WEBVTT - Part One: Roger Stone: Evil Genius or Sad, Broken Boy? 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:05.640 Hm. I'm Robert Evans, and this is the introduction behind 0:00:05.680 --> 0:00:08.640 the Bastards, my podcast where talking about terrible people and 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:11.200 all the things you don't know about them with me today. 0:00:11.280 --> 0:00:14.960 My guest for this episode is Tamara Katan, host of 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:19.279 They Tried to Bury us UH podcast about immigrants coming 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:21.720 into the United States that exactly every week is a 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:24.680 different American origin story. So we have a different immigrant 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:28.440 every week. Awesome, it's been great. Well today we're not 0:00:28.480 --> 0:00:30.840 talking about an immigrant, but we are talking about someone 0:00:31.040 --> 0:00:37.200 who has done a lot of damage to immigrants, not directly, 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:40.000 but just through the people he's supported. Sure. Yeah, we're 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:43.480 talking about Roger Stone. What do you know about Roger Stone, tamer. 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:46.440 I know a little bit about him. I know that 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:49.080 he is uh. He lives in the upside down. As 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:51.360 I think a phrase I said to you outside, I 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:55.040 think he is a white Malcolm X to me, a 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:58.720 political version of aid any means necessary, you know what 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:01.120 I mean, Like before Malc come went to Mecca and 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:04.760 and got balanced in his life without principle, without principle, 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:07.800 by any means necessary. I don't care who I hurt. 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:10.280 I don't care how often I have to lie. I 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:12.800 think that lying is good. I think if you believe 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:15.120 in doing things that are virtuous, that you're a chump. 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:18.840 It's a cancer in our political system. Yeah, and he 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:23.440 is a human cancer. Absolutely. Now, listeners will note that 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:26.679 we did a two part episode on Paul Manafort months ago. 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:29.880 I recommend checking that out too, because they're there are 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:33.160 two halves of the same coin. So we talked about 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:37.200 one coin back. Today we're dropping the other side. So 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:42.680 let's get into it. On August ninety two, little baby 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:46.040 Roger Stone was born to Gloria Rose and Roger J. Stone. 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:49.040 His mother was a journalist who followed local politics. His 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:53.000 father drilled wells. Roger grew up in Louisborough, New York, 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:55.880 and described his family as middle class and blue collar. 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:59.360 So so far, we're doing fine. It's a normal middle 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:02.040 American by way. Roger was eight years old when he 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:05.200 got involved in his first political election. He campaigned for 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:07.600 John F. Kennedy, and even at that tender age, he 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:09.760 knew that honesty was not the way to achieve his 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:13.000 political goals. That's right, he later recalled to the Washington 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:15.760 Post quote, I remember going through the cafeteria line and 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:17.960 telling every kid that Nixon was in the favor of 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:21.960 school on Saturdays. That was my first political trick, which 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:24.920 is cute. It's fun, it's so unner. It's like an 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:28.560 origin story of a villain. Yeah, yeah, where he learns 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:33.720 the the disinformation. I think he was quoted about that story. 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:36.840 He said, that's why I learned the power of disinformation. Yeah, 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:39.640 that you can just if you just And it's speaking 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:42.400 as a tall white guy. This is something I battle 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:45.400 with my whole life. I really like telling a good 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:48.320 lie to people, like like a like like a joking, 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:50.720 like like I'll make up a fact about history or something, 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:52.440 and like and and I love seed it to a 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:53.880 friend and you hear him tell it in like a 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:56.000 party or something, and it's it's a really funny joke 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:58.800 for just you. Not a great thing to do, but 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:02.120 if you're confident and you have the right sort of 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:04.880 look in this society at least, because it works particularly 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:07.160 well in the United States. The same reason why. I like, 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:08.919 if you've got a mixed race group of people and 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:11.000 someone has to go talk to the cops, you picked 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:12.960 the guy who looks like me, I go talk to 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:15.560 the cops, and I it's it's it's fine. I think 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:19.200 roger Stone had that realization and decided to make that 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:21.560 his whole life, rather than be like, what if I 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:24.600 just made some jokes at parties. Yeah, it's it's such 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:27.239 a bizarre thing. Like you, if this was a show 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:31.480 about a nice, normal, responsible family, there would be a 