Did Donald Trump Ever Really Fire Roger Stone?

Amy Beth Bennett/Sun Sentinel/TNS via ZUMA

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How many of your remember this story from three years ago?

Donald Trump’s campaign said Saturday it has fired top political adviser Roger Stone — who promptly denied being let go and insisted he had quit.

….“Mr. Trump fired Roger Stone last night. We have a tremendously successful campaign and Roger wanted to use the campaign for his own personal publicity. He has had a number of articles about him recently and Mr. Trump wants to keep the focus of the campaign on how to Make America Great Again,” a campaign spokesperson said in a statement.

Stone, however, told CNN that he “categorically denies” being fired, and provided what he said was his resignation letter.

Allegedly, Stone quit because he was unhappy about Trump’s “food fight with @megynkelly” taking attention away from “core issue messages.” Please raise your hand if you ever believed this. Roger Stone lives for televised food fights and has less than zero interest in policy messaging. I know that Trump and Stone had supposedly been bickering for weeks, but even if that were true, it’s hardly credible that the Megyn Kelly affair would have been the thing to finally tip him over the edge.

Anyway, that’s what I remember thinking at the time: that this whole thing was a prearranged sham. Stone was more comfortable and more effective doing his thing while being able to claim that he had no connection to the Trump campaign, so he and Trump arranged a loud parting of the ways that no one could ignore. From that point on, Trump could disclaim any knowledge or connection to anything Stone did.

In the end, that didn’t help Stone, who was arrested and indicted yesterday over charges of lying to Congress about WikiLeaks, tampering with witnesses, and obstructing a House investigation into possible Trump campaign coordination with Russia to tip the election. But will it protect Trump? Stay tuned!

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PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

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