One thing that was accomplished with Rod Rosenstein’s announcement of 12 new indictments against Russians on Friday was to provide proof once again that Roger Stone has a long history of lying.
To go through all of the many provable instances of Stone’s lying would take too much time, but there are a few key examples that show Stone has been lying from the beginning about his personal involvement in the hacking of Hillary Clinton and DNC emails and about his relationship with the Russian government.
Yesterday we published an article entitled “Trump Lie Blown To Bits As Indictment Reveals Roger Stone Was In Regular Contact with Senior Campaign Members” which talks about some of Stone’s lies.
We wrote: “In the indictment of the 12 Russians for hacking 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party, Ryan Goodman of Just Security highlighted a section that shows that contrary to Don Jr’s Senate testimony, Roger Stone was in regular contact with senior members of the Trump campaign.”
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We also point out that Stone lied in his Senate testimony by saying that Guccifer 2.0 was not a Russian asset. In fact, in 2017 we published an article that quoted Stone on Russian TV saying “I think it’s pretty established that the Russians did not hack the DNC. That’s a falsehood.” Of course that is another lie.
Yesterday we also reported that “The Indictment of 12 Russians Could Be Laying the Groundwork for Future Conspiracy Charges” by Robert Mueller.
What all of this points to is that Mueller may have a case that Roger Stone committed conspiracy against the United States, which is a serious crime.
What’s missing from yesterday’s indictments is the accusation that any Americans committed crimes, but that may soon change.
Imagine the implications and ramifications if Mueller can prove two simple things:
- That Roger Stone received stolen emails and other documents from the indicted Russian intelligence officers (which should be easily provable through electronic records) and,
- That Stone passed the intelligence he received onto his contact in the Trump campaign. This also may be easily provable through electronic records.
In fact it is probable that Mueller already has the evidence that both of these things occurred.
Now imagine one more thing concerning item #2: what if the person Stone was in contact with in the Trump campaign was Donald Trump himself?
If Mueller can prove this, then he can prove that Roger Stone and Donald Trump worked together to commit the crime of conspiracy against the United States.
Since Stone has previously said he believes that there’s a FISA wiretap against him, Mueller may already have recordings of Stone’s phone calls with Donald Trump (and perhaps other unnamed co-conspirators).
Roger Stone initially responded to the Mueller indictments by denying he was involved in any way. (The indictments said the documents had been stolen and then given to an “unnamed Donald Trump associate” who many people think is Roger Stone.)
Stone went on TV early yesterday and said that he couldn’t be the Trump associate referred to in the indictments because his only Trump campaign contact was Donald Trump himself.
In other words, he said that if he received stolen data from the Russians and he passed it along to the campaign, he gave it directly to Trump.
Then late last night, Roger Stone changed his story, and admitted to CNN that he is indeed the Trump associate referenced in the indictment. (He also said that he thinks his communications with Russian hacker Guccifer 2.0 were not crimes.)
In effect Roger Stone has now admitted that he passed stolen documents from Russia to the Trump campaign.
He has also said that his only contact in the Trump campaign was Donald Trump.
If Robert Mueller can prove, through FISA wiretap evidence or otherwise, that Roger Stone passed the illegally hacked documents to Donald Trump then this would prove not just collusion but the commission of serious crimes by the President of the United States.
In the coming days and weeks we can expect to see more desperate and outrageous behavior coming from Donald Trump as he comes to realize that Robert Mueller has him in his crosshairs, and the special counsel is not going to let up until he takes him down.
I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.
