'I was in the eye of the storm': Inside Roger Stone's plan to help Trump overturn the 2020 election
Former President Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants — many of them relatively obscure figures involved in the fake electors scheme — were indicted in Georgia last week, while top leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers militias have been convicted of seditious conspiracy for their role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
One person linked to the fake electors scheme, as well as to the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers has not faced any charges to date over Jan. 6. That would be political operative Roger Stone, who has been Trump’s friend and adviser for more than three decades.
Stone’s role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election is increasingly coming into focus through the halting, start-stop release of the new documentary “A Storm Foretold” by Danish filmmaker Christoffer Guldbrandsen. Footage shot by Guldbrandsen’s crew showing Stone dictating a plan to an assistant named Enrique de la Torre that calls for lobbying Republican-controlled state legislatures to send Trump electors on the basis of claims of fraud before Joe Biden was declared the winner was shown by MSNBC host Ari Melber last week.
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On Aug.18, Guldbrandsen released the film on Vimeo, and then pulled it back while negotiating a deal for U.S. distribution. On Monday, Melber again showcased footage from the film on his MSNBC show.
One scene from before the election that was reviewed by Raw Story shows Stone vociferously articulating a strategy for Trump to use the authority of the office of president to prevent legitimate Biden electoral votes from being counted.
“Oh, these are the California results? Sorry, we’re not accepting them,” Stone says, jabbing his index finger for emphasis. “We’re challenging them in court. If the electors show up at the Electoral College, armed guards will throw them out. I’m the president. F--- you. You’re not stealing Florida. I’m challenging all of it. And the judges we’re going to are judges I appointed. F--- you.”
De la Torre was deposed by the January 6th House select committee in May 2022. A senior investigative counsel asked him about Stone’s tirade, in one of at least three instances they referenced footage from Guldbrandsen’s film. The question by the senior investigative counsel indicates that Stone’s statement was addressed to de la Torre in July 2020. Gulbrandsen reportedly provided clips of his film to the committee, some of which were shown during one of its hearings in October 2022.
De la Torre invoked his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination in refusing to answer the committee’s questions. Stone likewise declined to answer the committee’s questions while invoking the Fifth Amendment and declined to produce any documents.
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Stone could not be reached for this story, but he indicated on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, on Monday night that he had watched Melber’s segment on Guldbrandsen’s documentary, proclaiming that the footage “had all the hallmarks of Danish disinformation.”
Stone defended his statement about Republican-controlled legislatures submitting Trump electors based on purported claims of fraud during his podcast on Monday evening.
“I was in the eye of the storm late last week because I had the audacity to correctly cite Article II of the U.S. Constitution, which says that the state legislatures have the authority to certify the electors that go to the Electoral College,” he said. “And within that context, they have the authority to examine the election results. This was days before the election that I said that if there was evidence of theft, that process — which would be a very, public, open, transparent process — may have to take place.”
Three Trump electors are under indictment as co-defendants in the racketeering case brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in Georgia, while 13 others are cited as unindicted co-conspirators. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has separately charged 16 Trump electors in that state with conspiracy to commit election law forgery and other crimes.
In the statement he dictated to de la Torre on Nov. 5, 2020, Stone said, “We must be prepared to lobby our Republican legislatures by personal contact and by demonstrating the overwhelming will of the people in their state — in each state that this may happen.”
It remains unclear who, if anyone, might have received the memo from Stone or his associates. De la Torre could not be reached for comment for this story.
The Fulton County indictment describes one component of a criminal racketeering enterprise to overturn the 2020 election as making false statements “to persuade Georgia legislators to reject lawful electoral votes cast by the duly elected and qualified presidential electors from Georgia.” The indictment describes a phone call by Trump and Giuliani to Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, in which Giuliani allegedly made false statements about fraud while Trump “importuned Bowers to unlawfully appoint presidential electors from Arizona” as “overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy.”
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Similarly, the federal indictment brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith cites as one component of Trump’s alleged conspiracy to defraud the government that “on the pretext of baseless fraud claims,” Trump “pushed officials in certain states to ignore the popular vote; disenfranchise millions of voters; dismiss legitimate electors; and ultimately cause the ascertainment of and voting by illegitimate electors” in his favor.
Responding to a commentary published in the Philadelphia Inquirer questioning why he has not been criminally charged, Stone scoffed on X on Sunday: “Sorry there is no evidence whatsoever that proves my involvement in the effort to delay the certification of the Electoral College in the U.S. Senate, the riot at the U.S. Capitol, or the effort in the states to challenge the certification of electors. Guilt by association is an ugly tactic used by ignorant haters. A video in which I correctly state the effect of Article II of the Constitution, and which is both historically, and legally correct, proves nothing whatsoever.”
