Roger Stone, adviser to President Donald Trump, was arrested Friday in the special counsel's Russia investigation and charged with lying to Congress. With increasing attention being paid to parallels between Trump and Richard Nixon, it's no surprise that people were quick to fixate on one particular quirk of Stone's: His abiding love of Nixon, on display in the form of an upper back tattoo of the former president's face. ALSO: Four takeaways from the Roger Stone indictment Stone got the tattoo in Venice Beach, and told the New Yorker that "women love it." It grins from dead center on Stone's upper back, as if to say "I've got your back, Roger. I won't let you get indicted." (This doesn't seem to have worked). As he spoke to the media on Friday, Stone also mimicked the "V for victory" pose Nixon struck when boarding Marine One after resigning the presidency in 1974. So what's the Stone-Nixon connection? Why does Stone love Tricky Dick so much? MORE: Chad 'Ochocinco' Johnson says he watched Roger Stone get arrested Stone's admiration for Nixon is nearly as old as his career in Washington. At 19, having moved to D.C. and becoming fascinated by politics, Stone took on a pseudonym and used it to make a contribution to Nixon's rival for the 1972 Republican nomination on behalf of the Young Socialist Alliance. He then used the donation receipt to discredit the opponent as a secret leftist, according to the New Yorker. He also paid another Republican operative to infiltrate Democrat George McGovern's campaign for president — a move that, when it was revealed during the Watergate hearings, lost Stone his job working for Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan. Stone has written and spoken for years about his admiration for Nixon's bare-knuckle political style and anti-elite sensibilities (Stone, for his part, reportedly owns 400 suits). They also seem to share a penchant for paranoid, conspiracy theory-driven thinking; Stone wrote a book in 2013 positing that it was LBJ who was responsible for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. "The reason I'm a Nixonite is because of his indestructibility and resilience," Over the years, Stone has spoken with pride of his small role in Watergate. His affection for Nixon comes out in all kinds of ways. He makes martinis with a recipe he got from Nixon ("He said he got it from Winston Churchill," Stone told the New Yorker). He owns multiple bongs that look like Nixon's head. He reportedly told an audience at a cannabis conference that he wants to make a strain of marijuana called "Tricky Dick." It's clear he loves Nixon, but it remains to be seen if he'll look back on Trump so fondly. Stone is the sixth Trump aide or adviser to be charged by Mueller, according to the AP. He is charged with lying about emails from the Hillary Clinton campaign that were hacked by Russia. The indictment alleges that Stone was contacted by Trump campaign officials asking when the stolen emails would be disclosed. "There is no circumstance whatsoever under which I will bear false witness against the president," said Stone, "nor will I make up lies to ease the pressure on myself." Filipa Ioannou is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at fioannou@sfchroncle.com and follow her on Twitter<doc-sep>Photo : Alex Wong ( Getty Images ) Roger Stone, the informal adviser to President Donald Trump, was arrested Friday morning in his Florida home and charged in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation with one count of obstruction, five counts of making false statements, and one count of witness tampering. Advertisement From Vanity Fair: Stone’s alleged crimes stem from his contacts with WikiLeaks, which during the 2016 race released stolen e-mails from the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign. According to a January 24 indictment unsealed after his arrest Friday, Stone appeared to act as a kind of liaison between “Organization 1”—widely understood to be WikiLeaks—and the Trump campaign, discussing with senior officials “information [WikiLeaks] might have had that would be damaging to the Clinton Campaign.” He was also instructed “by senior Trump Campaign officials to inquire about future releases” by WikiLeaks, according to the special counsel. Stone, the indictment continues, subsequently sought to impede federal investigations into the matter, lying about his interactions with WikiLeaks and about evidence of those interactions, and attempting to “persuade a witness to provide false testimony to and withhold pertinent information from the investigations.” So it’s pretty clear that unless Stone asks for a pack of cigarettes and a cup of coffee (the universal sign of cooperating with feds) he’s going to jail. Below are interesting tidbits about Stone that may help him during his time in the pookie: 1. His name. Roger Stone is really a porn name, but that could help him in the pen. While the Roger part isn’t doing him any favors, Stone sounds tough. He should play this up while doing time. Maybe even just shorten his name to “Stone.” Roger will be braiding inmates hair; Stone, however, will be running scams to fleece inmates from their commissary. He should drop in a conversation that he was called “The Godfather” and “The Prince of Darkness”....of the Republican Party. 2. Stone has a back tattoo. I know what you are thinking, and you are right, the placement of Stone’s back tattoo isn’t really the most manly spot for a tattoo and it doesn’t help that his back tattoo is of another man’s face. It will help that the man is a gangster and the only sitting president to have to bounce from office (current company excluded), Richard Nixon. Advertisement Yes, Stone has a tattoo of Richard Nixon on his upper back. Inmates respect ink. Maybe not this ink, but at least he’s got some ink that shows he’s not some loser lowlife GOP operative who wades in the cesspool of dirty politics. Scratch that—he’s totally a loser lowlife GOP operative who wades in the cesspool of dirty politics, and that’s a good thing because he’s going to prison. Advertisement 3. Stone buys from the Steve Harvey suit collection. Unless Stone is housed with pimps, he doesn’t need to mention he used to get his suits custom-made. Inmates won’t appreciate that, plus knowing that he had enough cash to get custom-made suits will make him a target. The plus for Stone is that his custom-made suits look a lot like Steve Harvey’s collection of suits. Stone needs to play up this fact. Advertisement Look at these pinstripes... Advertisement ...and this tan foolishness: Photo : John Sciulli ( Getty Images ) Advertisement ...and these wide legs with the Louis Vuitton satchel: Photo : Mark Wilson ( Getty Images ) Advertisement Stone also needs to say he wore gators. 