Roger Stone, a longtime ally and confidant to President Donald Trump, pleaded not guilty in Washington federal court Tuesday, accompanied by his Florida attorneys after initial hiccups in court filings raised uncertainty about his representation.

The Republican operative appeared with Fort Lauderdale attorneys Robert Buschel of Buschel & Gibbons and Grant Smith of StrategySmith after a magistrate judge twice said they failed to follow local rules to appear. Stone was also joined by Washington lawyer L. Peter Farkas of Halloran Farkas + Kittila.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson issued an order Monday stating Buschel and Smith failed to file motions to appear pro hac vice signed by a sponsoring member of the D.C. Bar. In a subsequent order denying the pro hac vice motion filed later Monday, Robinson noted Farkas, whose name appeared on the signature lines of the motions, did not file the motions and had not filed a notice of appearance.

Robinson said the attorneys had until 9 a.m. Tuesday to fix the problems. Farkas' notice of appearance showed up on the docket just before 10:30 a.m.

Buschel entered the plea on Stone's behalf Tuesday, and Robinson set a status hearing for Feb. 1.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who was assigned Stone's case, will preside over that hearing. She also oversees a case against former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort. In another case brought by the special counsel, Jackson sentenced former Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom associate Alex van der Zwaan to a month after he admitted lying to federal investigators.

Michael Morando, a prosecutor from the U.S. attorney's office in D.C., said Tuesday that both parties would ask the court to designate Stone's case as complex and seek a protective order for discovery.

The arraignment came after a federal grand jury in Washington returned a seven-count indictment against Stone on Thursday. Stone, who was arrested in an FBI raid before dawn the next morning at his Fort Lauderdale home and released on a $250,000 signature bond, vowed to fight the charges in a trial.

The special counsel accused Stone of lying and attempting to obstruct the U.S. House Intelligence Committee investigators probing Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and attempting to pressure a witness to lie to the panel.

Those alleged lies center around Stone's contact with WikiLeaks during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign when the anti-secrecy organization released thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and the chairman of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Prosecutors believe top Trump campaign officials instructed Stone to contact Wikileaks the summer before the presidential election to seek information about future email releases.

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