Roger Stone arrest: Even Richard Nixon's foundation seems embarrassed by association with arrested Trump adviser

Foundation for disgraced 37th US president feels compelled to stress that arrested ‘dirty trickster’ was only a very junior scheduler during ‘Tricky Dicky's’ 1972 re-election campaign

He was, in the eyes of many, the US president who came to embody White House sleaze.

But it seems even the foundation of Richard ‘Tricky Dicky’ Nixon can get embarrassed by allegations of an association with arrested Trump adviser Roger Stone.

After Mr Stone’s arrest as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump Campaign’s possible Russia links, the Nixon Foundation has taken swift action to dissociate the disgraced 37th US president from an adviser to current incumbent Donald Trump.

The foundation – stated aim: “Teaching new generations about the legacy and relevance of President Richard Nixon” – felt compelled to act after hundreds of reports referenced Mr Stone’s boasts about having been involved in some of the dirty tricks that led to the Watergate scandal.

“This morning’s widely-circulated characterization of Roger Stone as a Nixon campaign aide or adviser is a gross misstatement,” the foundation declared. “Mr Stone was 20 years old during the re-election campaign of 1972.

“Mr Stone was a junior scheduler on the Nixon re-election committee, not a campaign aide or adviser.

“Nowhere in the Presidential Daily Diaries from 1972 to 1974 does the name Roger Stone appear.”

This account, however, differs from the tales told by Mr Stone, who has an image of a Nixon’s face tattooed on his back, and who left the courthouse on Friday giving the both-arms-raised double victory salute made famous by a president who obstructed justice, then resigned in disgrace.

In the past, Mr Stone has appeared in a documentary, smoking a fat cigar as he reminisced about being named in the Watergate scandal.

On his own website he posted a magazine interview which described him as a “political operative, Nixon-era dirty trickster”, and quoted enemies as saying he was the “boastful black prince of Republican sleaze”.

During the 2007 interview, Mr Stone said that despite being a lowly scheduler, “Nixon’s people” used him for dirty tricks like giving money to Republican primary rival Pete McCloskey in the name of the “Young Socialists Alliance”, then leaking the donation receipt to the media.

By day he was just a junior, he told Weekly Standard writer Matt Labash. “By night I’m trafficking in the black arts.”

Donald Trump has previously praised Mr Stone for having the “guts” to declare that he would never testify against him.

Carl Bernstein, the reporter who played a key part in exposing Watergate, has said that possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia could be even worse than the scandal that ended Nixon’s presidency.

Mr Bernstein has also described Mr Trump’s administration as "dangerous beyond any modern presidency".

Mr Stone has vowed to fight the charges against him, saying he has been "falsely accused" and is "looking forward to being fully and completely vindicated".