Roger Stone Arrested By the FBI

Yeah I am not buying that! For the simple reason they had to be tipped off to know the exact time. Its one to thing to say rumors were swirling, but its another to know exactly the time the FBI would raid Roger Stone’s house! This is a hit job through and through!

Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the likely time.

from FBI's Manafort raid included a dozen agents, 'designed to intimidate,' source says

The source said both Manafort and his wife were asleep when FBI agents entered the Alexandria, Va., condo without warning at about 6 a.m. ET. They did not conclude their search until late afternoon, around 4 p.m. ET. The 1,600-square-foot condo includes three bedrooms and a main living area.

It is a hell of a thing isn’t it?

This makes Mueller look desperate to me.

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We had a very cathartic moment on 1/25/19 as a nation. A terrible human being, Roger Stone, did a very public perp walk to be introduced to his barrel. Stone was indicted on 1 count of Obstruction of Proceeding (messing with the HPSCI probe), 5 counts of false statements, and 1 count of witness tampering.

To me, this is a ‘quick and dirty’ indictment that is intended to ‘lock that ratf***er up’ while sketching the outlines of a broader conspiracy but leaving many of those areas blank to be filled in later. This is essentially a conspiracy indictment that left the conspiracy part out. There’s great feeling of satisfaction in seeing Stone go down of his own accord, but there are a number of things that Mueller intentionally left open. My working theory is that Mueller wrote this indictment in a way to prevent a pardon from scuttling the case that he is putting together on the ‘collusion track’. Any move by Trump to pardon Stone creates immediate guilt for him, because one can then fill the blanks left here with the words ‘Trump’ or ‘Trump campaign’.

The other thing is that I believe Mueller is putting together a large conspiracy case that goes deep into the Trump campaign and ties directly to GRU/Wikileaks. In addition, Mueller appears to be trying to build a case without having to charge only Wikileaks/Assange as a primary co-conspirators. There is some thought that Wikileaks or Julian Assange has already been charged. That may or may not be the case, but everything about these indictments indicates a desire to get around the ‘freedom of the press’ hurdle that Wikileaks might claim as a news or journalistic enterprise, or that Assange would claim individually. I would think a Wikileaks/Assange indictment would focus on establishing them as agents, assets or partners of the Russian gov’t to where the protections that a news org would have would not apply. The one thing Mueller doesn’t want is a successful challenge that Wikileaks/Assange acted within the law as a news org, as that might lead to a dismissal of charges against anyone else whose alleged criminal behavior is tied to Wikileaks/Assange’s status. It is quite likely that Mueller has the evidence to show that Assange had a cooperative arrangement with Russia to assist in its execution its intelligence operation to undermine the US, but we haven’t seen it yet. That said, I don’t think there would be 2 significant indictments which repeatedly mention Wikileaks unless he had information that could also enable prosecutors to indict Wikileaks for related crimes. They are, after all, effectively unindicted co-conspirators in both the GRU and Stone indictments.

Introduction/Background

The indictment gives a brief background summary and broad timeline to set the context for the indictment:

  • May 2016 - DNC learns that it was hacked.
  • June 14, 2016 - DNC, through its hired forensics contractor, publicly announces that it was hacked by Russian government actors
  • July 2016-No 2016 - Wikileaks (Organization 1) "released tens of thousands of documents stolen from the DNC and the personal email account of the chairman of the U.S. presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton (“Clinton Campaign”).
  • July 22, 2016 - Wikileaks released docs stolen from the DNC. The added context is that this was the weekend before the Democratic National Convention and after Trump had officially grabbed the GOP nomination.
  • Oct 7, 2016 - Nov 7, 2016 - “Organization 1 released approximately 33 tranches of documents that had been stolen from the personal email account of the Clinton Campaign chairman, totaling over 50,000 stolen documents.”

What I find most odd about this portion of the indictment is that it makes almost no reference to the GRU indictment which provides much more detail into the hack by Russian intelligence and the handover of that information to Wikileaks. Mueller has an extensive timeline already built. He hardly referenced it. There is no reference to Guccifer 2.0 or to DC Leaks. In addition, this indictment doesn’t even mention Roger Stone’s cameo appearance in the GRU indictment.

