White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tried Friday to distance President Trump from the indictment of Roger Stone on charges linked to work on the 2016 campaign. “My first reaction is real simple, this has nothing to do with the president and certainly nothing to do with the White House. This is something that has to do solely with that individual and not something that affects us here in this building,” she said in an interview with CNN hours after Stone was arrested on charges that include obstruction of justice, lying and witness-tampering. According to the indictment, senior Trump campaign officials were “directed” to contact Stone about future releases of Democratic emails stolen by Russian hackers and handed to WikiLeaks during the 2016 election. Sanders shrugged it off. “Look, Roger Stone has been somebody who as a consultant for dozens of Republican presidents and candidates and members of Congress—but conversations between those individuals have nothing to do with the fact of what these charges are about and that’s about whether or not he made false statements. We’ll let the courts make that decision.”
