Roger Stone, a former longtime confidant of Donald Trump, insisted Friday afternoon that he is innocent of a string of criminal charges brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller – and said he would never turn on the president.

Then he lounged in the sun and ate pizza with his attorneys.

He walked out of federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida after appearing in front of a judge, hours after FBI agents raided his home with guns drawn and arrested him on charges including lying to Congress and witness tampering.

Stone was sprung from jali on a $250,000 bond and called the InfoWars conspiracy theory radio program to proclaim his innocence. he emerged from the federal court building flashing a V-for victory with both hands raised, Richard Nixon-style.

He addressed scores of reporters outside the court to say: 'I am falsely accused' while protesters around him shouted 'lock him up' and supporters chanted 'Roger! Roger!'

'I will plead not guilty to the charges,' Stone said, shouting over the protests. 'I will defeat them in court. I believe this is a politically motivated investigation.'

He added: 'There is no circumstance whatsoever under which I will bear false witness against the president, nor will I make up lies to ease the pressure on myself. I look forward to being fully and completely vindicated.'

Attorney Robert Buschel, appearing with the defiant Stone, added: 'He’s leaving, so it’s a good day.'

The media spectacle on the courthouse steps came after FBI agents in tactical bulletproof vests arrested Stone on Friday morning with guns drawn.

They acted after Special Counsel Robert Mueller unsealed a seven-count indictment from a grand jury impaneled in his sprawling probe of Russian election meddling.

Released: Roger Stone walked out of court flashing V for victory signs in the manner of Richard Nixon

Defiance: Roger Stone first called InfoWars then walked out of the federal courthouse in Fort Lauderdale to say he would fight the charges, which include lying to Congress and witness tampering

Stone's post-release presser was the biggest media scrum of the day as reporters showed up to cover him as though he were a political candidate

Fighting talk: A defiant Roger Stone said he would fight and defeat the charges brought by Robert Mueller that he lied to Congress and interfered with a witness

Support: Roger Stone appeared upbeat as he called the Mueller investigation 'politically-motivated' in front of scores of reporters and a crowd that included protesters and supporters

Indicted: Despite the smile, Roger Stone - whose attorney Robert Buschel stood beside him - faces a long fight against the Mueller indictment and the possibility of prison

President Trump didn't skip a beat, returning on Twitter to his consistent theme that the Mueller probe is the 'Greast Witch Hunt in the History of our Country' – and raised suspicion that CNN's camera crew was tipped off by someone in federal law enforcement

Courtroom sketches from Friday morning show Roger Stone in handcuffs as he was led in, and then standing behind a podium next to his lawyer

The self-described political dirty trickster answered his front door during a dramatic pre-dawn raid with a lead agent shouting: 'FBI! Open the door! We have a warrant!' With tactical flashlights shining in his face, Stone confirmed his identity to the agents and was led away in his pajamas.

He said after being freed that a total of 29 agents 'terrorized' his wife and his dogs, and that he would have surrendered himself if asked.

As he stood in court, agents were still at his property with a tented tarp erected outside the front door, forming a covered corridor for moving evidence to waiving trucks and vans.

A few hours later, Stone ate pizza and lounged in the sun outside a friend's house.

In photos obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com, the veteran political operative looked relaxed and completely unfazed as he reclined on a wicker chair and chatted casually with a female acquaintance.

The career GOP strategist also ordered pizza delivery for himself and his legal team as they plotted behind closed doors to clear his name.

The silver-haired Stone was still wearing the same navy blue polo shirt he wore to court hours earlier.

Stone is charged with five counts of making false statements, one of witness tampering and one of obstruction of official proceedings.

The FBI also raided Stone's Manhattan apartment, seizing hard drives and other materials.

