Roger Stone Melts Down as Jan. 6 Committee Hearing Unfolds

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As the Jan. 6 committee showed video of Roger Stone’s closed-door deposition, Stone did what he does best: He complained.

Stone took to Telegram and repeatedly responded to the Jan. 6 panel's footage.

“In 2000, when the Bush v. Gore election was still in doubt James A. Baker III urged Bush to claim victory, which he did and was hailed as a genius,” the longtime Trump adviser wrote on Telegram. “When I said Trump should do the same thing (in public but to not to either Trump or anyone around him) and I am accused of criminal conduct. Total BS.”

As the committee was presenting its case on Thursday afternoon, Stone posted a picture of an empty hamburger bun, attempting to mock the committee as a “nothing burger.”

<div class="inline-image__credit">Alex Wong/Getty</div>
Alex Wong/Getty

“All I’ve seen in today’s Jan 6 Committee is guilt by association,” he declared. “The fact that I know or have met someone is most certainly not evidence of criminal conspiracy. If the committee has actual proof and content of communication between me and any one charged with a crime, they should produce it.”

Even before the hearing kicked off, Stone was on the defensive, threatening to file a $25 million lawsuit against the Danish filmmakers—Frederik Marbell and Christoffer Guldbrandsen—who filmed him back in November saying, “Fuck the voting, let’s get right to the violence.”

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That footage was played during Thursday’s hearing as committee members made the case that former President Donald Trump and his associates were complicit in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

(Stone has since called the footage of himself a “deep fake," though he has not presented any evidence to back up the charge.)

“I will seek a restraining order preventing the release of his film in the United States,” he added.

Stone didn't return The Daily Beast’s request for comment.

He was not alone in his dismissal what is believed to be the committee’s final televised hearing.

In the wake of the committee voting in favor of subpoenaing Trump, two advisers in the former president’s orbit laughed off the historic move, insisting that most Americans couldn’t care less about the committee proceedings.

One argued that most don’t care about Trump’s failed coup attempt.

“Go ask a random American out there what Jan. 6 means to them, and they probably won’t know what you’re talking about. Ask them how pissed they are about inflation and gas prices and their 401(k) getting wrecked, and they’ll talk your ears off,” the adviser told The Daily Beast. “The Democrats’ obsession with this entire thing is a political liability and comes across like they’re out of touch with what regular Americans actually care about.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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