—never defend" and "Admit nothing, deny everything, launch counterattack."

"It takes a certain kind of consultant who could work for a candidate like Donald Trump and it takes a certain kind of candidate to hire a consultant like Roger Stone," says Chris Barron, a Washington-based political consultant who has worked with Stone in the past, told the National Review in 2015.

In the 2017 Netflix documentary "Get Me Roger Stone," Trump says of Stone: "He loves the game, he has fun with it, and he's very good at it."

Both Stone and Trump are preoccupied with the news media, and they rail against it as being biased, but also court publicity. Stone is known for being easily accessible, and he seems to relish providing reporters with provocative sound bites. As Stone told The New York Times in 2015 of his life philosophy, "Never miss the opportunity to have sex or be on television, as Gore Vidal said."

The media has, in turn, portrayed Stone as everything from a "state-of-the-art sleazeball" to a dangerous conspirator. But Stone relishes these descriptions — the more unflattering the better.

"I revel in your hatred, because if I weren't effective you wouldn't hate me," Stone says in "Get Me Roger Stone."

Stone, who has been a Republican operative for almost 50 years, has long treated politics and campaigning as a battle to be won at any cost. As a junior in high school and vice president of the student government, he forced the president out and succeeded him.

''I built alliances and put all my serious challengers on my ticket," Stone told The New York Times in 1999. "Then I recruited the most unpopular guy in the school to run against me. You think that's mean? No, it's smart.''

Notably, Stone has remained an unapologetic Nixon supporter to this day. After working for Nixon's campaign in the 1970s, he maintained a close relationship with the president and regularly dined with him at his home in the years following the president's resignation. Stone has a tattoo of Nixon's face across his back and a large photograph of the former president over his bed.

Among many, Stone is better known for his eccentricities than his political work.

Throughout his career, Stone has cultivated what he calls his "extraordinary wardrobe," which includes a taste for seersucker suits and top hats, a style that The New Yorker has said makes Stone look "like a Prohibition-era mobster."

"If life is a stage, then you should always be in costume," Stone told The Times.

Stone told The New Yorker in 2008 that “Politics is not about uniting people. It’s about dividing people." Joe Raedle/Getty Images

'He always tries taking credit for things he never did'

Stone and Trump have had a rocky relationship. In 2008, Trump called Stone a "stone-cold loser," telling The New Yorker that "he always tries taking credit for things he never did."

In August 2015, Stone parted ways with Trump's campaign. While Trump announced that he had fired Stone, accusing him of attempting "to use the campaign for his own personal publicity," Stone said that he resigned, making public a letter he said he had sent to Trump arguing that the campaign was being derailed by "controversies involving personalities and provocative media fights."

Stone's departure came as Trump faced scrutiny surrounding his controversial comments about Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly.

Some conservatives believed Trump's campaign would suffer without Stone to guide it.

"It's hard to overstate just how close Trump and Stone have been over the years," the National Review wrote after Stone had left the campaign. "Trump without Stone is akin to George W. Bush without Karl Rove or Barack Obama without David Axelrod."

But even after Stone left the campaign, he remained a strong supporter, calling himself "the ultimate Trump loyalist." In January, Stone published a book, "The Making of the President 2016: How Donald Trump Orchestrated a Revolution," in which he says Trump was "put on Earth" to be president.

Stone was raised in Lewisboro, New York, in a white working-class family. He told The New Yorker that while growing up adjacent to New Canaan, a wealthy Connecticut suburb, he saw himself as "living in kind of a bridge between two cultures, the white working class and the white upper class."

Stone remains convinced that both groups of white Americans should be politically united against what he sees as an overreaching government.

After high school Stone moved to DC to attend George Washington University. He never graduated.

Stone made his debut in national politics at 19, when he sent campaign contributions in the name of a socialist organization to Richard Nixon's rival in the 1972 Republican presidential primary. He then sent a letter to The New Hampshire Union-Leader with the donation receipt, in an attempt to undermine Nixon's competitor.

In a 2008 New Yorker article, Stone told reporter Jeffrey Toobin that Nixon started the "exodus of working-class people from the Democratic Party" and realigned the Republican Party's platform to one founded on antielitism.

"We were the party of the workingman! We wanted lower taxes for everyone, across the board," Stone said. "The point that the Democrats missed was that the people who weren't rich wanted to be rich."