Hours after Stone posted bail and left the courthouse, he was spotted at a friend's house chatting with his attorneys

Stone appeared to have not a care in the world despite a global swirl of intrigue surrounding his cloak-and-dagger political history

Stone also ordered pizza delivery for himself and his lawyers

Roger Stone was a Richard Nixon devotee and assisted the disgraced former president in his final declining years; he later got Nixon's face tattooed on his upper back

Mueller asked a judge Thursday to keep Stone's indictment sealed until his arrest, aguing that 'law enforcement believes that publicity resulting from disclosure will increase the risk of the defendant fleeing and destroying (or tampering with) evidence.'

The indictment does not charge him with crimes directly related to Russia or with conspiracy to skew the 2016 election, but with what legal experts call 'process crimes' – lying to investigators and trying to tamper with their work after being asked about contacts he claimed to have with WikiLeaks around the temt the anti-privacy group published thousands of stolen emails that embarrassed Hillary Clinton's campaign.

President Donald Trump blared hours after the arrest to his Twitter audience: '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?'

Stone gave his first post-arrest interview to the conspiracy theory radio program 'InfoWars,' saying in a phone call that he did nothing wrong and his arrest was 'politically motivated.'

CNN aired dramatic video o nFriday morning that showed the pre-dawn raid that resulted in Stone's arrest

Agents wearing body armor and drawing their weapons swarmed Stone's home in a posh south Florida neighborhood

Stone, whose political pedigree dates back to the Nixon administration, is accused of feeding information from WikiLeaks about an email hack to the Trump campaign during the 2016 election

He appealed for cash saying he expected his defense costs to reach $2 million, saying he was going to fight the charge.

'I predicted for many months that I would be framed on a process charge,' he said.

'They are criminalizing political activities.'

When his phone cut out Alex Jones suggested it was the work of 'them' because 'they tap all the phones.'

Grant Smith, an attorney for Stone, said in a statement that the indictment is 'a clear attempt at silencing Roger. This was an investigation they started as about Russian collusion and now they're charging Roger Stone with lying to Congress about something he honestly forgot about, and as Roger has stated publicly before, he will fight the charges.'

He said separately that prosecutors 'found no Russian collusion or they would have charged him with it. Roger stone is vindicated by the fact that there was no Russian collusion. ... Roger Stone received no materials from WikiLeaks ahead of the public release.'

Smith added that 'Stone's misstatements were due to forgetfulness and were immaterial.'

Media circus: Cameras staked out the federal courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on Friday as an SVU said to be carrying Stone arrived

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders insisted Friday morning on CNN that the Stone indictment has 'nothing to do with the president and certainly nothing to do with the White House'

Familiar: Roger Stone's defiant double V-for victory as he walked out of court was a nod to his first political mentor, Richard Nixon

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders insisted Friday morning in a CNN interview that the Stone indictment 'has nothing to do with the president and certainly nothing to do with the White House.'

Sanders suggested that prominent Democrats and Obama administration officials have been guilty of the crimes for which Stone was charged.

'I think the bigger question is if this is the standard, will the same standard apply to people like Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Clapper? Will we see the same people we know have also made false statements, will that same standard apply?' she asked.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerold Nadler, a New York Democrat, tweeted: 'Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Rick Gates, Michael Flynn... What did the President know and when did he know it?'

There was no Russian collusion, it's a clear attempt at silencing Roger. This was an investigation they started as about Russian collusion and now they're charging Roger Stone with lying to Congress about something he honestly forgot about, and as Roger has stated publicly before, he will fight the charges. Roger Stone attorney Grant Smith

His counterpart in the Senate, ranking Judiary Committee Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California, said in a statement that 'the phrase "Trump campaign" appears in the indictment 24 times, with specific details about a senior Trump campaign official reaching out to Stone regarding leaked emails.'

Muller's work 'has been thorough and objective, and he must be allowed to complete his job without interference,' Feinstein said.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee: said separately that the Stone indictment makes clear that his contacts with WikiLeaks 'happened at least with the full knowledge of, and appear to have been encouraged by, the highest levels of the Trump campaign.'