Here is paragraph 44 of the GRU Indictment:

The Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, also communicated with U.S. persons about the
release of stolen documents. On or about August 15, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, wrote to a person who was in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump, “thank u for writing back . . . do u find anyt[h]ing interesting in the docs i posted?” On or about August 17, 2016, the Conspirators added, “please tell me if i can help u anyhow . . . it would be a great pleasure to me.” On or about September 9, 2016, the Conspirators, again posing as Guccifer 2.0, referred to a stolen DCCC document posted online and asked the person, “what do u think of the info on the turnout model for the democrats entire presidential campaign.” The person responded, “[p]retty standard.”

The person referenced in this paragraph is Roger Stone. He had been in direct contact with Russian Military Intelligence (GRU). This isn’t mentioned in this indictment. That would be relevant, in my view, to establishing a conspiracy.

Timeline Summary of Events Relevant to Indictment

Mueller first states that Stone was a political consultant who maintained regular contact with the campaign through the 2016 election.He then moves directly to his role on the Wikileaks matter:

During the summer of 2016, STONE spoke to senior Trump Campaign officials about Organization 1 [WIKILEAKS] and information it might have had that would be damaging to the Clinton Campaign. STONE was contacted by senior Trump Campaign officials to inquire about future releases by Organization 1 [WIKILEAKS].

Per the indictment Stone’s awareness of Wikileaks and his communication about them to senior Trump campaign officials begins in June/July 2016.

This would be right after the DNC announced it had been hacked by Russian state actors (6/14/16) and when DC Leaks (Guccifer 2.0) began posting information. How did Roger know about Wikileaks that soon? Per the GRU indictment, Wikileaks’ first contact with Guccifer 2.0 was via email on 6/22/16. Wikileaks didn’t get an actual transfer of files until 7/14/16 and didn’t confirm receipt until 7/18/16. Was Roger Stone contacted by GRU, Wikileaks (or an intermediary) and informed about the Russian hack? Was it the Trump campaign itself? Papadopoulos knew of the Russian hack by late April 2016. Carter Page might’ve learned about it too directly from the Russians when he visited during the week of the 4th of July, 2016. Paul Manafort may well have known following the Trump Tower meeting.

Mueller is leaving out some crucial details, and I don’t think it’s because he doesn’t know or doesn’t have a theory. Most of the publicly available evidence suggests that the Trump campaign first learned that the Russians had stolen DNC/HRC emails directly from…the Russians themselves! Papadopoulos’ story and the Trump Tower meeting run up suggest this. When the first news article about the Russian hack was published on 6/15/16, attendees of the TT meeting thought it eerily similar to what the Russians had been dangling.

With Manafort running the campaign, there were already established direct channels of communication. It’s quite possible that the Russians informed the Trump campaign that it had talked to Wikileaks and then instructed the campaign to find an intermediary to connect with them. One of those intermediaries would be Stone. The Steele Dossier indicates that post-Manafort, Russia decided to shift most of its efforts to the Wikileaks track and get some plausible deniability by using a ‘news org’ as a front. Wikileaks volunteered themselves for this role and the Russians thought it was a good idea.

After the July 22, 2016 release of stolen DNC emails by Organization 1 [WIKILEAKS], a senior Trump Campaign official was directed to contact STONE about any additional releases and what other damaging information Organization 1 [WIKILEAKS] had regarding the Clinton Campaign.

July 25, 2016. Stone sends an email to Jerome Corsi (Person 1) instructing him to meet Assange and obtain a tranche of emails believed to deal with the Clinton Foundation. Corsi then forwarded this email to UK nutter, Ted Malloch.

What this indicates is that Stone’s conversation with the Trump campaign official regarding Wikileaks happened between July 22 and July 25, 2016 (essentially the weekend before the Democratic convention when Tim Kaine was introduced as the VP nominee and the Convention had started buzzing about Wikileaks, leaving the Berners in a sour mood on day 1).

Trump had his now infamous (and possibly (if not likely) criminal) ‘Russia if you’re listening’ press conference on July 27, 2016. That day, the Russians launched a spearphish attack against HRC’s personal email accounts and 76 email accounts tied to the Clinton campaign domain.

So, it seemed that by this time the Trump campaign was aware that the Russians were behind the attack, that Wikileaks was working with the Russians, and they tapped Stone to find out more. Who was this senior Trump campaign official? How does Mueller know that this happened? Does he have a source inside the campaign that is providing emails, texts and other documentary evidence as well as eyewitness testimony. I just don’t see how Mueller could place this statement in a criminal indictment without solid proof. This was before Bannon joined the campaign, so this person is likely someone like Manafort, Trump Jr., Jared Kushner or Eric Trump. The order probably did not come from Trump directly, because I don’t think he would be described as a ‘senior campaign official’.

