Comedian and political activist Randy Credico says he plans to do impressions during his grand jury appearance Friday.
[Special Counsel Robert] Mueller is interested in Mr. Credico’s odd friendship with Roger J. Stone Jr., the self-proclaimed political dirty trickster, Republican consultant and President Trump’s longtime political adviser.
Mr. Credico is seen in New York political circles as a dedicated if madcap activist. But he acknowledges that he also took part over the years in some of Mr. Stone’s acts of political deception.
And Mr. Stone has claimed that Mr. Credico was a conduit to WikiLeaks, telling him when dirt on Hillary Clinton would be released.
Mr. Credico views WikiLeaks’s founder, Julian Assange, who has been holed up at the Ecuadorean embassy in London for six years, as a hero and friend. Mr. Credico has visited Mr. Assange at the embassy three times since the 2016 presidential election, and conducted a phone interview with him for a radio show before the election.
But he said he never had inside information about dirt on Mrs. Clinton, and will tell the grand jury that he never relayed WikiLeaks’s plans to Mr. Stone. What’s more, he and Mr. Stone have bitterly fallen out over the issue.
Credico already has met with special counsel investigators and has said he is willing to share whatever information he has that may be relevant.
Mr. Credico did political work for Mr. Stone for years, often impersonating famous politicos in robocalls. Despite vast political differences, they aligned on issues like marijuana legalization. Mr. Credico was also involved in Mr. Stone’s attempt in 2010 to establish a pro-marijuana and prostitution political party in New York.
“There’s 16 years I’ve been around Stone,” Mr. Credico said, speaking in interviews and through text messages. “I don’t know what exactly this is focused on. I don’t know if it’s about Assange, if it’s about Stone. I really don’t know.”
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Mr. Credico lamented that his association with Mr. Stone might obscure his activism, and called his connection to Mr. Stone “worse than having scurvy.”
Mr. Stone testified to the House Intelligence Committee last year that “a journalist,” whom he later identified as Mr. Credico, told him in 2016 that the WikiLeaks material on Mrs. Clinton “would be released in October.”
“He told me this repeatedly from mid-August and throughout September,” Mr. Stone said in an email, adding that “he is my only source of information regarding WikiLeaks, as limited as it was.”
Mr. Credico adamantly disagreed.
“I couldn’t confirm it,” he said of WikiLeaks’s plans, “because I didn’t know anything.”
Mr. Credico was also subpoenaed last year by the House Intelligence Committee, but asserted Fifth Amendment privileges.
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Mr. Credico is a rambling raconteur with a history of drug and alcohol problems — “the whole 90s I was doing cocaine,” he said. Mr. Stone is a master of disinformation tactics and a frequent presence on Infowars, a website that spins bogus conspiracy theories and peddles questionable dietary supplements.
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Mr. Credico’s lawyer, Martin Stolar, said, “It’s a serious investigation and Randy is obligated to tell the truth, and that’s what he’s going to do.”
But he conceded impressions were not off the table.
“You know Randy,” he said. “He’s not entirely controllable.”
Mueller’s Office Will Grill Him About Roger Stone. He Will Respond With Comedy. (NYT)