Political consultant, lobbyist and strategist Roger Stone has played a key role in the election of Republican presidents from Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan to George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. He also served as an assistant to Sen. Bob Dole.

Stone served as an advisor to the 2016 presidential campaign of Republican candidate Donald Trump. He left the campaign on August 8, 2015, but remains a Trump confidant. Stone has authored The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ; Nixon’s Secrets: The Rise, Fall and Untold Truth about the President, Watergate, and the Pardon; The Clintons’ War on Women and Jeb! and the Bush Crime Family.

"I still don’t think the establishment will ever throw in the towel. Ted Cruz is like a cornered man. I give him credit in the sense that he had to do something to try to shake up the race. He had to do something to try and create some excitement and maybe pry open the door, but right now, I don’t think he’s an adequate challenger. I don’t see what Carly brings you other than another set of campaign hands. She will campaign for him. She’s an effective speaker."

Smashing Interviews Magazine: Roger, I believe you’re in the news just as much as Donald Trump these days!

Roger Stone: Well, sometimes when I want to be, and sometimes when I don’t want to be.

Smashing Interviews Magazine: Why were the Clintons and the Bushes subjects of your most recent books (The Clinton’s War on Women and Jeb! and the Bush Crime Family)?

Roger Stone: Both families are establishment elites who had profited mightily from public service. Now, it would be one thing if they and their cronies were getting rich, and they were delivering governmental policies that made us safe and prosperous. That wasn’t happening. They ran the country into the ditch economically, in terms of trade, in terms of immigration, in terms of our fiscal situation, particularly our debt. Seventy-one percent of the national debt is caused by either Bush, Sr. or Bush, Jr. That’s an astounding number.

The Bushes spent like Democrats. That’s because there really is, sadly, only one party. It’s the Wall Street party, the party of special interests and big money, the globalist party. The party of Barry Goldwater, the party of the man that attracted me to the Republican Party, the party of small government, personal liberty, civil liberties, low taxation and strong national defense, is dead. That party’s dead. Whether it can be revived remains to be seen.

Smashing Interviews Magazine: Out of curiosity, have you heard from the Clintons or the Bushes after these books were released? In The Clintons’ War on Women, especially, you describe a pretty horrifying story of rape and intimidation all in the name of power and greed.

Roger Stone: Not directly. I have heard through reporters that Bill and Hillary are obsessed with me and this book, and that’s because it’s the truth. Every bit of it is carefully sourced and documented. Hillary’s not the person she appears to be in public. She is shrill, nasty, foul-mouthed, abrasive, abusive, driven and greedy. It is a fact, which we proved, that during the Clinton White House years, there was actually a staff memo put out saying, “If you encounter the First Lady in the halls, do not look her directly in the eye. Just look down and pass her. Do not engage her.” That’s how hyper-important she thinks she is.

Her financial dealings are extraordinary. She and her husband have enriched themselves in dozens of shady enterprises. The Clinton Foundation is a slush fund for grifters. It’s not really a charitable organization. It augments a lavish lifestyle for Bill, Hillary and Chelsea. Fifty-three percent of their funds were spent on luxury travel for the Clintons and the rest went to overhead. They have an army, a phalanx, of flunkies on the payroll. None of them have charitable experience. They’re all political hacks. It’s just another part of the Clinton machine, and I frankly think this is her greatest area of vulnerability.

Smashing Interviews Magazine: Didn’t you say that you also had taped audio interviews of Bill Clinton’s alleged victims and that you were going to release them during this presidential race?

Roger Stone: I don’t recall that being in the book. I do not recall that, although they would certainly be attainable because many of these women, I think, are going to speak out very courageously. We’ll see what Kathleen Willey, Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones, Sandra Allen James, or perhaps Christy Zercher or Becky Brown or Helen Dowdy have to say. This list goes on and on, and it’s extensive.

I want to be clear that in my book, I’m not focusing on Bill Clinton’s consensual sexual relationships, although some find that distasteful. This is not about girlfriends or mistresses or marital infidelity or adultery. That’s what the mainstream media would like the controversy to be about.

It is amazing to me when Steve Malzberg or Kurt Schlichter, two conservative commentators, are on CNN, and they attempt to discuss Hillary’s representation of a rapist and her laughing on tape about getting him off when she knew he was guilty, they actually pull the plug on their microphones. It’s not that she represented a sleazy client. That’s what lawyers do. But she laughed about getting him off. She destroyed this woman on the bench. She deconstructed her. When they attempt to talk about that on CNN, Don Lemon cuts them off. So much for free speech.

Smashing Interviews Magazine: Katie Johnson has filed $100 million lawsuit against Donald Trump for raping her and making her a sex slave in 1994, beginning when she was 13. Court documents state that Trump forced her to “engage in various perverted and depraved acts by threatening physical harm to Johnson and her family.” Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender, is also named in the lawsuit, which was filed April 26, 2016.

Roger Stone: This is completely bogus. The claim here is that Donald Trump … I almost hate to repeat this because it’s so vile. But the claim is that Donald Trump attended a sex party with the convicted pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein, met an underage girl, and she became his sex slave. The woman who has filed this lawsuit is self-represented, first of all, so she has no lawyer to contact.

