Stone and Manafort. Manafort and Stone.

[MelissaB]

You know who brought Manafort onto team Trump? ROGER STONE.

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

... snip

It’s hard to overstate just how close Trump and Stone have been over the years. Their professional and personal relationship goes back more than three decades. Trump without Stone is akin to George W. Bush without Karl Rove or Barack Obama without David Axelrod. Though Trump has derided Stone to reporters in the past — “Roger is a stone-cold loser,” he told The New Yorker in 2008, “he always tries taking credit for things he never did” — the two men have always made up after such occasional spats, and a permanent split would be stunning.

... snip

In 1988, Stone wanted Trump to run for president and arranged for him to give a speech at the Portsmouth, N.H., Chamber of Commerce, which garnered enormous media coverage. Stone says some of his friends in the state organized a short-lived “Draft Trump” movement, but within a few weeks, Trump had determined he would forgo a run to focus on his business career.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/422353/donald-trumps-departed-top-adviser-speaks-out-jim-geraghty

[annabanana]

1. And yet Nunes has never heard of Stone, apparently.

That was a stunning bit of video. HEAD of the House Intel Committee has never heard of Roger Stone.

[MelissaB]

2. He's a lying liar who tells many lies.

Sometimes I can't believe the shit they make up.

[annabanana]

3. Does he count on people not caring how very very stupid

he sounds?

[MelissaB]

4. At this point, I think Republicans count on people watching Fox "News", depending on fake news sites

like Brietbart, and talk radio. How else do some people believe what they do about Trump (he hung the moon and is for the little guy)? I just don't understand it...

[jmg257]

5. They were partners - not a big stretch.

If anyone is capable of whipping the Trump campaign into a more organized, disciplined operation, it’s Manafort. He was recommended for the job by Roger Stone, the longtime Trump associate who officially parted ways with the campaign last summer but remains influential.

Manafort is the co-founder of two lobby and consulting firms, Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly (BMS&K) and, later, Davis Manafort. Even in the lobbying industry, where the buying and selling of influence can blur ethical lines, both businesses garnered considerable scrutiny for their tactics and clients.
...
BMS&K also appears to be the early link that connected Manafort and Trump decades ago. The firm lobbied on behalf of the Trump Organization on gaming, taxes and other issues related to Trump’s hotels, at both the federal and state levels in New York and Florida, said lobbyist and GOP strategist Charlie Black, Manafort’s former business partner.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/04/07/from-ukraine-to-trump-tower-paul-manafort-unafraid-to-take-on-controversial-jobs/?utm_term=.f1629426ffdb

[L. Coyote]

6. They were partners with an office in Moscow! And K Street partners, Abramoff connected, ....

Who is Roger Stone, the Long-Time R Dirty-Trickster ...

[jmg257]

7. Yep - quite the king-makers.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/04/paul_manafort_isn_t_a_gop_retread_he_s_made_a_career_of_reinventing_tyrants.html

Some saw the hiring of Manafort as desperate, as Trump reaching for a relic from the distant past in the belated hope of compensating for a haphazard campaign infrastructure. In fact, securing Manafort was a coup. He is among the most significant political operatives of the past 40 years, and one of the most effective. He has revolutionized lobbying several times over, though he self-consciously refrains from broadcasting his influence. Unlike his old business partners, Roger Stone and Lee Atwater, you would never describe Manafort as flamboyant.

[Kahuna7]

8. I recall listening to a rightwing radio interview with Stone during the primaries..

maybe with mark levin or michael savage. Anyway the gist of the questioning was:

interviewer: You were part of the trump campaign and now you're not?

stone: er..er..That's right. I've had a close relationship with trump but now I'll just function as a...er...er..advisor.

[wishstar]

9. They tried (with partner Rick Davis) to dupe McCain to turn pro-Russian in 2007

Rick Davis had been business partners with Stone and Manafort and was running McCain's Presidential campaign in 2007.

This bunch of pro-Putin operatives even arranged an Adriatic cruise to wine and dine McCain and wife, to turn McCain friendlier regarding Putin's aims in Montenegro and Ukraine. Finally McCain caught the traitorous drift of stench and fired Davis from his campaign.

[oasis]

10. Lock both of them up. Add a cot in their cell for Lt.Gen. Flynn. nt