‘Looking for any retired military or law enforcement officer’
While maintaining a close relationship with President Trump, Stone also cultivated ties with the Proud Boys, a neofascist street-fighting group founded in 2016, which underwent a recruitment explosion after Trump signaled during a presidential debate shortly before the election: “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.”
When a graphic depicting federal judge with crosshairs superimposed over her face was published on Stone’s Instagram account in 2019, he testified that Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio was among a small number of people who had access to his phone. (Stone was subsequently convicted of obstructing a congressional investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and later pardoned by President Trump.)
During the 2018 midterm election, future Proud Boy Joe Biggs volunteered for an early iteration of “Stop the Steal,” a mobilization by a handful of conspiracy theorists surrounding Stone to protest a recount in the Florida Senate race between Republican Rick Scott and Democrat Bill Nelson.
Biggs, a U.S. Army veteran who was a correspondent for InfoWars, posted on Twitter in November 2018: “I’m no new Floridian. I’ve spent most of my life there and in Texas. I love both places more than life itself. Which is why I will be helping #StopTheSteal. I will back home to Florida [sic] from my other home in Texas tomorrow. We will not let radical leftists destroy our home!”
Footage from “A Storm Foretold” shows Stone describing his plan to resurrect the campaign to Guldbrandsen on Nov. 5, 2020.
“We are relaunching Stop the Steal,” Stone said. “I’m looking for any retired military or law enforcement officer who would go on the committee. Don’t care what rank, don’t care how old. Old, young, disabled, doesn’t matter.”
Around the same time, the film shows Stone speaking into a cell phone and dictating the inaugural message of the “F.O.S.” — short for “Friends of Stone” — chat on Signal, an encrypted messaging platform.
“We provide information several times a day, so please monitor the F.O.S. feed so you can act in a timely fashion,” Stone said. “Let me stress that the F.O.S. feed is not a chat room, and this is not the place for prolonged discussion.”
The Signal group included protest organizers and militant leaders, allowing them to coordinate security for a series of rallies in Washington, D.C. and other cities that set the stage for Jan. 6. A copy of the chat obtained by the January 6th House select committee shows that both Tarrio and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes were members.
The Oath Keepers made outreach to military veterans and retired law enforcement the centerpiece of their recruitment pitch. According to an analysis by Raw Story, at least 14 of the 52 Proud Boys members and associates arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 attack were either military veterans or active-duty military service members.
A document turned over to the January 6th House select committee shows that Roger Stone and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes participated in the "F.O.S." chat on Signal.January 6th House select committee
The chats show Stone pushing out messaging to the protest organizers and militants, including a Nov. 10, 2020 post urging them to read a forthcoming “manifesto” that he promised would expose “the HOAX claiming Joe Biden has been elected President” and outline “President Trump’s path forward in the Courts, in the House and in the Electoral College.”
The chats also show Rhodes pledging that Oath Keepers members would provide security for VIPs at the Nov. 14, 2020 Millions for MAGA rally in Washington, D.C. as well as another pro-Trump rally held in Austin, Texas on the same day.
Rhodes also used the chat as a forum to issue a call for the Trump to use the military to declassify government secrets and to invoke the Insurrection Act “to suppress the communist insurrection” while using the military “to go after the domestic enemies at the top.”
Rhodes is currently serving an 18-year sentence at Cumberland Federal Correctional Institution in Maryland for seditious conspiracy for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Stone said on his podcast on Monday night that he doubts that former Vice President Mike Pence will be able to testify that Trump told him he knew that he lost the election, adding, “I don’t think Trump believed it then. I certainly don’t think he believes it now.”
But the footage in Guldbrandsen’s film suggests that Stone himself harbored doubts about whether Trump could win in the waning days of the 2020 election.
Speaking on the phone while riding in a car one week before the election, Stone can be heard telling an unidentified woman: “Don’t know. Totally up in the air. Not looking good. Not looking good. I say that as a professional. I’m trying to divorce my emotions from it. But it does not look good.”
The woman can be heard asking whether Stone thinks Giuliani — now a co-defendant with Trump in the Fulton County racketeering case — would be able to help Trump turn around his dim election prospects.
“Rudy is — he’s a great guy; he’s been very helpful to me,” Stone says. “He’s very loyal, but he likes booze and p---- a little too much. And he’s a single guy, so he’s getting a lot of ass.”
