portrait of GOP hitman behind Trump

Alittle over a year ago, shockwaves spread across the globe as it became apparent that unlikely presidential candidate Donald Trump had pulled off the greatest political upset in history.

But one man wasn't surprised at all: the newest world leader's long-time friend and confidante, Washington political fixer Roger Stone.

The 65-year-old master manipulator is the subject of "Get Me Roger Stone," a Netflix documentary tracing his seismic effect on modern politics that has just kicked off its Oscars campaign with screenings in Los Angeles.

"He's not just this single-minded guy but this Machiavellian, almost crazy guy who shows up at every key moment in recent American history," legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin tells filmmakers Daniel DiMauro, Morgan Pehme and Dylan Bank.

Drawing on extensive interviews with the man himself and the major events of his controversial career, "Get Me Roger Stone" is the culmination of thousands of hours of filming, and decades of Republican backroom politics.

The thesis is straightforward: that Stone's practice of political "dark arts" over the last 50 years has been a major contributor to the so-called "swamp" of corruption that Trump has vowed to drain.

"He's anti-establishment but he's also part of the establishment. He is a human being, he's just not a very good one," DiMauro said at a screening in Hollywood this week.

After five years following Stone, the filmmakers went from a less-than-sensational story on a "washed-up dirty trickster," says DiMauro, to "the most important story in the world -- a timeline to the rise of Trump."

- 'Pot-smoking, swinging dandy' -

Stone spoke with the filmmakers right up to the month after the reality TV star and property tycoon's shock election victory, an event the consultant describes as "the manifestation of a dream I've had since 1988."

The flamboyantly-dressed tactician for a long series of Republican political campaigns is described by Pehme as a "body-building, pot-smoking, swinging dandy."

Stone began his career as a political trickster for Richard Nixon, whose face he has tattooed on his back, and, at the age of 19, was the youngest person to testify to the Watergate grand jury.

A prized source to this day for the country's top political reporters, he has been placed at the scene of the crime in some of the most unsavory moments in American public life.

source: AFP