Mueller Indicts Roger Stone on Multiple Process Crimes
Sarah Sanders: “This has nothing to do with the president and certainly nothing to do with the White House.”
Special Counsel Robert Mueller has indicted Roger Stone, a former advisor to President Donald Trump, on seven charges, which include witness tampering, making false statements, and obstruction of justice. It’s important to note that he “is not accused of taking part in collusion with the Russian government or of taking part in the theft of emails stolen from Democrats.”
The FBI raided Stone’s home in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, early Friday morning and arrested him. It looks like someone tipped off CNN because the network had cameras at the scene.
Stone spoke after he posted $250K bond:
He told reporters and protesters that he will not testify against the president:
Speaking outside a federal courthouse on Friday as protesters jeered, Stone accused the FBI of terrorizing his wife and dogs during his early morning arrest, and said he expected to be “fully and completely vindicated.” He said he would not turn against the president as some of Trump’s other former aides have, saying there is “no circumstances whatsoever under which i will bear false witness against the president.”
Stone appeared briefly in federal court in Florida on Friday morning and was released on $250,000 bond. A handful of protesters gathered outside; one blared the Beatles song “Back in the USSR” from a speaker.
From Fox News:
The 24-page indictment alleges that Stone worked to obstruct the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election by making false statements to the committee, denying he had records sought by the committee and persuading a witness to provide false testimony.
The indictment does not charge Stone with conspiring with WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy website that published the emails, or with the Russian officers Mueller says hacked them. Instead, it accuses him of witness tampering, obstruction and false statements about his interactions related to WikiLeaks’ release.
The indictment says Stone spoke to Trump campaign officials during the summer of 2016 about WikiLeaks and information the organization had that might be damaging to the Clinton campaign. It also says Stone was contacted by “senior Trump campaign officials” to inquire about future WikiLeaks releases of hacked Democratic emails.
Reporter Yashar Ali tweeted that a source confirmed to him that the FBI raided Stone’s apartment in Manhattan.
A source told Bloomberg that the “high-ranking” official in the indictment is former advisor Steve Bannon. From The Wall Street Journal:
According to the indictment, on Oct. 3, 2016, Mr. Stone sent an email to a “supporter involved with the Trump Campaign” that read: “Spoke to my friend in London last night. The payload is still coming.”
That same day, a reporter at Breitbart, whose chairman was also Trump campaign chief executive Steve Bannon, emailed Mr. Stone to ask about Mr. Assange’s plans. The reporter asked, “What’s he got? Hope it’s good.” Breitbart isn’t identified by name in the indictment, but a person familiar with the emails confirmed the exchange.
Mr. Stone replied, “It is. I’d tell [Mr. Bannon] but he doesn’t call me back.” In the indictment, Mr. Bannon is referred to as a “high-ranking Trump Campaign official.” A person familiar with the emails confirmed his involvement in the exchange. Mr. Bannon’s lawyer declined to comment.
The next day, according to the indictment, Mr. Stone responded to an email from Mr. Bannon and told him that WikiLeaks would release “a load every week going forward.”
On Oct. 7, when WikiLeaks released the first set of emails on the same day that the Washington Post published the “Access Hollywood” tape recording of Mr. Trump making lewd comments about women—an associate of Mr. Bannon texted Mr. Stone: “Well done,” according to the indictment.
Zoe Tillman at BuzzFeed tweeted that prosecutors filed a motion to seal the indictment:
Here’s the motion prosecutors filed asking the court to seal the Roger Stone indictment: “Law enforcement believes that publicity resulting from disclosure … will increase the risk of the defendant fleeing and destroying (or tampering with) evidence” https://t.co/kf1h5LFU8V pic.twitter.com/wsJGmyHH0i
— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) January 25, 2019
Other reporters have tweeted out statements from Press Secretary Sarah Sanders:
Asked if Trump may have directed someone to contact Roger Stone about stolen emails, Sanders punts: “Look, I’m not an attorney. I haven’t read through that.” pic.twitter.com/gNi9g8JXDO
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 25, 2019
“This has nothing to do with the president and certainly nothing to do with the White House,” Sarah Sanders tells @JohnBerman, in what is the first reaction from the White House to Roger Stone’s indictment.
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) January 25, 2019
SARAH SANDERS says she is not aware of any heads up given by DOJ to the WH about Roger Stone’s indictment
— Saagar Enjeti (@esaagar) January 25, 2019
Here is CNN with its “exclusive” coverage:
A @CNN crew just happened be ready in Ft. Lauderdale at 5AM to cover Roger Stone’s arrest?
The Special Counsel’s office cleary tipped off CNN. This is beyond wrong.
— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) January 25, 2019
You don’t have to be a Roger Stone fan to be horrified by the stunt the FBI pulled off in conspiring with CNN this morning. The completely unnecessary raid is a routine that is straight out of a third-world police state. There is no defense of such an excessive show of force.
— Jordan Schachtel (@JordanSchachtel) January 25, 2019
CNN is playing the Roger Stone footage like he’s El Chapo or Osama Bin Laden
I guess innocent until proven guilty is just one of those things that only exists in movies
— Jack Posobiec ???????? (@JackPosobiec) January 25, 2019
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Comments
This must mean Mueller is getting closer on the list to indicting all those D’Rats who lied to Congress.
So what exactly is the crime here? That he had stuff on the Clintons?? Kinda like how the Clintons had stuff (admittedly made up) on then candidate Trump?
Im thinking that perhaps this is the wrong guy to go Third World dictator on given he isn’t likely to roll over like a Cohen or play meekly like a Finn. Im think this guy is going to sing like a canary about how he is being treated differently by an out of control government hack only interested in prosecuting one type of political opponent.
“The indictment does not charge Stone with conspiring with WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy website that published the emails, or with the Russian officers Mueller says hacked them. ”
And when was it established that the Dems were hacked at all? There are creditable claims that it was the DNC itself that leaked those e-mails. Has Mueller interviewed these people? No.
DNC Third party hired tech support made the determination from examining the DNC and Hillary Clinton bathroom email servers that the Russians did it and all Obama directed federal agencies were instructed to accept that finding.
Thank God the FBI has taken this monster off the street for us. I feel so much safer now that this monster is behind bars don’t you? After all he LIED to the vaunted FBI and our honorable congressmen !!!!! Thank you Mr.Mueller you’re my hero! Stop the world, I want to get off.
Or in the famous words of one James Traficant “Beam me up Scotty”
The organization is clearly wikileaks. Who are person 1 and person 2?
The FBI sent an armed SWAT team to Stones house in the wee hours to arrest him for a “process crime”. Oh, and they alerted CNN to the upcoming arrest. No deep state huh?
As deep here as it is in Caracas. Welcome to the New World Order.
The process crime approach appears to now be – and permanently so – the official modus operandi of both Mueller and the DOJ. How else can “Find the man, then find the crime” work?
Trump should have fired Muller long ago.
Yes, he should have. Which is why my well of indignation is almost dry. True, Mueller and his team are publicity hunting thugs out to pursue an agenda, but the President has the full power, authority, and duty to protect citizens from these thugs. He choose not to use it so I can’t get too perturbed at this nonsense anymore.
I really wanted Trump to take office and put out a massive bid for an intensive audit by one of the big renowned companies and swing wide with an ax down the halls of every federal agency. Trump really has been just hoping that entrenched swamp creatures will crawl off on their own. Trump needs to Drain the Swamp, Build the Wall and lock her up. As Sarah Sanders asks: When are these same standards now applied to Roger Stone going to be applied to Hillary, Clapper, Comey and all the rest?
I would love to see Mueller receiving quality time from a special prosecutor.
Obergruppenführer Müller is now directly in service jeopardy of bubba, having dropped his soap.
And not have hired William Barr as AG. Barr testified to the Senate that Mueller is an honorable man. If Barr has an IQ over 70, for making that statement he should also be indicted for lying to Congress. How long do we have to endure the thugs and Bolsheviks in that Deep State?
Or perhaps he knows his Shakespeare.
The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest—
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men—
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
Antony, Julius Caesar
Shakespeare is always worth reading (for a dead white man)
They really do want a war, don’t they?
Seems so.
When in the course of human events…
I’ve thought for a long time that Mueller is trying to goad Trump into doing something rash, like issuing pardons.
Did Justice Ginsburg die this morning?
No, she died a couple months ago, but the death certificate will not be issued until a
democratcommie is in the White House.We have a series of “crimes” committed after the initiation of the investigation. I wonder if the investigation will address those lying to the FISA court and Deep State misbehavior under color of authority? Considering the makeup of the investigating lawyers being Democrats … that is wishful thinking. Mueller should be chastised for continued (selective) leaks from his office.
I don’t think it will ever get that COLD !
Couple things pro and con on Stone story. First, all networks use freelance “runners” who exist for the sole purpose of providing video to media for a price. Unless somebody is wearing a CNN jacket, I’m reserving judgment on that.
On the other hand, a SWAT team raid at 5:00 am is beyond the pale. Stone had a lawyer who had Mueller’s phone number. This raid was unnecessarily heavy handed.
CNN said one of their producers was the guy there when this was happening. They were clearly given a heads-up.
After further review, the call on the field is reversed. There was a tip off or leak.
From what I read, CNN claimed that they had “noticed unusual activity at the Grand Jury” in DC. So in response they sent someone to Florida to watch Stones house. And if you believe that then well you’re hopeless.