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:35.080 massive teaching moment that was missed. Yeah, where like Andy 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:38.040 Griffith sat down young roger Stone and was like, well, 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:40.840 I know you won that classroom election, but you know, 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:44.120 here's why it's bad the light to everyone. You know exactly, 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:48.560 it's like winning a beauty pageant by going topless, Like 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:53.080 it's against the rules. You can't do that. Yeah, oh 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:56.240 Roger Okay, So uh it is entirely possible that that 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:58.520 anecdote is a lie. I do want to note that 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:00.920 because we're talking about Roger Stone, and every time we 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:04.360 talk about it, literally, of the things in this there's 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:08.240 multiple versions of So I have tried to call the 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:11.040 versions of reality that coincide the most with what I 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:13.480 can back up with like objective facts and what multiple 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:16.160 people have said. But like, if you do your own 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:19.000 research on Roger Stone, you'll run into different variations of 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:21.800 everything here. Because I think he's just been lying consistently 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:24.960 for about seventy years. Agree Y, Yeah, I mean it's 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:27.359 a negative version of one of my favorite Maya Angelou 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:30.200 quotes where she says, people may not remember what you 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:32.080 do or say, but they'll always remember how you made 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:35.760 them feel. Yeah, And he he'll make people the right 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:38.720 people feel the right way, regardless of that if if 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:42.120 the afformission is true or false, or damaging or hurtful, 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:45.320 or even leads to violence, he just doesn't care. He 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:49.599 just does not care. So Roger did start out supporting JFK, 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:53.599 which basically everyone did. It's an interesting note nineteen sixty 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:55.919 one that we do surveys like p and want to 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:58.239 do surveys on like people's level of trust and government. 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:01.320 Nineteen sixty one is the peak in American history of 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:04.320 people trusting the federal government. So it's not weird that 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:08.120 like everybody's on board with JFK in this election now. 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:11.080 Roger Stone claims that his personal political ideology took a 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:13.480 right word turn for the first time at age eleven 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:16.640 when he read Barry Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative. 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:19.359 Barry Goldwater, for those of you who don't know, was 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:22.320 the kind of the Trump before Trump I think he 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:26.280 was a better at appealing to like intellectual conservatives than 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:29.840 Donald Trump was. Um, but he uh, you know the 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:32.840 reason that like you're not supposed to as a psychiatrist 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:36.960 psychoanalyze the presidential candidate. It's called the Goldwater rule because 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:38.919 like so many people thought he was crazy when he 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:43.159 was running. So this guy's book is what like lights 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:46.279 a spark in Roger Stone's brain at age eleven. The 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:49.520 next year, he started volunteering for the Goldwater campaign at 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:52.719 age twelve. So he's like a very young volunteer for 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:56.040 this hard right presidential candidate. And while he's doing all that, 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:58.480 he comes across a book called a text and looks 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:01.200 at Lynden. Now, this bok was self published by a 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:05.880 self described ultra conservative named j. Evett Haley. Haley argues 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:08.320 that lb J was a lifelong criminal and a murderer. 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:10.279 Roger Stone would go on to write his own book 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:13.039 about lb j's role in the Kennedy assassination, accusing the 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:18.200 former president of at least eight murders. Yeah, it's it's 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:20.680 a nutsell book. Not that I don't think lb J 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:22.960 had some people murdered because he was lb J. He 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:26.479 definitely did. But this is you see the start of 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:28.280 like two things that are going to be through lines 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:30.520 in Roger Stone's life here. One of them is, of 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:33.159 course hard right conservatism, and one of them is he 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:36.159 really likes conspiracy theories, which is probably how he's going 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:38.240 to wind up in the Info Wars orbit a little 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:41.000 bit later in this story. So young Roger spent a 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:43.440 lot of his childhood alone. In reading this period of 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:45.960 time seems to have crystallized the ideology that would carry 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:49.840 him through to the rest of his life. Quote from Roger, Well, 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:51.760 you have to understand there were no kids my age, 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:54.080 male or female, for twenty five miles. I suppose I 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:55.719 could have thrown a football with my dad. But my 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:57.479 old man left at five am and came back at 0:06:57.560 --> 0:06:59.520 nine pm. But he ate his supper and fell to bed, 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:01.240 and he was with Greece from head to foot, and 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:03.120 he never complained a day in his life. You have 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:06.239 to amuse yourself. This is the way Roger tells a story. 