2. SOUNDBITE: (English) Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House:
"It's very interesting to see the kinds of people that the president of the United States has surrounded himself with. This connection to the integrity of our elections is obviously something we have to get the truth about. But it's also bothersome to see his connections to Russia and the president's suggestions that we should question whether we should be in NATO, which is a dream come true for Vladimir Putin."
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi commented on the arrest of Roger Stone saying, "it's very interesting to see the kinds of people that the president of the United States has surrounded himself with."
Stone, a confidant of President Donald Trump, was arrested in the special counsel's Russia investigation in a pre-dawn raid at his Florida home on Friday and was charged with lying to Congress and obstructing the probe.
The seven-count indictment against Stone, a self-proclaimed "dirty trickster," is the first criminal case in months from special counsel Robert Mueller. It provides the most detail to date about how Trump campaign associates were aware in the summer of 2016 that emails had been stolen from the Hillary Clinton campaign and wanted them released. It alleges that unnamed senior Trump campaign officials contacted Stone to ask when the stolen emails might be disclosed.
The indictment does not charge Stone with conspiring with WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy website that published the emails, or with the Russian officers Mueller says hacked them. Instead, it accuses him of witness tampering, obstruction and false statements about his interactions related to WikiLeaks' release. Some of those false statements were made to the House intelligence committee, according to the indictment.
Yet Pelosi tied Stone's arrest to Trump's relationship with Russia saying, "it's also bothersome to see his connections to Russia and the president's suggestions that we should question whether we should be in NATO, which is a dream come true for Vladimir Putin."
Trump's press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said on Friday the charges brought against Stone don't have anything to do with the president.
