Roger Stone: Russian wanted Trump to pay $2M for dirt on Clinton during the campaign

Former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone said that he met with a Russian man during the 2016 campaign who wanted President Trump to pay $2 million for damaging information on Hillary Clinton.

The Washington Post reported Sunday that Stone met with the man in May 2016, in a meeting set up by Trump campaign aide Michael Caputo. The meeting was previously unreported and follows Stone’s denials that he had any contact with Russians during the campaign.

Stone told the Post that the man had requested Trump pay $2 million for dirt on Clinton, but that Stone rejected the offer.

“You don’t understand Donald Trump,” Stone said he told the man. “He doesn’t pay for anything.”

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Special counsel Robert Mueller is now investigating the meeting, Caputo told the Post.

Both Stone and Caputo, who did not reveal the interaction to congressional investigators, alleged that the man, who called himself Henry Greenberg, was an FBI informant.

The Post reported that records do not indicate that Greenberg was an FBI informant. Documents do show that he has stated that he worked as an informant for the agency in the past, but that he said he stopped working with the FBI after 2013.

Greenberg denied to the Post that he was working on behalf of the FBI during the meeting.

“If you believe that [Greenberg] took time off from his long career as an FBI informant to reach out to us in his spare time, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I want to sell you,” Caputo told the Post.

Both former campaign aides said they did not recall the meeting during their testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. Caputo said he recalled a phone conversation with Greenberg as he prepped for an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, and discussed it during his questioning.

Stone has previously denied having any contacts with Russians during the 2016 campaign.

He testified before the House Intelligence Committee last year that he has been falsely accused of colluding with Russia during the election.

The Post noted that the meeting means that at least 11 Trump officials or associates have admitted to contacts with Russians during the 2016 campaign or transition.

Mueller has been investigating ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. The president has recently made unsubstantiated claims that the FBI spied on and infiltrated his campaign, and has blasted Mueller’s probe as a “witch hunt.”

–This report was updated at 01:00 p.m.