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:12.119 Um kind of how yeah, yeah, my dad never talked 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:13.840 to me because he was working all the time. And 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:17.240 this is good. He never complained that he didn't have 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:19.960 time to raise a child. How can you tell that 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:23.000 story and not be like, maybe that's not a healthy culture, 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:27.720 that's not ideal. Anyway, Stone amused himself by engaging in 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:30.320 politics as often as possible. He volunteered for the Goldwater 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:32.160 campaign at age twelve, as I said, but he also 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:34.880 stayed active in his school's political process. Here's the New 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:38.080 York Times. As a junior then vice president of his 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:41.160 Northern Westchester High school, he manipulated the outster of the 0:07:41.200 --> 0:07:44.040 president and his own succession running for re election as 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:46.320 a senior. I left nothing to chance, he said. I 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:49.360 built alliances and put all my serious challengers on my ticket. 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:51.880 Then I recruited the most unpopular guy in the school 0:07:51.920 --> 0:07:54.920 to run against me. You think that's mean, No, that's smart. 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:59.280 So yeah. When he was thirteen, Roger Stone started taking 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:01.680 the train into New York City on weekends to volunteer 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:04.760 for the mayoral campaign of William F. Buckley Jr. That 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:07.280 campaign did not work out, but the experience of traveling 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:10.000 from small town America into its largest city to work 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:13.200 in politics had an impact on young Roger as well. Quote. 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:15.960 The key thing I remember about Louis Borrow, his small 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:18.000 hometown is that it was just across the border from 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:20.120 New Canaan. So early on I saw myself as living 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:22.320 in a kind of bridge between two cultures, the right 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:25.920 white working class and the white upper class. Very specific 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:30.440 about white there. Yeah, now, Stone believed both groups fundamentally 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:33.240 hated the government, so they were natural bedfellows. Should all 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:34.760 be able to get on board this whether or not 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:38.559 we're poorer rich white people, but white people is pretty 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:42.040 clearly who's traangling towards now. In nineteen seventy, Stone senior 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:44.400 year of high school, he attended the Connecticut State Young 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:48.640 Republican Convention. The Young Republicans were more conservative than the 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:50.280 mainstream of the party at that time. They're kind of 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:52.920 trying to push the party further to the right. Roger 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:54.800 hadn't been able to afford to book a hotel room 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:56.560 for his trip, so he'd showed up just sort of 0:08:56.559 --> 0:08:58.800 assuming he could meet someone and convince them to take 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:00.880 care of it. Still his best friend at the time, 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:03.400 a guy named Dolan introduced him to another teenage young 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:11.200 Republican named Paul Manaford. Yeah, it really is, yeah, villain origins. 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:14.199 Ye crazy, these young guys meeting. They're both wearing ill 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:16.760 fitting suits. Nobody's got a lot of money. Yet I 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:19.520 knew he was involved in politics really young, but my god, 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:21.840 seven from the age of seven off, you know, his 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:24.400 family had to be involved in this, like to kind 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:27.360 of like directionally at least push him in a direction 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:30.040 at seven years old. He doesn't talk about that, not 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:32.160 that I found. So, yeah, I think you got one 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:35.400 of two possibilities. Either his mom and dad were both 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:38.080 way more political than he lets on and he was 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:41.800 pushed in that direction, or he didn't have much supervision 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:44.280 at all, and and way more white collar by the way, yeah, 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:46.480 and way more white collar. Changes his story makes him 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:48.680 a little bit less likable, especially if there's more money 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:50.480 in the picture. And then he wants to talk about 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:52.920 how many guys that work at oil rigs while he's 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:56.920 in a farm miles wells miles and miles away from 0:09:56.960 --> 0:10:01.320 neighbors where his family is going. You should get into politics. Yeah, 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:05.280 there there's holes in the stone story and making mythology. 