As Toobin wrote, "Stone represents the less discussed but still vigorous legacy of Richard Nixon."

In 1976, Stone joined Ronald Reagan's first, unsuccessful run for the Republican presidential nomination as national youth director. Four years later, Stone took on the role of political director of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, helping pave Reagan's path to the White House.

But Stone, ever the campaigner, didn't take a position in the Reagan administration and instead started a political consulting and lobbying firm, Black, Manafort, Stone & Atwater, along with Paul Manafort, who, decades later, would become Trump's 2016 presidential campaign chairman.

Stone's corporate clients included Trump businesses and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., on whose behalf Stone lobbied his former campaign colleagues in the administration, and more controversial characters, including dictators in Zaire and the Philippines, and rebels in Angola.

Stone and his firm were on the forefront of a new era of political operatives lobbying their former campaign colleagues, now in powerful positions in the administration, to serve their private-sector ends.

But Stone was drawn back into campaigning when George H.W. Bush ran for president in 1988, serving as a senior consultant to Bush. Stone continued jumping between the campaign trails — for Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter and Kansas Republican Bob Dole — until he was kicked off Dole's presidential campaign after Stone and his wife were caught soliciting "similar couples or exceptional muscular" men for group sex. (Stone denied the accusations at the time but later admitted they were accurate.)

After Stone left Black, Manafort, Stone & Atwater in the mid-1990s, he ran various campaigns, including a billionaire's bid for New York governor, and then moved down to Miami. In 2000, he was instrumental in orchestrating the so-called Brooks Brothers riot — a chaotic pro-Bush protest outside the Miami recount center — which helped shut down the Florida recount in the presidential election, securing George W. Bush's victory over Al Gore. </s> Federal prosecutors secured the search warrants to seize records in reference to adult film star payoff

Today, the FBI raided the Manhattan office and home of Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen to seize records related to payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels and other matters involving Donald Trump. Federal prosecutors secured a warrant on the Trump matter after receiving a referral from Special Counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.

The New York Times said that the raid on Michael Cohen’s office was confirmed by Cohen’s lawyer, Stephen Ryan, who called the search “completely inappropriate and unnecessary.” While the search is not thought to be connected to the Mueller investigation, it is thought that the warrant was secured using information that Mueller uncovered in his investigation into possible Russian meddling in the Trump presidential win.

Stephen Ryan, A Lawyer For Trump Attorney Michael Cohen Issued A Statement About The Raid

Stephen Ryan, the lawyer for Michael Cohen, released a statement to the public confirming that several search warrants had been carried out concerning the Donald Trump/Stormy Daniels matter and the payment of $130k.

In addition to negotiating a payment in the Stormy Daniels matter, Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, also played a part in the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The payments to Stormy Daniels, aka Stephanie Clifford, are said to be only part of the documentation the FBI was seeking in the office of Michael Cohen. A source said that the FBI also seized emails, tax documents, and business records.

The ‘Extraordinary Search’ Of Cohen’s Correspondence With Donald Trump Happened Today

CNN stated that Angelo Kakolyris, a spokesman for the law firm of Squire Patton Boggs in New York, where Michael Cohen has his office, stated that they are severing their relationship with Cohen and that they are cooperating fully with the FBI in terms of their search. He also added that the firm has nothing to do with the relationship between Donald Trump, the Trump Organization, and Michael Cohen.

Mueller is said to have green-lit the request for search warrants after complaints to the Justice Department and Federal Election Commission over potential violations of campaign finance law in reference to payments to Stormy Daniels from Michael Cohen on behalf of then-candidate Donald Trump.

Michael Avenatti, the lawyer now representing Stormy Daniels in her matter concerning a non-disclosure agreement with Donald Trump, commented on the search of the law office of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen on Twitter today.

In addition to the FBI investigation, Avenatti is still pursuing a civil matter on behalf of his client, Stormy Daniels (Stephanie Clifford) and others versus Donald Trump. Avenatti says the case will not be over until Trump and Cohen come clean on the matter and vindicate Daniels.
U.S. President Donald Trump's former attorney, Michael Cohen, is prepared to testify that Trump was aware of longtime adviser Roger Stone's efforts to make contact with WikiLeaks in advance of its release of damaging information about Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, according to a copy of his public testimony submitted to Congress and obtained by CNN.