4. Stone is a drop out. More than 80 percent of the incarcerated population are high school dropouts. Stone dropped out of George Washington University at 19. I know being a high school dropout and a college dropout aren’t remotely the same, but technically, Stone dropped out and he doesn’t have to say from where. He just needs to note that he wasn’t with all of that “school fuckshit, so I bounced.” Advertisement 5. Stone is ‘friends’ with Chad ‘Ocho Cinco’ Johnson Is Roger Stone really friends with Chad Johnson? Probably not, but the two are neighbors considering that Johnson dropped this little tidbit on Twitter early Friday morning. Advertisement While the two men probably barely exchanged pleasantries, Stone needs to find a way to casually drop this into every conversation he can. Advertisement Inmate: Is this your Cheese-Wiz? Stone: Funny you should ask as that’s exactly what my apple-scrap, my woe, my cuzo, Ocho used to call me when we would go buy snacks and shit on our way to watch movies in his house. Advertisement 6. Don’t make Stone ‘have to cut a bitch.’ Look, Roger Stone is rail thin, so he’s going to need a catchphrase or something that says “Roger Stone ain’t to be fucked with.” I don’t think Stone touting that he once worked for the Nixon campaign is going to do that. He’s going to have to come in hard with a go-to phrase like a WWE-wrestler. First, he should always refer to himself in the third person, that way he can serve as his own hype man. Also, he should add a “big” to his name when doing this. Advertisement Ex. “Big Stone ain’t here for the fuck shit!” Stone should have no problem with any of this, considering he’s spent almost a quarter of his life around some of the best presidential liars of his time.<doc-sep>Ultimately, politics was a game Roger Stone loved more than almost anyone. "Politics with me isn't theatre. It's performance art. Sometimes, for its own sake," he said in 2007. A forthright self-promoter, Mr Stone crafted an image with a massive collection of expensive suits hand-tailored for his body-builder frame, joining them with French cuffs and perfectly knotted silk ties. His shoes always shine, as does his hair - for years dyed blonde until, more recently, ceding way to a perfect white mane. Well-known for his political antics and hard ball tactics, Mr Stone has revelled in being a Washington insider dating back to Richard Nixon's administration. With his self-professed political dirty tricks and the tattoo of Nixon on his back, he has long lurked in the shadows of Donald Trump's world and was instrumental in guiding him on his first steps to the White House. Stone was only officially on Donald Trump's presidential election campaign for a few months, but would spin reporters, peddle conspiracies and, according to prosecutors, collaborate with WikiLeaks to release damaging information about Hillary Clinton in the final stretch of the 2016 campaign. He was arrested on Friday for lying to investigators and trying to tamper with a witness.<doc-sep>
Roger Stone, President Donald Trump's associate who was arrested Friday morning, is a self-proclaimed king of political tricks with a love of vintage suits and conspiracy theories. A Florida home of the 66-year-old veteran political consultant was surrounded by about a dozen heavily-armed FBI agents who arrested him with a surprise warrant, as seen in a CNN video. Stone has long denied claims that he had inappropriate contact with Russian intelligence during the 2016 electi, but now faces formal charges of lying to investigators. Here are a few things you might not know about the self-proclaimed "dirty trickster" who loves the limelight: Nixon's face is tattooed on his back Stone has a portrait of a smiling Richard Nixon tattooed on his upper back, below his neck. Stone got the tattoo at a shop in Venice Beach in California and told The New Yorker that “women love it." In Nixon's later years, Stone organized a series of media lunches at the former president's New Jersey home, The New Yorker reported with photos of a shirtless Stone. "The reason I’m a Nixonite is because of his indestructibility and resilience,” Stone said in the interview. “He never quit." The tattoo of the 37th president has been widely shared on social media over the years. He has a Netflix documentary Stone is the focus of Netflix 90-minute film “Get Me Roger Stone." The film offers a look at Stone's controversial career as a political operative with a penchant for underhanded tactics. There is little praise for him – other than from Stone himself. At various points in the film, Stone's critics call him a “sleazeball,” a “rat” and a “sinister Forrest Gump” who has a knack of turning up in all manner of political storms, from Watergate to the current controversy over Russia and Trump. Stone doesn't mind. In a wide-ranging interview with The North Jersey Record, he insisted that he loves the documentary – "warts and all.” More:Roger Stone indictment: Top takeaways from the 24-page report More:Who is Roger Stone? More:Armed FBI agents storm Roger Stone's home in CNN video of his arrest He has hundreds of custom-made suits In a 2017 interview, Stone said an entire room in his Harlem apartment was dedicated to displaying his 400 suits, mostly tailor-made, along with his 80 winter sports coats and 35 summer jackets. "When I was younger I had 44-inch shoulders but a 31-inch waist, which meant you could never buy a suit off the rack, Stone said in an interview with Ivy Style. "So I started having things custom made ... '“Look good feel good” is one of my rules.'" He wrote a book on politics, business and style Stone published “Stone’s Rules: How to Win at Politics, Business and Style” last year. An overview of the book details his thoughts on everything from “punking liberals” to how to make a signature marinara sauce. In 2017, Stone told Vanity Fair he also had a deal for a book entitled “The Fall of Trump” about how the Russia investigation will take down the president. "I hope it's a book I don't have to publish," he said. "I just don't think Trump is being told the truth about how bad things are." Contributing: Mike Kelly, North Jersey Record. Follow Ashley May on Twitter: @AshleyMayTweets