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:07.600 He's definitely making a mythology. And again this is the 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.520 picture he wants to Maybe didn't do anything, maybe he 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:13.000 was never involved in young, like I don't know. We're 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:16.720 we're trusting Roger here, and it's well I've seen pictures 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:20.000 of him as a young Republican. Yeah, this stuff is 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:21.679 definitely real once we get to where he's in high 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:23.760 school and he's with like man that stuff. There's a 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:26.439 lot of people, but like when he's talking about being eleven, 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:29.440 twelve years old and stuff like who knows, Yeah, this 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:32.200 might just be the image he wants to sure you 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:35.600 know anyway. Uh, Here's how The Washington Post wrote about 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:38.600 the first meeting of Roger Stone and Paul Manafort. I'm 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:42.760 just gonna say, the greatest friendship of all time. Hey, kid, 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:46.040 how you doing? Stone recalled Manafort, saying, before getting down 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:49.520 to sessing him out, why are you supporting Weaker? Manafort 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:52.439 was referring to low a Weaker, a moderate Republican candidate 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:55.200 for U S. Senator. Manafort clearly was testing the kid, 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:57.559 you think I give a funk about Weaker? I'm here 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:00.520 to elect Mescal, Stone shot back, meaning Thomas Mescal, a 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:05.880 conservative gubernatorial candidate admired by youthful Republicans. So that's like 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:08.760 how they get started as like Maniforts like you like 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:11.439 this fucking rhino Republican in name only and only in 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:13.720 Stones like no, I only like the crazy people like, 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:16.200 that's where I want to go is like the furthest 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:19.719 right we can possibly be. Yeah. So Roger Stone and 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:22.480 Paul Manafort were instant buddies and would be not quite 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:26.160 inseparable but frequent collaborators over the next like thirty some 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:28.120 odd years. How old were they at this point? They 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:31.160 would have been like seventeen eighteen. They're just just babies. 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:34.760 Their babies be at their personalities held firm. I have 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:36.839 too strong opinions here. One of them is that you 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:39.360 shouldn't be able to join the military unless you're thirty, 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:42.040 and the others that you shouldn't be allowed to participate 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:44.160 in any kind of politics until you're thirty. I like 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:47.960 it a lot. You start doing drugs when you're twenty 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:50.800 one a man? Yeah, yeah, let's give them nine years 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:54.439 of experimenting without ingredients. You know what I mean? To 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:57.480 make people make these huge moral decisions before they've lived life. 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:00.400 You're absolutely right. You look at the stuff Been Shapiro 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:03.240 is writing when he's seventeen. He's like advocating war crimes 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.120 in Afghanistan. It's like, don't let a seventeen year old 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:09.280 right about politics. Do you know how funked up? That 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:12.440 it's yeah. I mean, that's how we get Paul Manafort 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:15.599 and Roger Stone. So in addition to the Young Republicans, 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:19.600 Stone joined the Teenage Republicans, the College Republicans, and Young 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:22.800 Americans for Freedom. I might have noticed a theme there. 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:26.680 He became tightly wound up in Republican Party politics, enough 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:29.720 so that in nineteen seventy two, the year of President 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:33.680 Richard Nixon's re election campaign, nineteen year old Roger Stone 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:37.160 was selected to be one of Nixon's henchmen. Now Stone 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:39.720 was the youngest member of the committee to re elect 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:44.360 the president, literally known by the acronym CREEP, which does 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:46.960 nobody like checked on this stuff Nixon just as like 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:49.160 sight of yeah, create that's good, that's what we call it, 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:55.200 go commit crimes. Stone recommended that creepire a guy named 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:58.280 Theodore Brill, who was a college classmate and friend of his. 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:01.800 He recommended that Creep pay Brill hundred and fifty dollars 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:04.719 to spy on radical groups. Stone claims that his work 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:06.880 for CREEP was all kids stuff, none of which was 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:08.640 illegal at the time, and all of which would have 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:12.040 been done with or without him. Unfortunately for Roger Stone, 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:14.599 but fortunately for the concept of truth. The FBI was 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:17.400 keeping tabs on him back then too. There exists on 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:20.040 this hellish Internet of ours a website called Property of 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:23.760 the People. They host government documents retrieved by Foyer requests 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:26.320 and the like. They have a super fun article titled 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:30.280 FBI Documents on Roger Stone Reveal Sabotage, espionage, and the 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:32.760 life of a serial bagman. Oh my god, I'm going 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:36.760 into an Internet death spiral right after this episode. It's 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:40.360 a great website. Yeah, well, check him out, please do. Now. 