However, it’s clear that the complaint was filed by an experienced attorney. The phone number she lists as her contact in the documents is fake. There is no record of her in any of the Epstein prosecution records or any of the testimony taken in years of civil litigation.

Smashing Interviews Magazine: Virginia Roberts said she had been employed by this same convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, for three years beginning at age 17 as a sex slave, and that he trafficked her to his friends.

Roger Stone: Virginia Roberts, the lead litigant in the case against Epstein, has never heard of Katie Johnson and doesn’t think she exists. Johnson claims to be from Twentynine Palms, California, which is, in all honesty, a hooker haven. It’s a broken down town that services a nearby marine and army base. A lot of prostitutes are there. So I think the whole thing is a fraud.

It’s a vicious smear on Donald Trump. The lawyer for Roberts, who is suing Epstein, says that he investigated this on behalf of his client, and he found no involvement by Donald Trump. In my own book, I talk about the one time Trump went to Epstein’s home for a social occasion. As he pulled up, he noticed that the swimming pool was full of young girls, and he said to his driver, “How does Jeff let the neighborhood children use his pool?”

Once Trump got inside, he left after 15 minutes, and it was said by several of the women that in no way was he seen doing anything inappropriate. That’s the intersection of Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein was a member of Trump’s club. They were not social friends. Epstein paid $250,000 to belong to Trump’s club, and he was exposed partying with the New York social elite. There was no reason to believe there was anything odd afoot unless you were invited, as Bill Clinton was, and participated in one of his private parties.

Smashing Interviews Magazine: Jeb Bush has just come out in his first interview after dropping out of the race in February, saying there was a chance Trump won’t get 50% on the first ballot, and that he was “hopeful” a contested convention would block Trump from winning the GOP nomination. He thinks that the Republican Party should support Ted Cruz and that Carly Fiorina was a good choice for Cruz’s running mate.

Roger Stone: Although Jeb has given no interviews since he dropped, he and his family have been furiously working behind the scenes to block Trump. Jeb has $30,000,000 left over in his Wall Street-funded Super PAC after dropping $100,000,000 roughly, having no impact whatsoever. He’s trying to find out how to legally get that over to one of the anti-Trump groups for California advertising.

Barbara Bush herself is on the phone, probably after a few cocktails, calling party leaders that she knows from the old days and cackling that Trump must be stopped. She is the one who instructed Neil (Bush) to endorse Ted Cruz. Now, they don’t like Ted personally, but Ted is a Bush retainer. Ted was George W. Bush’s issues man the entire time he ran for president. In other words, he was W’s brain. For about the first half year of his presidency, Cruz sought to be appointed as solicitor. When he was passed over for that job, he got a cushy job at the Trade Commission.

Ted’s wife, Heidi, was Condoleezza Rice’s top deputy, and then she was the deputy to Robert Zoellick, the head of the World Bank, then at this time U.S. Trade Representative, the architect of TPP and TPA. So the Cruzes are insiders. The Bushes don’t like them because they’re prickly, and Ted is a mean SOB. They just don’t like him personally, but that doesn’t mean that they disagree on Ted’s globalist goals.

Ted’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He poses as a Barry Goldwater/Ronald Reagan conservative, but he’s a neocon bought by Wall Street and the Oil & Gas industries’ interests. Where Carly Fiorina is concerned, this case has already been tried. She ran for the United States Senate. In that campaign, the Democrats very effectively pointed out her record of outsourcing and of layoffs while she herself was getting a rich, golden parachute.

There was other substantial evidence that Carly was knowingly cheating the Iran sanctions so that Hewlett Packard could do business in Iran. She was John McCain’s chief domestic issues policy advisor. She’s another failed candidate. She’s actually a drag on Cruz in California because they know her well. The Democrats excoriated her with an avalanche of very hard hitting ads deconstructing her record. Carly Fiorina is Mitt Romney in high heels.

Smashing Interviews Magazine: A few days ago, Rush Limbaugh warned of “a nuclear explosion” if Donald Trump is denied the nomination. Rush also said, “Trump’s stooge, Roger Stone, publicly declared that he would be distributing the names and hotel room numbers of delegates that didn’t fall in line behind Trump.”

Roger Stone: I’m disappointed in Rush because he has rushed to judgment based on a partial quotation by CNN. I gave an hour-long interview and made it clear that I’m opposed to violence, and what I’m seeking is a very specific dialogue with delegates. What I propose is, if you’re from Pennsylvania, you go to the Pennsylvania delegates’ hotel and find your delegates. You can call them from the desk. You can leave a note in their box. But ask them to sign a voluntary pledge to stick with Donald Trump on every ballot.

The reason I’ve done this is because the Republican establishment machines are packing these Trump delegate seats with non-Trump supporters, people ready to vote on the second ballot, if there is one, but more importantly, people who will vote against Trump’s interest in a rules or credentials play and steal the nomination. That is what the establishment has in mind.

I think they’ve figured out that Trump can’t be beaten, so they’re calling for a brokered convention, a contested convention. My fear is, because of the Trojan horse delegates, that there may be an absolute majority for Trump for president, but there may be a majority for the anti-Trump forces in these showdown votes, which come before the presidential ballot.