Beyond the dawn SWAT raid where DoJ rules were likely violated by the leak to CNN, I thought that it was especially brazen starting out with the claim by Cloudstrike that the Russians had hacked the DNC server. Of course, anyone paying serious attention to this would know that it was an inside job, and not the Russians. The Mueller team knows this, which is why they started with the assertion that Cloudstrike had said that it was the Russians, and not that it actually was the Russians. No real evidence ever that it was the Russians, except the statement by Cloudstrike to that effect. They told the FBI, then refused their offer to examine the server and do their own investigation, then later making the contents of the server unrecoverable. They said “trust us, we worked with the FBI before”. And, the FBI miraculously did, intentionally ignoring that at the time, Cloudstrike was a contractor of the DNC, which was under operational control of the Clinton campaign, through control of its finances. The brazen part was flaunting this as the first paragraph of the foundation for the indictment. This was, in my mind, an admission that the entire Russian collusion investigation, including Mueller’s part of it, is basic ed in great part on lying to the FBI and destruction of evidence, that the investigators are studiously ignoring, in order to destroy Trump. Ask yourself this question – which lying and obstructions of Justice are of greater significance and effect – those by Stone here, or the ones by Cloudstrike that partially kicked off the Trump Russian investigations? Or really any of the other process crimes indicted by Mueller’s team.
Should have been:
“This was, in my mind, an admission that the entire Russian collusion investigation, including Mueller’s part of it, is based in great part on lying to the FBI and destruction of evidence, that the investigators are studiously ignoring, in order to destroy Trump.”
Excellent points.
Crowdstrike.
Mueller and his team are channeling their internal Lavrenti Berias. “Show me the man and I will show you the crime.”
Hillary Clinton has a lot to answer for and in a just world she would roast in Hell for her cry “The Russkis did it” after losing in 2016.
I suspect that Hillary has suffered greatly, trapped in her own irrational mind, seething that her place in history is to be known as the first woman to lose the presidency.
“I suspect that Hillary has suffered greatly,”
Not enough, but, Thanks President Trump.
so again, the interim DOJ head + FBI head Wray show their incompetence by allowing another night raid like this go unabated
you have to wonder if these guys are in cahoots with Mueller at this point and are letting him do whatever he wants unquestioned
then to make it worse THIS ALL getting leaked to a CNN crew?
bets – do you think they will even try to find where the leak came from?
LOL, they know who the “leaker” is, they directed it.
Allow me to politely dissent from this talk of “process crimes arising after the beginning of the investigation”. The crimes relate to the House investigation. Though I find it delightfully quaint that finally, after all these years since Oliver North, someone wants to enforce the laws against lying to Congress, that is only to say it is legally unimpeachable.
Mueller is able to do this because Roger Stone willfully and stupidly played games with his congressional testimony, refused to correct his testimony even once Mueller got his emails, and tried to get someone else to back up his words at variance with the truth. He brought this upon himself, and I dare say he did so deliberately. Best I can tell, he never once had any inside angle into Wikileaks, and any pretense to the contrary was a fraud he was committing upon the Trump campaign, political pundits, and the public. Congress grilled him; he did not come clean; here we are.
Any prosecutor with jurisdiction could have brought this case, and in a world where lying to Congress was routinely punished, any such prosecutor should. Mueller is willfully playing the bull, yes, but Stone is willfully playing the matador taunting him. Does the situation deserve our blaming the special counsel as having created a crime where it would not otherwise exist? I politely say it does not.
WHEN WILL WE SEE SWAT TEAMS AT THE HOMES OF :
comey, mcabe storczk, page, brennan, clapper………………..
LIARS TO CONGRESS ALL !!!!!!!!
I’ve been unkind to untruths and playing all kinds of games from the Hillary camp in my time commenting on this blog. I was unkind when I saw the games being played by Carville and President Bill Clinton back in the day. But, neither of these things clears Roger Stone. If they have the goods, and he would rather be indicted than correct his testimony, it’s ultimately his fault a 2000 lb bull is trampling him.
Where I would find fault is simply this: it’s not worth it. There’s nothing that establishes he had any inside knowledge into Wikileaks, or Russia, or much of anything else. I don’t know how throwing the entire book at him serves the interests of justice. I know painfully well how they serve the interests of politics, of course. It seems highly questionable they’ll get blood out of this Stone for their trouble.
Bad opening analysis, excellent closure: no blood from this stone.
And this Stone, if he learned from his colleague Manafort, has played a Sun Tzu knowing they would grab him, and I still question if it was Stone the player who tipped CNN here.
Much more to be revealed shortly.
Letting Stone know there was an armed raid on his home in advance would be such a ridiculously massive security breach that a little witness tampering in regards to congressional testimony would be vastly overshadowed by it. So, I don’t think so.
