Roger Stone is grifting a Trump autograph through tokenizing NFTs to pay his legal bills

Roger Stone, a longtime Trump friend, is auctioning off a copy of a 1990s magazine cover he claims is signed by the former president as part of a wider fundraising effort to pay for his legal defenses and medical costs.

“To Roger YOU ARE THE GREATEST!” says a Trump message on the front of Real Estate New York, a now-defunct trade newspaper. If the offer reaches $20,000, the buyer receives the physical magazine as well as a “one of only one” digital copy, which Stone promoted as an NFT, or non-fungible token. NFTs, which are effectively non-transferable digital tokens of a physical piece, have shook up the art world this year, with several being auctioned for millions of dollars. Melania Trump, the former first lady, has stated her intention to join the sector as well.

Stone said Trump signed the magazine in 1999 and that it was “in fact legitimate.” There is no confirmation as to whether  Trump graced the cover of Real Estate New York, despite the fact that it was a magazine.

As last noted, there had been no bids on Stone’s property.

The NFT was part of a bigger auction for the Stone family this week, which was organized by Stone’s buddy Pete Santilli, a right-wing internet talk show presenter. They sold two copies of a Stone-signed 1968 Richard Nixon brochure for $400 and $300, respectively, as well as a “rare Trump/Melania” poster picturing them as Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty ($550).

“Between the cost of defending myself in 6 remaining merit-less but sensationalized harassment civil suits and the J-6 [January 6th] Witchhunt my legal expenses are formidable,” he stated. He added that the “cancer therapies not covered by insurance for my wife are also not inexpensive.”

Stone met with House select committee investigators on Friday to discuss the January 6 assault on the Capital. He informed reporters that he invoked the Fifth Amendment on every question, “not because I have done anything wrong, but because I am fully aware of the House Democrats’ long history of fabricating perjury charges.”

According to the subpoena, Stone attempted to solicit funds for a “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6 and had previously said that he had been asked to “lead a march to the Capitol” but did not do so.

Stone, according to the Daily Beast’s Zachary Petrizzo, used his Telegram account on Sunday morning to accuse former White House adviser Steve Bannon of ordering the January 6th attack on the Capitol building, evoking his past behavior of doing “crazy things” to “curry favor” with the former president.

This morning, longtime Republican operative Roger Stone suggested that Steve Bannon was behind the call to “breach” the Capitol on January 6th. https://t.co/oFtHaKu1yD

— Zachary Petrizzo (@ZTPetrizzo) December 19, 2021

“It is highly likely that [Steve] Bannon really gave the order to breach the capital [sic] and maneuvered patriots into dangerous positions,” Petrizzo wrote, implying that Stone appeared to be throwing Bannon “under the bus.”

He added, “A neophyte Steve Bannon was willing to try crazy things like this to curry favor with Trump who had a [sic] no interest in Bannon’s bullsh*t.”

Bannon made headlines earlier this month after he stated that the only way to “rescue civilization,” according to conservative podcast host Steve Bannon, is to have more “Judeo-Christian” babies.

Bannon made the comments when Real America’s Voice contributor Ben Harnwell blamed “militant secularization” in France for “the fertility crisis.”

“Europe has an absolute demographic crisis facing it,” Harnwell concluded.

In response, Bannon pointed out that both French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are childless.

“Hey, if you want to save the Judeo-Christian west, if you want to save civilization, start by having babies,” Bannon said. “Simple. Stat there. We’ll train them up. We’ll get it done but let’s start by having babies.”

Bannon made headlines last week after legal experts stated that Bannon appears to be using his criminal case to provide Donald Trump with access to the House Select Committee’s investigation into the Jan. 6 insurgency.

After refusing to cooperate with a subpoena, the right-wing podcaster was charged with contempt of Congress, and legal experts believe he’s trying to force investigators to expose who they’ve interviewed and what they’ve said, as well as study private committee conversations.

“There’s no cost to opposing Congress if you can give Congress a black eye for even daring to ask you questions,” said national security attorney Kel McClanahan.

Of course, Bannon has the right to see the evidence against him, but he’s trying to make some of it public by including witness interviews and investigators’ internal communications in court filings, which the Justice Department claims could result in “specific harms” like witness tampering or tainting the jury pool.

“It’s not about trying the case in the media, it’s about making it costly for the committee to go after him,” McClanahan said. “It is graymail, pure and simple: You can’t touch me, because if you do then I’ll spill your secrets.”

News outlets such as Buzzfeed, CNN, and The Washington Post have taken Bannon’s side in the debate and pushed the judge to release the records, but other legal scholars believe the Trump ally is attempting to open the probe in order to assist other witnesses who refuse to comply.