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:42.840 My favorite thing about that title is that Roger worked 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:45.840 for Nixon as a literal bagman, at one point taking 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:49.320 a sack containing a jar of money to donate on 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:53.640 behalf of Republican presidential candidate Paul McCloskey to the Young 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:59.600 Socialist Yeah, yeah, just a jar of change in a sack. 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:03.360 So he donates on behalf of this Republican presidential canon 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:07.280 at Paul McCloskey to the Young Socialist Association. Stone claimed 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:10.679 that he was the Young Socialist Association's treasurer. Now this 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:13.360 was all a lie, obviously designed to make McCloskey look 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:17.400 bad and torpedo his chances of primarying Nixon. The original 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:20.440 FBI documents about this dirty tricker interesting because they give 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:23.280 us some insight into the precise nature of young Roger 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:27.440 Stone's moral compass. Quote. Stone met with Porter in his 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:29.720 office at Creep, where Porter asked him if he would 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:31.800 be willing to travel to Manchester to make a cash 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:35.280 contribution to the McCloskey campaign headquarters. Porter wanted Stone to 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:37.840 disguise himself as a member of the gay liberation movement 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:42.240 when making this contribution. Stone flatly rejected this proposal. However, 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:44.920 he concurred with the basic theme of this tactic. So 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:49.480 basically that's Roger Stone's line at age nineteen, because I 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:51.680 I'll pretend to be a young socialist but not a 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:54.560 member of the gay liberal I mean, you see the pattern, right, 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:56.920 you see the pattern, Like from such a young age, 0:14:56.920 --> 0:14:59.280 he's like, I see the power of disinformation. Yeah. And 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.920 then forward a decade later and he's still doing the 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:05.280 same He's still doing the same thing, doing the same ship. 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:09.640 Did you ever see Seven Up, the British documentary. It's amazing. 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:11.640 It was like one of the first reality shows and 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:14.320 they interviewed kids at seven years old, and then at fourteen, 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:17.880 and then at every seven years Now they're in their sixties. 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:19.960 They've been doing it the whole time. But it was 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:23.240 a study on social classes. And the interesting thing they 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:26.320 found is when wealthy kids were seven years old and 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:27.840 they asked him what do you want to be? They 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:30.040 were really specific. They're like, I'm going to Cambridge, I'm 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:31.920 being a barrister, blah blah blah and all this stuff. 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:34.640 And they did whereas the kids and the poor neigh 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:36.760 birds were like, I'm going to be a spaceman yeah, 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:38.520 or like I'm gonna be a truck I don't know 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:43.160 what I'm gonna be like. So he's one of those 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:45.520 kids where they knew at such an early age they 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:47.480 were just and he doesn't pick I want to be 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:49.840 in politics. He picks I want to be a dirty 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:52.360 tricks guy in politics, Like I want to be like 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:57.160 the filthiest version of a political guy. It's remarkable that 0:15:57.160 --> 0:16:01.280 that's his only ambition in life ever. Now, a researcher 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:04.880 named Emma best Uh found ten separate document releases from 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:07.600 the FBI, all of which mentioned roger Stone. According to 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:10.480 Property of the People's Rite up quote, the documents to tail, 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:13.000 roger Stone's role was a bagman for the Nixon campaign, 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:15.480 in which he funneled over twenty five thou dollars equivalent 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:18.160 to a hundred fifty thousand dollars in twenty eighteen to 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:21.280 fund political intelligence gathering and other dirty tricks, including mole 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:24.280 embedding and a mysterious payment related to the Watergate break in. 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:27.240 The documents include a copy of the FBI's interview with Stone, 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:29.480 as well as other statements to the Bureau about Stone 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:32.520 and Jason Renier, the alias Stone used for his anti 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:36.720 Democratic spy operations. So Stone paid another operative the modern 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:39.680 equivalent of sixty grand to surveillance sabotage the campaigns of 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:42.880 Nixon's Democratic rivals. After the Watergate break ins, he put 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:45.080 together a payment of almost a hundred grand and modern 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:48.600 dollars for an oil executive and Nixon fundraiser named Darius Keaton. 