This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Roger Stone, a longtime associate of Donald Trump, has said he has not discussed a potential pardon with the president should he be implicated in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

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Mueller’s investigation appears focused on Stone’s possible ties to WikiLeaks amid mounting evidence that Stone and another Trump ally, the conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, may have been aware of the organisation’s plans to publish stolen emails from the Clinton campaign long before they were released.

Speaking to ABCs This Week on Sunday, Stone again denied ties to WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange, and insisted he had not discussed a pardon with Trump.

“There’s no circumstance under which I would testify against the president because I’d have to bear false witness against him,” Stone said. “I’d have to make things up. And I’m not going to do that. I’ve had no discussion regarding a pardon.”

The comments came days after Trump declined to rule out a pardon for his former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who pleaded guilty to multiple charges earlier in the year and agreed to cooperate with the Mueller investigation.

Manafort was accused last week of lying to investigators during his cooperation and is due to be sentenced next year. The special counsel is considering whether to bring more charges against him.

Stone is a self-confessed political “dirty trickster” who made his name working for Richard Nixon. He has said publicly his policy is: “Admit nothing, deny everything, launch counterattack.”

On Sunday, he said he had not yet been interviewed by Mueller and insisted that a series of emails between himself and Corsi released earlier in the week had been “mischaracterized”.

The documents, obtained by NBC News, appear to show Corsi and Stone discussing Assange’s plans to publish stolen emails in August 2016, months before they were released by the organization.

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Stone told ABC: “Yes, I contacted Jerry Corsi because at some point, Ted Malloch [a UK-based conservative author], who I’d met once, dropped Assange’s name like every politico in America, like every political reporter, I was interested in knowing what exactly [WikiLeaks] had.”

Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, suggested to ABC that the emails showed Stone may have lied to Congress about his relationship with WikiLeaks. Schiff argued that Stone should be investigated by the special counsel for perjury.

He also branded Trump’s refusal to rule out a pardon for Manafort potential obstruction of justice.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Adam Schiff speaks to reporters. Photograph: Michael Reynolds/EPA

“The president continues to dangle a pardon for Paul Manafort, which only adds to the growing body of evidence that the president is engaged in obstructing justice,” Schiff said.

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Trump returned to Washington on Sunday after the G20 summit in Buenos Aires. He came back to an administration plagued by Mueller’s work.

Earlier in the week Trump’s longtime lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress and admitted to a role in negotiations with Russia over the construction of a Trump property in Moscow during the 2016 Republican primary. Trump had denied dealing with Russia as he campaigned.

On Sunday, senior Democrats seized on the admission as evidence of Russia’s influence over Trump during his candidacy.

“The fact that he was lying to the American people about doing business in Russia and the Kremlin knew he was lying gave the Kremlin a hold over him,” the New York congressman Jerry Nadler told NBC’s Meet the Press.

Nadler, the incoming chairman of the influential House judiciary committee, added: “One question we have now is, does the Kremlin still have a hold over him because of other lies that they know about?”