He wanted to look good for his day in court, and that meant a blue suit made by British tailor Richard James, a blue double-cuffed dress shirt with a Windsor collar, George Cleverley shoes, a blue silk knit tie, and a checked pocket square (also blue).
Then, for whatever reason, he made note that beneath it all he was wearing boxers “by Charvet of Paris.” Ahead of his 2019 arraignment, Roger Stone reminded a reporter from the conservative Daily Caller that he’s always adhered to the old adage “the clothes make the man.”
It was recommended that he serve seven to nine years in prison for lying to Congress, a penalty later reduced to 40 months after the intervention of the Department of Justice. Stone, the longtime friend of -- and the former adviser to and the first presidential campaign manager for -- Donald Trump, does not want to go. He told me late Wednesday afternoon, while speaking under home confinement from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., that the only stripes he can stand “are pinstripes.”
But prison-issued jumpsuits, usually drab orange and not up to his standards, are not what worries him about federal penitentiary. Stone is 67 years old. He has a history of asthma, an underlying condition that, when combined with his age, place him at greater risk for the coronavirus (there are other health problems, ones that he said would not be polite to discuss on the record).
Stone has asked that he stay out of prison stripes until at least Sept. 3 while he appeals his conviction. He was set to start his sentence yesterday but asked a federal judge for a two-month extension. The Justice Department didn’t oppose that request, giving him a little more time to argue in the legal system and the press.
In an April interview with Myra Adams, an acquaintance from Republican politics, Stone stressed his renewed Christian faith. Listening to Stone on the first day of July -- as prison becomes a nearer possibility – more of the old Roger Stone shines through. It’s a more secular version, although there is certainly an element of grace implied by Stone’s observation that his “final chapter is not yet written.”
From Richard Nixon to Trump, the press has chronicled his infighting, his hard-edged politics, his so-called dark arts of political persuasion. But the man who rigged his own election for class president in high school and who later made devious political donations to political rivals on behalf of the Young Socialist Alliance of America in an effort to smear them now talks earnestly about justice and equal treatment under the law.
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