Russia embarked on a campaign to violate US laws to disrupt our elections to attack HRC and help Trump. Members of the Trump campaign and intermediaries like Stone knew of some aspects of the Russian effort and aided, abetted and encouraged the Russian effort. That’s enough to establish guilt for conspiracy.

Next comes a laundry list of email correspondence:

  • Aug 2, 2016 – Corsi emailed Stone indicating that Assange planned 2 more email dumps, including on Oct 2 and specifically referenced Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. Corsi also added his own idea to spread stories about HRC’s age and health.
  • Aug 8, 2016 – Stone attends a public event where he claims to have communicated with Assange and talks about an October surprise with a focus on the Clinton Foundation. He repeated that again on 8/12/16 and 8/16/16, using the term ‘back-channel’ to describe the communication he had with Wikileaks, and later ‘intermediary’ to identify that he had a 3rd party mutual friend who was doing the communication.
  • Not stated in this indictment, but in the GRU indictment, Stone communicated with Guccifer 2.0 on 8/15/16.
  • On Aug 23, 2016, Randy Credico interviewed Stone on his radio show, in which he reiterated that he had a go-between who gave him reliable information.
  • From 8/19/16 – 8/26/16., the focus turns to Stone tapping Credico as a second intermediary with Assange. Credico had Julian Assange on his radio show and it appears in preparation for that interview he learned from Assange that he was ‘in charge of the project’ and had ‘kryptonite on Hillary’.
  • Again on September 18, 2016, Stone taps Credico and tells him to ask Julian Assange if to find emails from HRC in relation to a particular story with allegations against Clinton relating to her service as Secretary of State. This is a clear solicitation of stolen information. Credico confirmed that the message was sent on 9/1//16 and 9/20/16. Credico also too a picture of him standing outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on 9/30/16.
  • Not mentioned in the indictment: September 2016 - GRU Conspirators’s continuing hack to gain access to DNC computers and obtain DNC campaign analytics. (this is in the GRU indictment). This could likely be tied to Stone’s own review of information provided by GRU. These analytics could have also been provided to the Trump campaign to help target those Bernie to Trump/3rd party voters that was a key focus of both the Trump campaign and the Internet Research Agency.
  • On October 1, Credico sent Stone a text message stating ‘big news Wednesday…now pretund u don’t know me. Hillary’s campaign will die this week.’ While that was a reference to rumors of a Wikileaks dump against Hillary Clinton, what makes the exchanges potentially significant from the standpoint of establishing a conspiracy are the follow-up exchanges on 10/2/16-10/3/16 as Credico appears to have inquired directly with Wikileaks as to a delay in the email drop, including an odd reference to ‘Off the record Hillary and her people are doinga. Full court press to keep Wikileaks rom making the next dump…that’s all I can tell you on this line…Please leave my name out of it.’ Stone appears to have let others know about his conversations with Credico.
  • In a very suggestive reference, on October 3rd, Mueller notes that Stone received an email from a reporter who had connections to a high ranking Trump campaign official who asked what Wikileaks information Wikileaks had. Stone responded that Wikileaks had good information and sarcastically stated that he’d tell the high ranking Trump campaign official directly but ‘he doesn’t call me back.’ This suggests that Stone and the Trump Campaign may have also been using media folks as cut outs, and as a means to get reporters to talk about it more. That sounds like a reference to Steve Bannon.
    - Not mentioned in this indictment: Donald Trump Jr had several Twitter direct messages with Julian Assange directly from at least mid September 2016 through the end of the campaign, and that Wikileaks messaging made it into Trump’s speeches (there were over 160 references by Trump to Wikileaks in the final month of the campaign).
  • In another damning passage, on or about October 4, 2016,

“STONE received an email from the high-ranking Trump Campaign official asking about the status of future releases by Organization 1 [WIKILEAKS]. STONE answered that the head of Organization 1 had a “[s]erious security concern” but that Organization 1 would release “a load every week going forward.”

This was followed by a text from the same high-ranking Trump campaign official to Stone stating ‘well done’ in relation to the Wikileaks release. October 7, 2016.

