Roger Stone’s fraudulent Facebook profiles for personal and political gain
Trump’s longtime ally used accounts to attack opponents in 2016. And to deny accusations in the Mueller investigation, F.B.I. records show.
Roger Stone, one of the key players in the Mueller investigation that eventually led to the impeachment of President Donald Trump, bought more than 200 Facebook profiles to smear his political enemies — and once he found himself in hot water with the law, to amplify messaging that he was innocent.
Stone was sentenced to 40 months in prison for lying to Congress and for witness intimidation concerning Russian interference in Trump’s 2016 campaign. Stone is a longtime ally and, formerly, top advisor to Trump; he found himself at the center of the Mueller investigation toward the end of 2018 and was arrested in January 2019.
Stone started inching toward the center of the investigation when reports of his interactions with Guccifer 2.0, an alias used for the person(s) who claimed responsibility for the Democratic National Committee hack of the 2016 elections, came to light. He was at one point “delighted” that Twitter reinstated the profile of Guccifer 2.0 following a brief suspension, according to the Washington Times.
A source — who was allegedly Stone’s former “right hand man” — said that Stone told him to buy hundreds of fake Facebook accounts in 2016, unsealed Federal Bureau of Investigation records show. After the accounts were purchased, Stone used them to amplify articles painting numerous political rivals in a negative light, including Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager from 2016, John Podesta.
And once he was implicated in Mueller’s investigation, the accounts purchased and proliferated ads with titles such as “Stone Rebuts Charge of Russian Collusion.” Stone told POLITICO that the unsealed F.B.I. warrants “prove no crimes.”
Such actions violate Facebook’s terms of use, which include specific provisions against coordinated inauthentic behavior. The policy states that misleading people on Facebook — or the platform owners themselves — “about the identity, purpose or origin of the entity that they represent” is a clear violation. As of the time of publication of this article, Facebook has not responded to a request for comment.
Questions? Ask us at contact@govsight.co.
Like what you read but prefer to learn with your ears? Listen to The Insight Podcast by GovSight on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Podbean every Monday.
Follow GovSight on Twitter @GovSight1, Instagram @govsight and Facebook @GovSight. Go to govsight.com to see how GovSight is making “Citizenship. Simplified.”
