Rare recording found of Nixon-tattooed leech talking to toothy Florida man

Selfie of Roger Stone, Matt Gaetz and Joel Greenberg in better days.

Documentary filmmakers from Denmark released to the Washington Post portions of a film they made in 2019 about American political operative Roger Stone called “A Storm Foretold.”  In the excerpt seen by the Post, Stone is seen off-stage at the Trump National Doral Golf Resort in Miami in October of 2019 speaking to Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz as they waited to go on stage to speak at an event called “AMPFest,” a conference held by American Priority, a right-wing group that bills itself as promoting “the ideals of Liberty, Integrity and Equality by bringing people together in a fun, safe environment. We also strive to emphasize the importance of the American culture.”

Apparently, the funnest, safest environment American Priority has been able to find is the Trump Doral Resort, and the people they have chosen as speakers at their events over the past few years have included Immigration Nazi Dinesh D’Souza, martial law fan General Michael Flynn, and Arizona Certifiable Lunatic Congressman Paul Gosar, as well as the aforementioned Stone and Gaetz.

The Danish filmmakers caught Stone and Gaetz on a lapel microphone worn by Stone for the documentary.  They were apparently unaware that they were being recorded at the time.  Stone was at the time awaiting trial in Washington on seven felony charges of lying to the FBI and obstructing justice in connection with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.  He was later convicted on all seven counts and sentenced to 40 months in federal prison.

Gaetz, who had seen the redacted portions of the Mueller Report that had not been released to the public, warned Stone that he was bound to be convicted at trial.  “They’re going to do you, because you’re not going to have a defense,” Gaetz said to Stone backstage.  Stone acknowledged as much, reminding Gaetz, “I’m on trial in the District of Columbia. You can imagine the complexion of the jury pool — politically.” 

Stone bragged that he had not “folded” under pressure from Mueller.   “It would have been easy to make this go away, but I couldn’t live with myself,” Stone told Gaetz.

“Well, you’re a bullshit artist, not a liar,” Gaetz replied.

“Correct,” Stone said. “There’s a big difference.”

Stone told Gaetz that he was thinking of asking Trump to grant him clemency if he was found guilty.  “I may have to appeal to the big man, because I’ve got … it’s the District of Columbia. We surveyed 120 jurors. Ninety of them know who I am, and they hate my guts.”  Gaetz assured Stone that he would not “do a day” in prison for the offenses he was charged with.  “The boss still has a very favorable view of you,” Gaetz told Stone.  “I don’t think the big guy can let you go down for this.”

When Stone was convicted, the White House put pressure on the Department of Justice to lower its recommended prison sentence of seven to nine years.  After Attorney General William Barr got personally involved, all four prosecutors on the case resigned their positions in protest and were replaced by a team that was more amenable to a shorter sentence.  Stone was eventually sentenced to 40 months in prison for his crimes.  After an appeals court refused to hear Stone’s appeal and his sentence was upheld by the DOJ, Trump commuted Stone’s sentence in the summer of 2020.  Two days before Christmas, Trump pardoned Stone along with his former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who had been found guilty of financial crimes and was serving a lengthy term in jail.

A former White House aide recently told the January 6 Committee that several Republican members of congress had sought pardons from Trump just before he left office.  Among them was Matt Gaetz, who has been under investigation for trafficking an underage child for sex.  On the tape made at the Trump Doral Resort before the sex trafficking investigation became known, Stone lamented to Gaetz that a photograph of the two men with Joel Greenberg, then the Seminole County tax collector, “has come back to bite us in the ass.”  A newspaper had reported the previous week that Greenberg had given taxpayer funded contracts to his own associates and friends. 

“Bite us in the ass?” Gaetz said. “I’m incredibly proud of [the photo.]”

That was before Greenberg was arrested in the summer of 2020 for trafficking a 17 year old girl for sex and five other charges.  He has agreed to plead guilty and it has been reported that he has flipped on Gaetz and given testimony before a grand jury about the Florida congressman being involved in providing drugs to underage girls for sex.

A spokesman for Gaetz denied to the Post that the congressman had ever paid for sex or had sex with a minor.  The investigation is ongoing, which probably explains why a sitting congressman from Florida would be seeking a pardon from then President Trump just before he left office.

There is more gossipy garbage from both Stone and Gaetz on the tape made by the Danish film crew at the Trump Doral Resort event, but it’s not worth going into here.  What is worth noting, however, is the longevity of Roger Stone as a political figure in this country.  His career dates back to his days as a “ratfucker” for Richard Nixon during the 1972 presidential campaign.  Later he formed a political lobbying and consulting firm with Paul Manafort and Republican operative Lee Atwater.  Their firm represented multiple foreign dictators in their attempts to gain favor with Congress and consulted on many campaigns by right-wing Republican politicians.

Stone’s life is completely lacking evidence that he served his country in any capacity other than as a political fixer and Trump whisperer.  Like his friend Manafort, who represented Putin-connected political figures in Ukraine in the years before reformists were able to restore a semblance of democracy with the Orange Revolution, Stone has taken money from any two-bit torturing third world dictator who could find his phone number.  In the days immediately preceding the assault on the Capitol, Stone was seen riding around Washington from one speaking gig to another on a golf cart that sported a driver and bodyguards provided by the Oath Keepers, several of whom seen with Stone were recently arrested and charged with seditious conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States.

Stone’s association with the Oath Keepers would be a perfect capstone to the political career he has had sucking the soul out of our politics over the last five decades if there wasn’t the possibility that if he is elected in 2024, Trump might appoint him deputy secretary of state or give him some other powerful position that would make use of his coziness with foreign dictators and domestic terrorists.

It's an unfortunate truth of our times that neither Roger Stone nor his mentor Trump are finished yet.