It appears that President Donald Trump’s longtime friend is being thrown under the bus as his trial moves forward.

In a statement from deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley, the White House appears to now believe Stone “did something wrong.”

“We’ve had a lot of conversations in the last few days and I’ve heard from him [President Trump] not mention Roger Stone one time,” Gidley said. “I mean, listen, this has nothing to do with the president, it’s another attempt by the left and many of the mainstream media to tether Donald Trump to somebody who’s done something wrong on their own time with no connection or coordination with Donald Trump. And that’s what this is about, the president has done nothing wrong, but to try and link these two together is just ridiculous.”

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Stone never worked for Donald Trump, just like many key Trump advisors never officially worked for the president. Stone is a self-described “dirty trickster,” who now says he was framed. During the 2016 campaign, Stone bragged about talking with Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange. Ahead of major data dumps by the site, Stone promoted the upcoming information that would be released with cagey tweets and quips on other social media.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson set Stone’s trial date for Nov. 5, 2019.