Things Not Said in Roger Stone’s Indictment: “Trump Directed” and Other More Damning Details
I’m a leading purveyor of the theory that Robert Mueller is producing his mythical “report” via one after another speaking indictments. That said, it has always been true that some of the most interesting parts of his indictments involved what didn’t get said. That’s especially true in today’s Roger Stone indictment. Before I explain what didn’t get said, let me review what got said. The indictment shows that Stone was asked to figure out what emails on Hillary Julian Assange had, and using at least Jerome Corsi and Randy Credico as go-betweens, Stone did so, providing information (most explicitly) to Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon. When Congress asked Stone about all this, he lied, first hiding any of his go-betweens, and then seemingly using Randy Credico to hide Jerome Corsi. Mueller provides a lot of the communications between Stone and his go-betweens and the communications from October 2016, as well as some of the ones from the cover-up period.
But he doesn’t provide us everything.
I have argued that the early morning raid, not to mention the larding on of charges, suggest this is an effort to get Stone to flip, both against Jerome Corsi (which is why Meuller locked in testimony from Corsi’s stepson yesterday) and Trump himself.
With that in mind, here are the things that Mueller doesn’t say.
With whom — besides Campaign Manager Steve Bannon — at the Trump Campaign did Roger Stone speak
The word “campaign” shows up 52 times in Stone’s indictment, of which (by my count) 7 are generic references, 16 are to Hillary’s campaign or a descriptor for John Podesta, and 29 are to Trump’s campaign or associates of it. The indictment describes Stone’s discussions with people on the campaign over and over. While a number of those are to identified individuals — most notably Steve Bannon — a number of those are generic, including the following references.
During the summer of 2016, STONE spoke to senior Trump Campaign officials about Organization 1 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.
[snip]
STONE also continued to communicate with members of the Trump Campaign about Organization 1 and its intended future releases.
[snip]
By in or around June and July 2016, STONE informed senior Trump Campaign officials that he had information indicating Organization 1 had documents whose release would be damaging to the Clinton Campaign.
[snip]
STONE thereafter told the Trump Campaign about potential future releases of damaging material by Organization 1.
It does so in an indictment that alleges (correctly, obviously) that one of Stone’s lies to the House Intelligence Committee that was material was whom he was speaking with on the campaign. The description of that lie cites the October 4 Bannon communication and the “supporter.” But it still leaves who else he spoke with unstated.
STONE’s False and Misleading Testimony About Communications with the Trump Campaign
35. During his HPSCI testimony, STONE was asked, “did you discuss your conversations with the intermediary with anyone involved in the Trump campaign?” STONE falsely and misleadingly answered, “I did not.” In truth and in fact, and as described above, STONE spoke to multiple individuals involved in the Trump Campaign about what he claimed to have learned from his intermediary to Organization 1, including the following:
a. On multiple occasions, STONE told senior Trump Campaign officials about materials possessed by Organization 1 and the timing of future releases.
And, of course, there’s this reference, which uses the word “directed” exactly a week after BuzzFeed got pilloried for using it about Trump.
After the July 22, 2016 release of stolen DNC emails by Organization 1, a senior Trump Campaign official was directed to contact STONE about any additional releases and what other damaging information Organization 1 had regarding the Clinton Campaign.
Mind you, this indictment had to have been approved in advance by Big Dick Toilet Salesman Matt Whitaker, and the last time he permitted prosecutors to name Individual-1 in an indictment, he got chewed out for it.
So maybe Mueller is not saying who else on the Trump campaign Stone was talking to (though we know he had frequent calls with Trump all through the campaign) to hide what else he knows. Maybe the Big Dick Toilet Salesman wouldn’t let Mueller lay this out (though I doubt that’s the case). Or maybe Mueller is just trying to avoid a second week in a row featuring headlines about what Trump “directed” his associates to do as part of the Russian conspiracy.
Corsi’s (and possibly Credico’s) role in the conspiracy
As I noted above, Mueller got aggressive with Stone to get him to flip on others. Obviously, the big prize is Trump. But there’s space for Stone to take his revenge on Jerome Corsi (and possibly even Randy Credico).
I suspect that Credico is not in any danger here. That said, he is described as a potential co-conspirator, Person 2, and did clearly discuss a conspiracy to obstruct HPSCI’s investigation. “‘Stonewall it. Plead the fifth. Anything to save the plan’ . . . Richard Nixon,” Stone wrote as he tried to persuade Credico not to testify to HPSCI.
There’s just one detail that makes me wonder if Credico was not fully truthful with Mueller. When Credico discussed Stone’s September request that he ask Assange about emails pertaining to Hillary’s efforts to undermine a Libyan peace effort with WSJ last year, he denied he had sent the request to either Assange or his lawyer Margaret Kunstler.
“Please ask Assange for any State or HRC e-mail from August 10 to August 30–particularly on August 20, 2011,” Mr. Stone wrote to Randy Credico, a New York radio personality who had interviewed Mr. Assange several weeks earlier. Mr. Stone, a longtime confidant of Donald Trump, had no formal role in his campaign at the time.
Mr. Credico initially responded to Mr. Stone that what he was requesting would be on WikiLeaks’ website if it existed, according to an email reviewed by the Journal. Mr. Stone, the emails show, replied: “Why do we assume WikiLeaks has released everything they have ???”
In another email, Mr. Credico then asked Mr. Stone to give him a “little bit of time,” saying he thought Mr. Assange might appear on his radio show the next day. A few hours later, Mr. Credico wrote: “That batch probably coming out in the next drop…I can’t ask them favors every other day .I asked one of his lawyers…they have major legal headaches riggt now..relax.”
