Posted by LegiStorm on Jan. 2, 2018

Roger Stone, President Donald Trump's confidant, has indicated that he secretly signed a client in May of last year to lobby on security interests in Somalia as the U.S. military sent troops there.

Stone filed a lobbying disclosure about the work on Dec. 29, although it indicates the effective date of registration was May 1. That makes it more than 6 months late after the 45-day window expired in which he was required to register. The late disclosure occurred even as federal agents are showing intense interest in the financial connections that Trump advisers have to foreign interests.

The document does not disclose which agencies or people he lobbied, nor how much he is being paid. The client is Capstone Financial Group Inc., a Buffalo, N.Y.-area firm that specializes in international commodities. The small-cap company trades on the over-the-counter market. Its stock nearly quadrupled from $.95 to $3.70 in the three months after Trump's election, but the price has since plummeted to $.75.

The lobbying filing indicates that Stone was to lobby for Capstone on "commodity rights and security of the same in Somalia." The effective registration date was just two weeks after Trump sent dozens of troops to Somalia to combat the al-Shabab terrorist group. There are now reportedly more than 500 U.S. troops in Somalia.

Stone is a former Trump campaign adviser and a former business partner for Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who was indicted in October as part of the investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. Stone has gained a reputation in Washington as a political dirty trickster and a peddler of conspiracy theories.