US President Donald Trump's confidant Roger Stone has been charged with lying about his pursuit of Russian-hacked emails damaging to Hillary Clinton's 2016 election bid.
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Prosecutors allege that senior Trump campaign officials sought to leverage the publication of the stolen material into a White House victory.
The self-proclaimed dirty trickster, arrested by the FBI in a raid before dawn on Friday at his Florida home, blasted the prosecution as politically motivated.
In a circus-like atmosphere outside the courthouse, as supporters cheered him on and spectators shouted "Lock Him Up," Stone proclaimed his innocence and predicted his vindication.
"As I have said previously, there is no circumstance whatsoever under which I will bear false witness against the president, nor will I make up lies to ease the pressure on myself," Stone said.
The seven-count indictment , the first criminal case in months in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, provides the most detail to date about how Trump campaign associates in 2016 actively sought the disclosure of emails the US says were hacked by Russia and then provided to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.
It alleges that unidentified senior Trump campaign officials contacted Stone to ask when stolen emails relating to Clinton might be disclosed.
Stone is the sixth Trump aide or adviser charged by Mueller and the 34th person overall. The nearly two-year-old probe has exposed multiple contacts between Trump associates and Russia during the campaign and transition period and revealed efforts by several to conceal those communications.
The 24-page indictment brings the investigation even further into the president's circle of advisers and suggests that Trump campaign officials were eager to exploit the stolen messages for political gain.
But prosecutors did not accuse Trump of wrongdoing or charge Stone with conspiring with WikiLeaks or with the Russian intelligence officers Mueller says hacked the emails.
They also did not reveal whether any Trump associates conspired with Russia or had advance knowledge of the hacking.
Hours after his arrest, Stone was released on $US250,000 ($A352,000) bond.
"This morning, at the crack of dawn, 29 FBI agents arrived at my home with 17 vehicles, with their lights flashing, when they could simply have contacted my attorneys and I would have been more than willing to surrender voluntarily," Stone said outside court.
The indictment says Stone repeatedly discussed WikiLeaks with campaign associates and lays out in detail Stone's conversations about emails stolen from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and posted in the weeks before Trump beat Clinton.
The document says that by June and July 2016, Stone had told senior Trump campaign officials that he had information indicating that WikiLeaks had obtained documents that could be damaging to Clinton's campaign.
Australian Associated Press