This is about direct inquiry and request from the Trump campaign during the time frame (Oct 4 – Oct 7) where NBC and later the Washington Post had obtained the Access Hollywood video. The Trump campaign would’ve undoubtedly learned about it. The Wikileaks drop was made on October 7th, the day of the explosive Washington Post video release and story on the Access Hollywood tape. The ‘well done’ reference may be evidence that campaign asked Wikileaks for the information to be released to help Trump ward off the worst of the Access Hollywood news cycle. Stone claimed credit for having correctly predicted the Oct 7, 2016 release, but he did a lot more than that. It seems that he conveyed a request from the Trump campaign to Wikileaks to release the information at a time when Trump needed to change one of his worst news cycles.

The next section of the indictment gets into Stone’s false and misleading testimony to Congress and his withholding of relevant documents. I’m not going to delve into that as we basically know this story: Roger Stone did his usual jiu jitsu of lies and bullshit and got caught because he left a paper trail. In addition, Stone committed witness tampering by attempting to prevent Randy Credico from testifying truthfully, often threatening him, counseling him to lie. These speak to Roger Stone’s own stupidity, and he will go to jail for a long time for it unless he can cut a deal of some kind. That said, he’s so unreliable that his value would only be if he had actual, documented or recorded evidence.

What is most relevant for the purposes of a conspiracy discussion it is his false and misleading testimony about communications with the Trump campaign. Stone was asked directly whether he discussed his various conversations with WikiLeaks, Corsi and Credico with anyone involved in the Trump campaign, any claim he did not. The truth is Stone spoke to ‘multiple individuals’ involved in the campaign campaign. This reference to multiple individuals indicates that it’s not just one High ranking campaign official. Stone spoke to Trump, Junior and many, many others. Press reports confirm a lot of this. Mueller only hints at it.

It is important to note that this is the first indictment which shows that the Trump campaign, at its highest levels, was both aware and desirous of tapping into Russia’s stash of stolen DNC/HRC emails. It wasn’t just a one off comment by Trump just talking smack to reporters. There was a constant almost droning desire for outside help, particularly from Russia. This indictment also demonstrates that Mueller has a lot of direct correspondence from the Trump campaign that pertains to this topic of emails, Wikileaks and the timed release of such material to help the Trump campaign, particularly with respect to ‘October Surprises’. Mueller could’ve received these documents through subpoenas and general requests, but I don’t think he would use or reference the for the purposes of seeking indictments unless he also talked to those involved in the communications to get more context, as emails can often be written in shorthand or code. It would seem to me that Steve Bannon is a source for Mueller and likely a cooperating witness. The only people who would make the decisions and convey the orders contemplated by this indictment are Donald Trump Sr., Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Eric Trump. This indictment basically points a target right at that group.

There are also other emails and correspondence from the pre-Bannon period which suggests another source. Perhaps Mueller got these from the seizures of Manafort, but this too feels like an actual cooperating witness on the inside. Now, this witness could be anyone with access, not necessarily persons with rank.

What’s needed to complete this conspiracy, in my view, are the following:

  • Specifics about the orders given by Trump high ranking campaign officials, and Trump himself. This information alone could create criminal liability for these officials due to crimes of concealment.
  • Formal tie-ins of Wikileaks/Assange to GRU. The GRU/Wikileaks + Wikileaks/Trump campaign cooperative understandings are separately clear. What’s needed are some tie-ins that confirm that Wikileaks was operating as a spearhead for a portion of GRU’s intel campaign against the US, that the Trump campaign knew of that relationship or a part of it, and that the correspondence, requests, analysis and expectations were based on those assumed relationships.
  • Formal indictment of the Trump campaign for conspiracy to violate the Federal Election Campaign Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
  • Identifying intersecting points among the threads. For example, a big one to me is that Kushner/Bannon/Parscale ran the social media campaign which for all intents and purposes appears to have been closely coordinated with the activities of the Russian entity, the Internet Research Agency (which is the subject of another indictment). Bannon and Kushner, therefore, knew what the Russians were doing on the social media front as well as on the hacking front. That knowledge and the willingness to encourage exploit what the Russians were doing for their own benefit

In short, this is a groundbreaking indictment as it involves an American tied to actual ‘collusion’ activities, but it also leaves many gaps to be filled.