President Trump tweeted an encouraging message to Stone in December as news spread that Mueller's team was putting pressure on him.

'"I will never testify against Trump." This statement was recently made by Roger Stone, essentially stating that he will not be forced by a rogue and out of control prosecutor to make up lies and stories about "President Trump." Nice to know that some people still have "guts!"' he wrote.

Loyal: Stone said Wednesday in a Fox news Channel interview: 'No matter how much pressure they put on me, no matter what they say, I will not bear false witness against Donald Trump'

Mueller's team asked a judge to keep Roger Stone's indictment sealed because they feared he might try to flee or destroy evidence if he knew he was being charged with federal crimes

Trump tweeted in May 2017, four months after taking office, that CNN was mistaken in reporting that he still had a close relationship with Stone.

'Fake News. Have not spoken to Roger in a long time,' he said then.

Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Rick Gates, Michael Flynn... What did the President know and when did he know it? House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerold Nadler, a New York Democrat

Stone renewed his pledge of loyalty to Trump on Wednesday, appearing on the Fox News Channel's 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.'

'No matter how much pressure they put on me, no matter what they say, I will not bear false witness against Donald Trump. I will not do what Michael Cohen has done and make up lies to ease the pressure on myself,' he said.

Stone also told Carlson that Mueller is 'a runaway special prosecutor who is accountable to no one.'

'My testimony is both accurate and truthful, but I'm not even allowed to have a copy of it,' he protested.

Jay Sekulow, an attorney who represents the president in matters related to the Mueller probe, said Friday in a statement that the Stone indictment 'does not allege Russian collusion by Roger Stone or anyone else. Rather, the indictment focuses on alleged false statements Mr. Stone made to Congress.'

As Stone makes his court appearance another Trump ally – former campaign chairman Paul Manafort – will also be appearing in a Virginia courtroom.

Manafort, who has already been jailed for conspiracy, is facing new allegations that he lied to members of Mueller's team while cooperating as part of his plea deal.

As Stone was being processed after his arrest, his home is shown in aerial footage on CNN

FBI agents continued to process the scene after the sun came up Friday, searching Stone's home for evidence supporting the Mueller indictment and hiding their findings from cameras with tents that led to waiting trucks

News crews were kept away from Stone's house after his arrest, but police couldn't stop helicopters from capturing the scene

President Trump defended Stone less than two months ago, but denied in mid-2017 that

Stone, a Richard Nixon devotee who has the disgraced former president's face permanently tattooed on his back, has long been portrayed as a central figure in the election interference scandal, but as recently as January 4 told Dailymail.com that he doesn't expect to be indicted.

'They got nothing,' he said of the special counsel's investigation.

'They've tried hard, but I didn't do anything illegal. That's why I'm not worried and I'll do a public appearance like tonight's without a problem.'

The Nixon Foundation tried to distance itself from Stone on Friday following his arrest.

'This morning’s widely-circulated characterization of Roger Stone as a Nixon campaign aide or adviser is a gross misstatement. Mr. Stone was 16 years old during the Nixon presidential campaign of 1968 and 20 years old during the reelection campaign of 1972,' the foundation said in a statement.

'Mr. Stone, during his time as a student at George Washington University, was a junior scheduler on the Nixon reelection committee. Mr. Stone was not a campaign aide or adviser. Nowhere in the Presidential Daily Diaries from 1972 to 1974 does the name "Roger Stone" appear.'

Mueller's federal grand jury met on Thursday, a Justice Department source told DailyMail.com. That's unusual, given the typical schedule of such grand juries.

The indictment today does not allege Russian collusion by Roger Stone or anyone else. Rather, the indictment focuses on alleged false statements Mr. Stone made to Congress. President Trump's lawyer Jay Sekulow

The Justice Department source said the grand jury also met on a Thursday last July, the day before Mueller unsealed an indictment against a dozen Russian agents.