I have specifically renounced violence. The march and rally we’re having on July 18, the “stop-the-steal our votes matter” march is a peaceful, nonviolent march. We have applied for a permit from the city. We’re optimistic that it will be granted shortly. We have worked out a march route with the police. They have suggested a location for the rally that they believe would be safest.

I actually think the greatest problem in Cleveland is that those who go there provoke violence and then blame it on Trump. The MoveOn crowd, the Black Lives Matter crowd, this entire machine financed by Soros, directed by the psychopath David Brock, is going to incite violence. That way they can pin that violence on Donald Trump and his followers. So as far as violence in Cleveland is concerned, I would urge everybody to ignore the provocations. These people are going to be working overtime to incite violence. The way to defeat them is to ignore them.

Smashing Interviews Magazine: Is the GOP establishment warming up toward Donald Trump?

Roger Stone: I still don’t think the establishment will ever throw in the towel. Ted Cruz is like a cornered man. I give him credit in the sense that he had to do something to try to shake up the race. He had to do something to try and create some excitement and maybe pry open the door, but right now, I don’t think he’s an adequate challenger. I don’t see what Carly brings you other than another set of campaign hands. She will campaign for him. She’s an effective speaker.

I liked it when she was attacking Hillary, but then I wonder why Carly herself was involved in the Clinton Foundation. A lot of Republicans have gone over the side in this sense. I think they’re looking for a grandstand play that allows them to hijack the nomination. I think there are many Republicans getting used to the fact that Trump is the likely nominee, and they’re beginning to see that he is attracting a number of people who are not your traditional country club Republicans.

I also think that just at the time his nomination began to look inevitable, you had the unfortunate incident of his campaign manager being arrested for allegedly roughing up a reporter. This was followed by three days of clarifications on abortion, which, while important, is not a driving issue in this election when we have Islamic terrorists who may incinerate us as a nation, not an issue that I think is particularly productive to talk about, but that downdraft made party leaders wonder whether Trump was up to this.

I think Trump has begun to erase those doubts with these big wins in the northeast, and going forward, I think he wins Indiana and proves it again.

Smashing Interviews Magazine: In the beginning few months of his campaign, Trump was labeled a racist and a misogynist by Democrats and Republicans alike. Recently, Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, said that Trump recognized the need to reshape his persona, and that the part he’s been playing is evolving. But isn’t this “reshaping” too late to win the votes of women and minorities in the general election?

Roger Stone: Issues will be what gets those voters and the exposure of Hillary Clinton’s abuse of women. Younger women need to understand her record on promoting women, employing women, paying women more than men, something Hillary has never done, no matter what she says. I also think Trump has the economic argument to African Americans and Hispanics. He’s got to be the growth candidate. They can talk about immigration all they want. Trump wants to talk about jobs for people who are here legally. It’s a winner.

Smashing Interviews Magazine: In all your years involved in political campaigns, have you ever seen this much discourse within a political party where the other candidates have been very open to block the frontrunner whom they openly disliked?

Roger Stone: Actually, history is just repeating itself. Everybody was astounded by the Cruz-Kasich alliance to try to block Trump, but this has many historical precedents. Nelson Rockefeller, George Romney and William Scranton got together with Richard Nixon to try to block Barry Goldwater in 1964, a “stop Goldwater” movement.

Gov. Nelson Rockefeller and Gov. Ronald Reagan had a secret back-channel operation going trying to foil Richard Nixon’s comeback on the first ballot in Miami Beach in 1968. All it does is put the establishment and special interest group stamp on Ted Cruz. He’s prepared to deal with the establishment to block the person chosen overwhelmingly by the voters.

Smashing Interviews Magazine: Why have you never run for political office, Roger?

Roger Stone: Too many skeletons. I like wine, women and song far too much.

Smashing Interviews Magazine: In your next book, you say that you have found evidence proving Bill and Hillary Clinton killed John F. Kennedy, Jr.?

Roger Stone: I’m working on a new book which, and I don’t want to get too far out here because it’s still in the process, I make a comprehensive case that JFK, Jr. was murdered. There are many, many suspicious, undocumented things about his plane crash. There are many inconsistencies in what the public has been told. There are many inconsistencies about the weather.

I make a candidly, compelling, circumstantial case, but it’s a compelling case nonetheless that those with means, methods and opportunity are the Clintons because John F. Kennedy, Jr. was indeed warming up for the U.S. Senate seat that Hillary needed for her to step to the presidency. Ironically, John F. Kennedy, Jr., when asked why he was running for the Senate, said, “Well, to run for president, of course!” So he was in the Clintons’ way, and he had the Kennedy magic. There are many things regarding the record and the actions of the Clintons that day that would indicate that they are the ones with motive. It’ll be a lively and compelling read.

Smashing Interviews Magazine: Will you ever get a Trump tattoo?

Roger Stone: It is unlikely. I’ve got Nixon right in the middle of my back, but the reason I did that was, at some point, so that I could add Goldwater, Reagan and Buckley for a conservative Mt. Rushmore.

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