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:51.880 Far from being minor acts of political mouthfeasance as Stone 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:54.200 sort of presented them, Roger Stone seems to have been 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:57.920 an enthusiastic and prolific dirty trickster, happy to do almost 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:01.680 anything for Richard Nixon. Quote in one case, Stone sent 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:05.639 two Democrats invitations to a non existent primary campaign breakfast 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:08.800 and another Stone directed Democratic campaign literature intended for the 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:11.360 black community to be sent to union workers, and literature 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:13.840 intended for union workers to be sent to the black community. 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:15.880 And he had another stone saw to it that phone 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:18.560 lines used by a Democratic primary campaign were tampered with. 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:22.159 This resulted in Democratic failure to connect with many potential voters. 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:25.639 Well other, uh so this is the way he works. 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:27.919 This is the way he works at age nineteen. You 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:30.120 know what's so interesting about him too, is he never 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:33.320 as big as his ego got. For a guy whose 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:36.359 dad never talked to him, right, he always looked to 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:39.199 another man to please. Yeah. He never said I'm going 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:41.840 to be president. No, he never chased it himself. He 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:44.240 was always I'm gonna please dad. Yeah, he all. And 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:46.960 he's always picked a bigger man Tolize, which for most 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:49.520 of his life has been Nixon, a bigger than life man. 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:52.440 And even now he imitates Nixon with the peace signs 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:55.120 that he always throws up with his weird ass wanky arms. 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:58.399 It seems like he's a case study for like a 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:02.439 broken brain, like a father's son fracture. I mean, you know, 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:05.520 to get real here, this podcast Behind the Bastards, because 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:08.600 just as well be called daddy issues. But almost a 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:11.800 hundred percent of these guys had real fucked up times 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:14.480 with their fathers, Like why don't they just strip like 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:17.959 everybody else? You know, Roger Stone actually might have been 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:21.639 able to do that. He's a bodybuilding self proclaimed Well no, 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:23.919 I mean, if you've seen I've seen shirtless picture him 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:26.800 when he's young, he was reasonably swollen even even in 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:29.119 his late forties, really fit looking guy. And if you 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:31.840 see the modern pictures of his back tattoo, you can 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:35.320 see in the building shoulders, he's got a really broad build. 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:37.439 He could have he could have stripped, which is a 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:39.760 noble and honest career. I just mean I worked out 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:43.640 with real bodybuilders that called Jim. His cemeteries all off. 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:46.399 He's got like baby calves and weird well on his 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:49.280 face is weird faces, weird as hairs. Everything's weird. They 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:53.960 all have weird hair. It's like Paul Manaford where spending 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:56.760 a hundred thousand dollars on suits that look like hundred 0:18:56.800 --> 0:18:59.280 dollar suits just to just to know that it's I 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:01.520 don't know, they're all weird guys, And that's fine unless 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:05.359 you're ruining the world, which case it's exactly yeah. Now. 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:09.040 All the unfathomable shadiness of Richard Nixon's reelection campaign led 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:11.960 to congressional hearings in nineteen seventy three. During those hearings, 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:15.520 Roger Stone's secret identity as Jason Renier, young Socialist became public. 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:17.960 Knowledge was also revealed that Stone had hired someone to 0:19:18.000 --> 0:19:20.720 spy on the McGovern campaign. At the time of the hearing, 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:23.159 Stone had gotten a job on Bob Dole's staff. He 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:25.240 was fired for this and seems to have taken the job. 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:27.600 Losses a sign that a man of his temperament was 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:30.040 better served by working as a consultant than working for 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:32.159 the government. In a two thousand and eight interview with 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:35.720 The New Yorker titled The Dirty Trickster, Stone reminisced about 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:38.480 his time with Creep and justified his actions by saying 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:42.760 the Democrats were weak, we were strong. He was, by 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:45.359 the way, the youngest person caught up in the Watergate 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:49.240 Yeah yeah, yeah, which is a They had him on 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:51.440 one of the charts in the court show that he 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:54.359 had taken money. Yeah yeah, that's how he starts his career. 0:19:54.520 --> 0:19:57.320 So in the mid nineteen seventies, after Nixon's impeachment, the 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:00.879 Republican Party was most assuredly not strong. Uh Stone seems 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:02.560 to have elected not to waste his time on the 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:06.280