Trump associate Roger Stone reveals new contact with Russian national during 2016 campaign

Roger Stone, a close Trump ally, met with a Russian man, who called himself Henry Greenberg, in May 2016 claiming to have “dirt” that could help Donald Trump be elected. Greenberg, who did not reveal the information he claimed to possess, wanted Trump to pay $2 million for the political dirt, Stone said. “You don’t understand Donald Trump,” Stone recalled saying before rejecting the offer at a restaurant in the Russian-expat magnet of Sunny Isles (FL). “He doesn’t pay for anything.” 

Later, Stone got a text message from Michael Caputo, a Trump campaign communications official who’d arranged the meeting after Greenberg had approached Caputo’s Russian-immigrant business partner. “How crazy is the Russian?” Caputo wrote according to a text message reviewed by The Post. Noting that Greenberg wanted “big” money, Stone replied: “waste of time.” Two years later, the brief sit-down in Florida has resurfaced as part of special counsel Robert Mueller III’s sprawling investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, according to Caputo. Caputo said he was asked about the meeting by prosecutors during a sometimes-heated questioning session. 

Stone and Caputo, who did not previously disclose the meeting to congressional investigators, now say they believe they were the targets of a setup by US law enforcement officials hostile to Trump.