a friend of 40 years and former aide to donald trump now facing an arraignment next week on charges brought by special counsel mueller. what more do we know about roger stone? why is he such a big player in the republican party and in donald trump s life? jake tapper looks at the political operative s colorful past. i m roger stone, r-o-g-e-r, s-t-o-n-e. reporter: he s been calledda cockroach. he flaunts these monikers as proudly as they flaunts his nixon back tattoo. stone s reputation is hard earned. his notorious political rap sheet goes back to the nixon campaign when the then 19-year-old donated money to nixon s opponent. he said it was from the young
2015. stone claims he quit. we go back a very long time. donald trump came to my wedding. i went to two of his. i have great affection for the trump family. reporter: what advice might the president have received? one passage from stone s book of life lessons stands out. quote, admit nothing, deny everything, launch counterattack. jake tapper, cnn, washington. all right, much more after the short break. but first, here s a sneak peak of the cnn original film three identical strangers. when i tell people my story, they don t believe it, but it s true. i ve always thought what would it be like if you turn the corner one day and you saw yourself? oh, my god. wow. the first time the boys met, the three together, it was a miracle. there was nothing that could keep us apart. that s when things kind of
committee last september i guess it was. cnn justice correspondent jessica schneider joining me. stone seems to be taking his case to the course of public opinion, but the charges are really serious. making a public push to say there s no collusion. truth is, roger stone is facing serious charges of witness tampering, false statements, and obstruction in a seven count indictment, and importantly there s a lot in the underlying details of the indictment that s damaging and raising continued questions about what could be yet to come in the mueller probe and whether perhaps there was a larger conspiracy with the trump campaign and wikileaks and russia. now, the part of the indictment raising the most questions here, that senior trump campaign official in july, 2016 was directed to contact roger stone about any other releases or
chopping off their head. they re chopping off their head. they re drowning them. they re killing them. if you re a christian, you have no chance. do you know that if you re a christian from syria, it s almost impossible to come into the united states? if you re a muslim from syria it s the easiest thing to do is to come into the united states. it s one of the easiest places to get in. can you believe this? but if you re a christian and they re the ones that need the help, you can t get into the united states. i don t know who s setting those regulations. i have a pretty good idea. i have a pretty good idea. but it s not going to happen anymore. but they were saying at the same time they said his tone, t-o-n-e, tone. and i said, you know, we need that tone today. we need energy. we need strength. and we can t be low key and nice and beautiful. a woman came up to me and she said, mr. trump, i love you. i m a big supporter.