The grand jury had been hearing for months from witnesses linked with Stone. And the House Intelligence Committee, then run by Republicans, voted last year to release a transcript of Stone's testimony to Mueller.

The indictment says that during the summer of 2016 Stone spoke to senior Trump campaign officials about information held by WikiLeaks that might by damaging to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

That came as the Trump campaign shifted gears from a bruising primary season to months of general election fights against

The campaign official replied to Stone asking him to inquire about potential future release by WikiLeaks, the indictment alleges.

The indictment against Stone was unsealed Friday morning, just before he was arrested at his house

Rep. Jerold Nadler is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee; he asked the Nixon-era question 'What did the President know and when did he know it?'

On CNN, Sanders refused to address whether Trump 'directed' Roger Stone to contact WikiLeaks

Thousands of emails had been stolen from a Gmail account belonging to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. Other records had been stolen from the Democratic National Committee's computer servers.

The indictment directly quotes a Stone email to Breitbart News Washington Editor Matthew Boyle on October 3, 2016 in which he complains that he 'would tell [the high-ranking Trump Campaign official]' about his contacts with WikiLeaks, 'but he doesn’t call me back.'

That matches, word-for-word, a Stone email cited by The New York Times in November 2018, which cites former Trump campaign CEO Steve Bannon by name instead of 'the high-ranking Trump Campaign official.'

Messages sent Friday morning to Bannon, then a future White House senior adviser Steve Bannon, and his public relations adviser Alexandra Preate, who worked alongside him in the White House, went unanswered.

Manafort, now languishing in jail and facing a lengthy prison term for tax and bank fraud, may play a role in the Stone indictment.

It describes the aftermath of 'the July 22, 2016 release of stolen DNC emails' by WikiLeaks, and recounts how 'a senior Trump Campaign official was directed to contact Stone' to see if more releases were coming.

Bannon is widely understood to be that official. As the campaign's CEO, he reported directly to Manafort.

Only Manafort and Donald Trump himself likely had the authority to 'directed' his actions.

The question of who gave that order will set off a new round of speculation about whether the president himself could be a Mueller target.

Breitbart News Washington Washington Political Editor Matthew Boyle makes a cameo in the Stone indictmenr, in an email from the dirty trickster complaining that Steve Bannon wouldn't return his phone calls about back-channel contacts with WikiLeaks

2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was targeted by WikiLeaks, which released tens of thousands of emails stolen from her campaign chairman John Podesta

Stone allegedly had a back-channel connection with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, giving him advance infformation

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin speculated Friday morning that it 'could be Donald Trump himself.'

On MSNBC's 'Morning Joe' program, former CIA director John Brennan said the indictment shows 'an extensive effort to influence the election' that 'may have gone to the very top of the Trump campaign.' The question now, Brennan said, is whether that crossed 'the threshold from collusion to criminal conspiracy.'

On CNN, Sanders stopped short of denying Trump was involved.

'I'm not going to be able to provide you some type of insight or legal analysis,' she said. 'What I can tell you is that these specific charges that have been brought against Mr. Stone don't have anything to do with the president.'

Democratic National Committee chairmam Tom Perez said Friday in a statement that '[t]he Trump campaign was a willing and active participant in a conspiracy with Russia and WikiLeaks to influence the 2016 election. There are more conspirators yet to be held accountable – and at least one of them is named Donald Trump.'

The indictment indicates that Stone tasked someone referred to as 'Person 1' with contacting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for him.

Breitbart News Washington Political Editor Matthew Boyle did not respond to an email Friday morning. Friday's indictment quotes an email exchange between Stone and Boyle, referred to only as a 'reporter.'

Boyle was granted an Oval Office interview with President Trump during the first weeks of his administration.

Another Stone associate with a cameo in the indictment is New York radio host Randy Credico, who Stone has claimed told him that WikiLeaks had obtained a collection of Podesta's emails and planned to release them.