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You can’t win a case if the prosecution refuses due process for discovery! Nothing will come of this because it means that Mueller would expose the entire cabal if he does! In the case with the Russian hackers he has delayed the case a speedy trial and has obfuscated the release of discovery based on state security BS! This is a big nothing burger designed as a diversion for leverage that the deep state is trying to get!

Epic analysis! DCLeaks was the original outlet slated to distribute the stolen information but the hackers were found out and kicked out on June 11th - 2 days after the tower meeting - and at some point after that they apparently made the decision to reroute most of the information to Wikileaks. I think that they knew they had been caught and that it would all be traced back to Russia at that time so they had to act quickly to try to break all the connections to Russia and find a way to place it all on Wikileaks.

Stone was always going to be the person who went through the stolen info to decide what was going to get published and when. All of them knew that the hacking operation was planned, the tower meeting was to discuss the success of it and how the distribution would be handled. It is interesting that two days after that meeting the hackers were caught in the system and kicked out, that suggests that there were eyes and ears in the meeting that informed the FBI/IC that it was occurring…

Come on…FBI should be embarrassed. 27 agents for one old man with no history of violence.

Hell I could have gone in and asked him to come with me myself…without sidearm.

No. it’s just more of corrupt federal goverment workers trying to justify their intimidation tactics.

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I waited two days to comment on this. I couldn’t sleep Friday night thinking about this. And I cannot ever not sleep. The last time i was this concerned is after i saw the smoke over the ocean off the Jersey Shore during 911.

A dozen and a half armed vehicles and almost thirty armed agents to take down a white collar old man and his deff wife. My God. What has happened to America?

As Southern said, we are f_____ed.

Was it overkill? Of course it was.

Is that evidence of corrupt federal govt workers? Nah.

Have you seen videos of US LEO’s breaking into doors at 6am? Dragging out some dude from his bed with a kid wailing? No knock-warrants? That sobbing kid killed while crawling in the hallway because he reached for his sagging pants?

If you’re going to treat street-criminals like dangerous maniacs, why not the white collar as well.

It’s a bigger problem than some made-up conspiracy about Mueller et al. Your law enforcement is nuts. Their use of force is OTT across the board.

And you have seen me speak out against those no knock warrants haven’t you? It has been my MO at other place for nearly decade and half.

As for corrupt federal employees…it’s throughout entire system and mental makeup of those agencies.

It’s why I’m one of biggest opponents against selling military grade hardware to police department…or for federal law enforcement agencies.

Oh BTW…I was a victim of a large drug raid back in early 80’s…shortly after I was married in Florida.

If you don’t already have it, add this story to your arsenal. This lady was shot by police who later planted drugs at the scene to ‘justify’ the no-knock warrant…that they executed at the wrong house.

Thankfully, the officers were tried and convicted, yet sentenced to relatively light sentences.

Note that at least one officer was carrying marijuana when the event took place. Why would an officer be carrying drugs on a drug raid? I suppose he had prior intent to plant it if there was none discovered.

The bell curve is alive and well among the police forces. In any large force, you will find a sleazy, lying, conniving, worthless son of a bitch.

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Well funny because if Mueller wants to go there then turn about is fair play! We can go into the multiple abuses relating to unmasking requests and the FISA abuse warrants! Yeah there were a lot and a lot of people should be going to jail! We can state with people like Samantha Powers, Susan Rice, John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey and many more who all lied to Congress should be held to the same standard! There shouldn’t be a law for “the” and another for “me’!

Oh come on. Standard operating practice for liberal Democrats. Look at what happened with Elian Gonzales. Or Waco. If anything, this shows exactly who is behind Mueller.

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Dam! That is some straight up railroading right there!

This does not appear to be someone who thinks they are guilty!

Horse hockey, somebody leaked.

The real reason! This is a must see video in order to help connect with the dots!

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Do you think Pence and his far right social values would appeal to enough moderates - both republican and democrat - to win a general election?

I’m not so sure.

Do you think the trump base transfers directly over to Pence?

I’m conflicted on that - on one hand, perhaps their loyalty requires it, On the other, the trump base is invigorated by rowdiness, tough rhetoric, irreverence…heck, his base seems to relish in his frequent lies…

Pence is not rowdy, or irreverent…unless calling his wife ‘mother’ is irreverent.

So, will they support a man like that?

The GOP house and senate has investigated this issues thoroughly and have not found any actionable offenses.

As has the DoJ, led by Trump appointees.