What ‘the Roger Stone tapes’ reveal about Jan. 6
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 5 March 2022
⏱️ 23 minutes
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Summary
A team of Danish filmmakers spent more than two years following Trump confidant and adviser, Roger Stone. Their footage — and an investigation from The Washington Post — shed new light on Stone’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
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As a mob ransacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Roger Stone, Donald Trump’s longtime political adviser, hurried to pack a suitcase inside his suite at downtown Washington’s Willard hotel. Before leaving the city on a private jet, he told an aide he feared prosecution by the incoming attorney general, Merrick Garland. “He is not a friend,” Stone said.
On today’s Post Reports, how two documentary makers gained extraordinary access to a member of Trump’s inner circle — and what their footage reveals about the campaign to overturn the 2020 election.
Their footage, along with other reporting by The Post, provides the most comprehensive account to date of Stone’s involvement in the former president’s effort to overturn the election and the Jan. 6 insurrection.
For months, he coordinated with far-right leaders and urged allies to join the “Stop the Steal” movement. When it all fell apart, he lobbied the former president for a pardon for himself and “the entire MAGA movement,” up until the day Trump left office.
Their film, “A Storm Foretold,” is expected to come out later this year. You can watch excerpts here.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | On January 6, 2021, Roger Stone was holed up in a lavish suite at the Willard Hotel in |
| 0:09.4 | downtown Washington, DC. |
| 0:12.0 | As AIDS buzzed around the room, Donald Trump's longtime advisor watched on TV with disbelief, |
| 0:18.4 | as protesters breached the Capitol and stormed inside. |
| 0:22.1 | I think it's really bad for the movement. |
| 0:31.9 | He was actually the one who coined the slogan, Stop the Steel. |
| 0:35.8 | But he hadn't expected this. |
| 0:38.7 | Still, he stopped short of condemning the violence he was watching in real time on TV. |
| 0:44.8 | When you can't get a fair and honest judicial opinion, when you can't get a fair, honest, |
| 0:51.5 | and transparent election, when your legislative process is constipated by fear and threat, |
| 0:57.7 | what was it Kennedy said? |
| 0:59.0 | Those who make peaceful progress impossible make violent revolution inevitable. |
| 1:07.5 | As he spoke, Stone was folding clothes into a suitcase about to leave the city on a private |
| 1:14.2 | jet. |
| 1:15.2 | We're hearing what was said inside that room because in addition to the AIDS and allies |
| 1:20.7 | at the Willard Hotel that day, there were also some outsiders. |
| 1:25.7 | Two Danish filmmakers who had been following Stone on and off for years. |
| 1:32.9 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Postreports. |
| 1:36.8 | I'm Alexis D.L., at Saturday, March 5. |
| 1:40.7 | Today, how a documentary film crew got access to one of the former president's closest |
| 1:46.6 | allies. |
| 1:48.4 | And what their footage and a new post investigation reveals about Stone's efforts to overturn the |
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