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| Roger Stone admits he is a bullshit peddler. |
The former Donald J. Trump campaign adviser admitted, as part of a settlement in a defamation suit, that he used the right-wing conspiracy-theory website InfoWars to spread lies and misinformation.
Stone continues to deny ever contacting Russian operatives and Wikileaks
Deadline reported that Stone agreed to buy newspaper ads and publish a statement on his Facebook and Instagram accounts apologizing to Chinese businessman Guo Wengui for falsely claiming he had been convicted of financial crimes and violated U.S. election law by making political donations to presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. This issue was settled out of court.
"All of these statements are not true," Stone acknowledges as part of the settlement first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Stone acknowledged that he should have done his own research, and instead he relied on information from former Trump campaign adviser Sam Nunberg.
In an interview with the Journal, Guo claimed Stone had been paid to make false claims about him on Alex Jones’ InfoWars, identifying Chinese-American media tycoon Bruno Wu as the source. Stone’s statement on Monday identifies Wu as the “apparent source” of the false information that was conveyed by Nunberg.
Wu, who some had called the "CEO of China" — as in chief entertainment officer — is the founder of Sun Seven Stars Media Group, which at one point had 60 film production companies in its portfolio. The billionaire has backed a pair of major film funds over the years: Harvest Seven Stars Media Private Equity, a $800 million entertainment M&A fund founded in 2012, and a $1.6 billion global content fund launched in 2015 in partnership with Yucheng Group’s Muse Era.
Stone’s use of social media to spread misinformation comes as a pair of new reports prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee document how Russian operatives made extensive use of these platforms to spread propaganda and suppress the vote.
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