Steve Bannon was Trump's campaign CEO beginning in August 2018; the indictment refers to him as a senior campaign official

Conspiracy theorist and suthor Jerome Corsi is referred to in the indictment as 'Person 1'

In email from April 2018, cited in the indictment, Stone appeared incensed that Credico had spoken to investigators.

'You are a rat. A stoolie. You backstab your friends-run your mouth my lawyers are dying [to] Rip you to shreds,' Stone wrote. 'I am so ready. Let’s get it on. Prepare to die [expletive].'

'You should have just been honest with the house Intel committee . . . you’ve opened yourself up to perjury charges like an idiot,' Credico wrote a month later. 'Stone responded: 'You are so full of [expletive]. You got nothing.'

Credico's attorney confirmed Friday to CNN that his client is 'Person 2' in the indictment.

Stone is accused of making 'multiple false statements' about his contacts with Wikileaks, and wrongly denying having records of those conversations.

He is also accused of trying to persuade a witness 'to provide false testimony to and withhold pertinent information from the investigations.'

Mueller's final tally: Trump's inner circle of convicts and turncoats - and 25 wanted Russian trolls GUILTY: MICHAEL FLYNN Pleaded guilty to making false statements in December 2017. Awaiting sentence Flynn was President Trump's former National Security Advisor and Robert Mueller's most senior scalp to date. He previously served when he was a three star general as President Obama's director of the Defense Intelligence Agency but was fired. He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about his conversations with a Russian ambassador in December 2016. He has agreed to cooperate with the special counsel investigation. GUILTY AND JAILED: MICHAEL COHEN Pleaded guilty to eight counts including fraud and two campaign finance violations in August 2018. Pleaded guilty to further count of lying to Congress in November 2018. Sentenced to three years in prison and $2 million in fines and forfeitures in December 2018 Cohen was investigated by Mueller but the case was handed off to the Southern District of New York,leaving Manhattan's ferocious and fiercely independent federal prosecutors to run his case. Cohen was Trump's longtime personal attorney, starting working for him and the Trump Organization in 2007. He is the longest-serving member of Trump's inner circle to be implicated by Mueller. Cohen professed unswerving devotion to Trump - and organized payments to silence two women who alleged they had sex with the-then candidate: porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. He admitted that payments to both women were felony campaign finance violations - and admitted that he acted at the 'direction' of 'Candidate-1': Donald Trump. He also admitted tax fraud by lying about his income from loans he made, money from taxi medallions he owned, and other sources of income, at a cost to the Treasury of $1.3 million. And he admitted lying to Congress in a rare use of the offense. The judge in his case let him report for prison on March 6 and recommended he serve it in a medium-security facility close to New York City. GUILTY AND JAILED: PAUL MANAFORT Found guilty of eight charges of bank and tax fraud in August 2018. Sentenced to 47 months in March 2019. Pleaded guilty to two further charges - witness tampering and conspiracy against the United States. Jailed for total of seven and a half years in two separate sentences. Additionally indicted for mortgage fraud by Manhattan District Attorney, using evidence previously presented by Mueller Manafort worked for Trump's campaign from March 2016 and chaired it from June to August 2016, overseeing Trump being adopted as Republican candidate at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. He is the most senior campaign official to be implicated by Mueller. Manafort was one of Washington D.C.'s longest-term and most influential lobbyists but in 2015, his money dried up and the next year he turned to Trump for help, offering to be his campaign chairman for free - in the hope of making more money afterwards. But Mueller unwound his previous finances and discovered years of tax and bank fraud as he coined in cash from pro-Russia political parties and oligarchs in Ukraine. Manafort pleaded not guilty to 18 charges of tax and bank fraud but was convicted of eight counts in August 2018. The jury was deadlocked on the other 10 charges. A second trial on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent due in September did not happen when he pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States and witness tampering in a plea bargain. He was supposed to co-operate with Mueller but failed to. Minutes after his second sentencing hearing in March 2019, he was indicted on 16 counts of fraud and conspiracy by the Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., using evidence which included documents previously presented at his first federal trial. The president has no pardon power over charges by district and state attorneys. GUILTY AND GOING TO WEEKEND JAIL: RICK GATES Pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States and making false statements in February 2018. Sentenced to 45 days weekend jail and three years probation, December 17, 2018 Gates was Manafort's former deputy at political consulting firm DMP International. He admitted to conspiring to defraud the U.S. government on financial activity, and to lying to investigators about a meeting Manafort had with a member of congress in 2013. As a result of his guilty plea and promise of cooperation, prosecutors vacated charges against Gates on bank fraud, bank fraud conspiracy, failure to disclose foreign bank accounts, filing false tax returns, helping prepare false tax filings, and falsely amending tax returns. GUILTY AND JAILED: GEORGE PAPADOPOLOUS Pleaded guilty to making false statements in October 2017. Sentenced to 14 days in September 2018, and reported to prison in November. Served 12 days and released on December 7, 2018 Papadopoulos was a member of Donald Trump's campaign foreign policy advisory committee. He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about his contacts with London professor Josef Mifsud and Ivan Timofeev, the director of a Russian government-funded think tank. GUILTY AND JAILED: RICHARD PINEDO Pleaded guilty to identity fraud in February 2018. Sentenced to a year in prison Pinedo