As for the “bad opening analysis”, was I too subtle? There must be legions of people that “lied” to Congress yet gone unpunished since Oliver North. I don’t think it’s right, proper or good that they walk away without even a rebuke. Yet, none of that makes Stone one tiny bit more innocent.
“have gone” unpunished. My late-night proofreading was amiss.
so then where is this same fervor from the feds or DOJ in prosecuting the previous administration after (most recently) testimony provided by Bruce Ohr where he basically said – “yeah many of us knew this dossier was unverified fiction”
where was IT when the Senate judicial committee recommended charges to be filed for 3 different parties who contested the Judge Kavanaugh hearings
that’s just 2 instances where it is quite obvious where only one half of the political spectrum seems to get prosecuted for these levy of crimes and the DOJ and feds turn a blind eye to even worse behavior by the other half
this is getting to the point where the bias within these departments is ever more infuriating to behold without consequence
you have an Inspector General who goes on record to say his opinion there is no fault at play when his report proves everything to the contrary
DOJ or FBI can’t be bothered to investigate
we get proof after proof from an outside party (Judicial Watch) of covert ops being run on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election and even afterwards during his transitional team
still no DOJ or FBI investigation
but a Roger Stone questionably misleads during a congressional hearing and that warrants a night raid?
ESPN does this segment called – cmon man!
Stone said that Mueller would indict him. He’s been saying it for months. If he was going to flee he had plenty of opportunities.
Exactly, they could have sent 2 agents to his house to arrest him and then sent in a forensics team. But instead the Mueller team needed something to make it look like they were actually doing something and decided to put on a big show and call in CNN to cover it.
Geraldo had a prior engagement
Anything to cover up the crimes Hillary and her campaign committed. Hillary and her cronies should be the ones looking out of crowbar motel windows.
The FBI agents who are not getting paid somehow found the time, money and manpower to pull off this high profile arrest during the shutdown. I wonder, if Stone was a Hillary guy, would they bother. Yes, that’s a rhetorical question.
When will Hillary and Bill’s door be broken down?
‘Process crimes.’ That’s DOG WHISTLE for the crime of orbiting Trump World. That’s it.
He would have showed with a phone call. The Govt. is shut down.
How much did this show of force cost in equipment and man hours?
“Reporters instincts” my (censored). He was *told* about the raid.
Also, since when has it become the FBI’s standard approach in a NON-violent arrest to have a dozen heavily armed and kitted out agents storm the house of somebody accused of a process crime and drag him off in irons at 6AM? (Just to have him post bail a few hours later and return home)
And thirdly, I’m just wondering. When somebody bangs on your door and bellows “FBI Warrant!” at 6AM, are you permitted to open the second floor window and ask, “Are you kidding? Let me put my pants on and I’ll be down in a minute. Can I see some identification?”
Some enterprising person needs to write an article/post describing, very specifically, the various democrats who lied to Congress or the FBI, and about what, and then describing what happened to them, and then describing the various republicans who have lied to Congress or the FBI, and about what, and describing what happened to them. If done properly, this would clearly demonstrate that Democrats have lied about important things (Clapper, Brennan, H. Clinton, etc.), but are never investigated or prosecuted, but Republicans lie about less significant matters, and yet are routinely investigated and imprisoned as a result.
The point of course being to demonstrate, with explicit/inarguable factual back up, that there are two different standards of justice being applied to democrats and republicans in this country.
The article/post should conclude by asking the question: Why should the average citizen feel the slightest bit of commitment to a system which is so obviously unjust and corrupted?
It might also be worth writing a separate article documenting the means/method the government has used to arrest the various Republicans (pre-dawn raids with heavily weaponed and armoured strike teams) versus how various notorious criminals (like John Gotti) have been arrested. (I hear they sent two men to arrest Gotti, and let him finish his espresso).
If I had the time, I would tackle this, but I don’t have the time.
There’s already a document in existence which addresses all of your concerns and issues
http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/document/
All doubt as to CNN getting the scoop from the FBI:
“Josh Campbell (born August 31, 1983) is an American journalist and analyst with CNN,[1] covering national security, crime, and justice issues.[2] He previously served as a Supervisory Special Agent with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation conducting national security and criminal investigations, including an assignment as Special Assistant to former FBI Director James Comey.[3][4]”
(From Wilki)
FBI chasing their own made up make believe “crimes” when they should be checking into these real crimes….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=705&v=VV0qIgwYqzc
The Abuse of VIP Military Travel by Pelosi & Rest of Congress–Using YOUR Tax Dollars
Just remember, the neverTrump tribal cabal including those that hang out here at LI have nothing bad to say about commie Mueller or the malignantly criminal FBI.