Roger Stone responds to the Department of Justice tax lawsuit. Surprise! He blames Robert Mueller.

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“This case would never have been brought if it didn’t involve Roger Stone.”

So begins the long-awaited response of Roger Stone, a fan of MAGA, to a lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice seven months ago, accusing him and his wife, Nydia, of evading the payment. taxes and defrauding the US government.

The first line tops an 11-page denial, which attorneys for the Stones filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on Monday – the same day, Congressional investigators subpoenaed Stone in connection with his involvement in the events surrounding the January 6 attack. on the United States Capitol.

The couple face federal civil charges relating to $ 2 million in unpaid taxes accumulated over more than a decade, as well as an allegedly fraudulent real estate deal that prosecutors say was intended to protect the assets of government collectors. while the couple maintained a lavish lifestyle.

But the Stones’ denial throws the blame on another legal battle with a familiar, if only vaguely unrelated, scapegoat: Special Advocate Robert Mueller.

Stone has long complained about what he calls unfair and politically motivated prosecutions by Mueller’s team. And true to his habits, the die-hard libertarian begins by contextualizing his current situation as one more in a series of injustices on the part of a vindictive federal government.

Specifically, Stone goes over at length his many well-publicized grievances with Mueller’s Russia investigation, which in November 2019 secured the conviction of Trump’s whisperer on seven counts of lying and witness tampering – a process that “almost bankrupted the Stones” and rushed the IRS to repeal their payment agreement, the filing said.

One problem with this argument: The new charges, which largely focus on transactions made in February and March 2019, predate this trial.

Another problem: Federal prosecutors argued that Stone had engaged in the alleged fraud precisely because he anticipated the ordeal could bankrupt him.

Stone’s denial begins by targeting the IRS, which “refused to engage” with the couple, the document says, and instead “filed this complaint despite the Stones’ good faith efforts” to make their payments.

But from there, the case plunges into a prolonged non sequitur, confusing the Mueller investigation and praising the former president, a longtime ally who blocked Stone’s conviction last July before pardoning his conviction in December.

“The Mueller inquiry produced no charges related to collusion between Stone or the Trump campaign and Russia,” the document said, adding that “recently unredacted portions of the Mueller report reveal government had no evidence that Stone engaged in inappropriate conduct. as part of the 2016 campaign. ”(Former Trump associates implicated Stone’s WikiLeaks connections in their testimony.)

As the investigation “spread out,” the record says, Stone was the target of “process” crimes in an attempt to downplay the seriousness of the charges. The defense then reminds the court that the Stones were once again victimized by the government in a “famous pre-dawn televised raid by the FBI”.

Notably, the denial makes no effort to affirm Stone’s innocence of these criminal charges. But he points out that Trump “granted Stone a full and unconditional forgiveness” for his crimes, and “did so after publicly identifying the Mueller investigation as a bad faith enterprise from the start” and challenging “fundamental fairness. Of Stone’s trial.

“The Mueller investigation and the lawsuit that followed nearly bankrupted Stone,” the record says. At the end of the trial, the document notes, the Stones’ tax attorney “proactively contacted the IRS to begin discussions about resuming a payment plan” – efforts the government “ignored”, before to bring the pending lawsuit “just four months after Stone’s pardon.”

Prosecutors, however, say the Stones owe some $ 2 million in unpaid taxes, dating back a decade. The Justice Department’s complaint exposes a complicated scheme, describing a condominium purchase – which involved a mysterious loan and a series of financial transfers between personal, business, and trust accounts – as an overt act of fraud designed to hide from l money to the government before an expected default.

But that purchase, and the defect, did not happen after the trial, as Stone’s denial may suggest. In fact, the Stones bought the condo shortly after Roger Stone’s arrest in January 2019. Prosecutors say the Stones anticipated a default on their IRS payments and knew it would trigger government recovery of their assets. .

They defaulted the day after the condo was purchased, eight months before Stone’s conviction.

The Stones deny wrongdoing. Their response to the indictment then goes on to address the DOJ’s allegations point by point, acknowledging certain circumstances but mainly highlighting a series of general denials and “lack of knowledge” allegations. The small condo, they argue, was a legitimate purchase, which now serves as the primary residence.

Asked for comment, an attorney for the Stones told The Daily Beast that the case speaks for itself.

On the contrary, the legal seas only became more choppy for Roger Stone after Trump’s pardon in December. This was quickly followed by the Jan.6 attack on the United States Capitol, which was fueled by rallies Stone had attended alongside members of the Oath Keeper militia. And on Monday, the January 6 House select committee summoned Stone to appear for his alleged role in the event.

Then in April, the DOJ hit the Stones with the tax evasion indictment. However, the trial quickly failed, as Nydia Stone underwent treatment for stage 4 cancer. After several extensions, the couple informed the court last month that they were ready to move forward.

But through it all, the Roger Stone Legal Defense Fund has remained open to donations. The fund, which Stone established in 2017 as Mueller began to tighten the screws on the Trump world, has over the past four years attracted untold financial support for the martini-wielding popinjay, who seems to need it as much as ever.

A disclaimer on the donations page advises supporters that “contributions are not deductible for federal income tax purposes.”

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