is a 28-year-old computer specialist from Santa Paula, California. He admitted to selling bank account numbers to Russian nationals over the internet that he had obtained using stolen identities. GUILTY AND JAILED: ALEX VAN DER ZWAAN Pleaded guilty to making false statements in February 2018. He served a 30-day prison sentence and was deported to the Netherlands on his release Van der Zwaan was a Dutch attorney for Skadden Arps who worked on a Ukrainian political analysis report for Paul Manafort in 2012. He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about when he last spoke with Rick Gates and Konstantin Kilimnik. His law firm say he was fired. GUILTY: W. SAMUEL PATTEN Pleaded guilty in August 2018 to failing to register as a lobbyist while doing work for a Ukrainian political party. Sentenced to three years probation April 2019 Patten, a long-time D.C. lobbyist was a business partner of Paul Manafort. He pleaded guilty to admitting to arranging an illegal $50,000 donation to Trump's inauguration. He arranged for an American 'straw donor' to pay $50,000 to the inaugural committee, knowing that it was actually for a Ukrainian businessman. Neither the American or the Ukrainian have been named. CHARGED: KONSTANTIN KILIMNIK Indicted for obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice. At large, probably in Russia Kilimnik is a former employee of Manafort's political consulting firm and helped him with lobbying work in Ukraine. He is accused of witness tampering, after he allegedly contacted individuals who had worked with Manafort to remind them that Manafort only performed lobbying work for them outside of the U.S. He has been linked to Russian intelligence and is currently thought to be in Russia - effectively beyond the reach of extradition by Mueller's team. INDICTED: THE RUSSIANS Twenty-five Russian nationals and three Russian entities have been indicted for conspiracy to defraud the United States. They remain at large in Russia Two of these Russian nationals were also indicted for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and 11 were indicted for conspiracy to launder money. Fifteen of them were also indicted for identity fraud. Vladimir Putin has ridiculed the charges. Russia effectively bars extradition of its nationals. The only prospect Mueller has of bringing any in front of a U.S. jury is if Interpol has their names on an international stop list - which is not made public - and they set foot in a territory which extradites to the U.S. INDICTED: MICHAEL FLYNN'S BUSINESS PARTNERS Bijan Kian (left), number two in now disgraced former national security adviser Mike Flynn's lobbying company, and the two's business partner Ekim Alptekin (right) were indicted for conspiracy to lobby illegally. Kian, an Iranian-American was arrested and appeared in court charged with a conspiracy to illegally lobby the U.S government without registering as a foreign agent. Their co-conspirator was Flynn, who is called 'Person A' in the indictment and is not charged, offering some insight into what charges he escaped with his plea deal. Kian, vice-president of Flynn's former lobbying firm, is alleged to have plotted with Alptekin to try to change U.S. policy on an exiled Turkish cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania and who is accused by Turkey's strongman president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of trying to depose him. Erdogan's government wanted him extradited from the U.S. and paid Flynn's firm through Alptekin for lobbying, including an op-ed in The Hill calling for Gulen to be ejected. Flynn and Kian both lied that the op-ed was not paid for by the Turkish government. The indictment is a sign of how Mueller is taking an interest in more than just Russian involvement in the 2016 election. GUILTY AND AWAITING SENTENCE: ROGER STONE Roger Stone, a former Trump campaign official and longtime informal advisor to Trump, was indited on seven counts including obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and lying to Congress about his communications with WikiLeaks in January 2019. Convicted on all counts November 15, 2019, awaiting sentence Stone was a person of interest to Mueller's investigators long before his January indictment, thanks in part due to his public pronouncements as well as internal emails about his contacts with WikiLeks. In campaign texts and emails, many of which had already been publicly revealed before showing up in Mueller's indictment, Stone communicated with associates about WikiLeaks following reports the organization had obtained a cache of Clinton-related emails. Stone, a former Nixon campaign adviser who has the disgraced former president's face permanently tattooed on his back, has long been portrayed as a central figure in the election interference scandal. 'They got nothing,' he said of the special counsel's investigation. Stone gave 'false and misleading' testimony about his requests for information from WikiLeaks. He then pressured a witness, comedian Randy Credico, to take the Fifth Amendment rather than testify, and pressured him in a series of emails. Following a prolonged dispute over testimony, he called him a 'rat' and threatened to 'take that dog away from you', in reference to Credico's pet, Bianca. Stone warned him: 'Let's get it on. Prepare to die.' CLEARED: GREG CRAIG Greg Craig, President Barack Obama's White House counsel, was indicted for failing to register as a foreign agent. Mueller's investigators uncovered Craig's work on behalf the government of Ukraine while probing Manafort, who did business with Craig. Prosecutors released a grand jury indictment of Craig in April 2019, after Craig's law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP agreed to pay more than $4.6 million as part of a settlement. The prominent firm also acknowledged it had failed to register, and placed much of the blame on Craig, a senior partner there. Craig's lawyer blasted the decision as an abuse of prosecutorial discretion, and prepared to argue that omission of information during an interview is not tantamount to making false statements. The charges stem from a 2012 report Craig and the firm produced on behalf of the Ukrainian government on opposition figure and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko. She was an opponent of Manafort's client , former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Craig was cleared on September 9 2019. Advertisement

Robert Mueller's team accused Stone of trying to hide evidence of his contact with Wikileaks from investigators and trying to convince a witness to lie

The indictment accuses Stone of lying to a congressional panel in September 2017, telling House Intelligence Committee members that he had never asked an intermediary to contact Assange on his behalf.

'I did not,' he replied.

According to the indictment, he had by then asked two people to 'get to' Assange, forwarding a request for documents that could damage the Hillary Clinton campaign.

News reports have established that Stone sent similar emails to Jerome Corsi, a well-known conspiracy theorist whose relationship with Stone goes back decades.

Corsi said in November that he had declined a plea agreement from Mueller that would involve a guilty plea to lying about his discussions with Stone.

Corsi confirmed Friday afternoon that he is the Stone associate described in the indictment as 'Person 1.'

'I am person number one,' Corsi told CNN. 'The statements in the indictment about me are accurate. ... They're consistent with the testimony I gave to the special counselor.'

'What is contained in the indictment confirms I did nothing wrong.'

Corsi is suing Mueller, the Department of Justice, the FBI, the CIA and the National Security Agency for $1.6 billion, claiming the government violated his Fourth Amendment rights by planting negative information about him in various media outlets.

This week he added the Washington Post, one of the famed newspaper’s reporters and its owner, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, as defendants.