Mr. Credico said in an interview with the Journal that he never passed the message on to Mr. Assange or his lawyers, but “got tired” of Mr. Stone “bothering” him, and so told Mr. Stone he had passed along the message.
The indictment says he in fact did forward the request to Kunstler.
On or about September 20, 2016, Person 2 forwarded the request to a friend who was an attorney with the ability to contact the head of Organization 1. Person 2 blind-copied STONE on the forwarded email.
That said, the indictment clearly remains silent about a lot of the details Mueller has incriminating Corsi in a cover-up (who, remember, prosecutors threatened to charge in a conspiracy to suborn perjury with respect to Stone’s testimony, and whose stepson Mueller locked into testimony before this indictment). The indictment includes this reference to a November discussion between Stone and Corsi.
On or about November 30, 2017, STONE asked Person 1 to write publicly about Person 2. Person 1 responded, “Are you sure you want to make something out of this now? Why not wait to see what [Person 2] does. You may be defending yourself too much—raising new questions that will fuel new inquiries. This may be a time to say less, not more.” STONE responded by telling Person 1 that Person 2 “will take the 5th—but let’s hold a day.”
But it remains silent on the report that Stone asked Corsi to write in August 2016 to establish a cover story, and it remains silent on whether Stone paid Corsi hush payments to stay silent after that.
Farage and Malloch and any other go-betweens
The indictment names Ted Malloch, though not as a co-conspirator.
On or about the same day, Person 1 forwarded STONE’s email to an associate who lived in the United Kingdom and was a supporter of the Trump Campaign.
[snip]
The body of the email read in part that Person 1’s associate in the United Kingdom “should see [the head of Organization 1].”
It doesn’t, however, put the Malloch references into context.
For example, it doesn’t reveal that — around the time someone “was directed” to get Stone to find out what WikiLeaks had — Stone and Alex Jones met with Nigel Farage at the RNC, which ultimately led to Farage joining Trump at a campaign event.
One night during the convention, Farage was introduced to Trump’s longtime adviser, the infamous political trickster, Roger Stone, at an Italian restaurant in The Flats district of Cleveland, according to both men.
Stone, who was accompanied that night by the Internet radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, said Farage’s main goal appeared to be to get a meeting with Trump.
The next day, Stone said, he tried to help by calling his former business partner, Paul Manafort – then Trump’s campaign chairman – and suggested that the Republican nominee get together with Farage. Manafort’s response was something along the lines of, “I’ll put a good word in,” Stone recalled.
Then, Stone met Ted Malloch — with Corsi — for dinner in NYC.
Asked about the nature of his relationship with Malloch, Stone said he did not know the other man well. He initially said he met Malloch three times but later said he recalled only two meetings with him.
Stone’s and Malloch’s first meeting was at a New York restaurant, Strip House, during the 2016 campaign. The two men dined with Jerome Corsi, a far-right political commentator and conspiracy theorist, Stone said.
Stone said his conversation with Malloch and Corsi at dinner was friendly but not memorable, and that they discussed “Brexit and globalism.” He added that they never discussed WikiLeaks, Assange, or Russia.
Stone, at least, is very sketchy about the timing of this, though it may actually precede when Stone asks Corsi to reach out to Malloch (indeed, might be the very reason he thought Corsi could get to Assange via Malloch).
That led to Farage’s campaign appearance with Trump on August 23.
Note, too, that the Stone indictment actually doesn’t say that Corsi is the go-between that Stone was hiding when he instead claimed Credico was his link to Assange. Indeed, of that go-between, he says he had only phone contact (though as I’ll write in a follow-up, that may have been for other reasons).
Particularly given Stone’s move to begin setting up a cover-story in August 2016, I’m not yet convinced we know who Stone’s real go-between is (and I’m still fairly certain that he and possibly Corsi had actual Podesta emails by then). He could have been working with Malloch directly. Or it could be someone else entirely.
Whoever it is, nothing in the Stone indictment tells us that for sure.
The Assange pardon
The Stone indictment is also silent about something that they have evidence — in the form of texts between Credico and Stone, surely among other things — that Stone tried to get Assange a pardon early last year.
In early January, Roger Stone, the longtime Republican operative and adviser to Donald Trump, sent a text message to an associate stating that he was actively seeking a presidential pardon for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange—and felt optimistic about his chances. “I am working with others to get JA a blanket pardon,” Stone wrote, in a January 6 exchange of text messages obtained by Mother Jones. “It’s very real and very possible. Don’t fuck it up.” Thirty-five minutes later, Stone added, “Something very big about to go down.”
The recipient of the messages was Randy Credico, a New York-based comedian and left-leaning political activist whom Stone has identified as his back channel to WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign—a claim Credico strongly denies. During the election, Stone, a political provocateur who got his start working for Richard Nixon’s presidential campaign, made statements that suggested he had knowledge of WikiLeaks’ plans to publish emails stolen from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, and other Democrats, and his interactions with WikiLeaks have become an intense focus of special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation into Russian election interference. As Mueller’s team zeroes in on Stone, they have examined his push for an Assange pardon—which could be seen as an attempt to interfere with the Russia probe—and have questioned at least one of Stone’s associates about the effort.
Particularly given that any pardon would have had to involve the one guy in the United States who can pardon Assange, it seems relevant to Mueller’s investigation. And yet it doesn’t show up in this indictment.
That’s something, then, that Stone could walk Mueller through as an effort to get rid of the 20-year witness tampering charge he faces.
Russia
Finally, the indictment remains mostly silent about Russia, particularly Roger Stone’s 180-turn on August 1 to claim that Russia may not have been behind the hack of the DNC. That’s all the more interesting given the way the indictment lays out the attribution to Russia made in mid-June.
On or about June 14, 2016, the DNC—through Company 1—publicly announced that it had been hacked by Russian government actors.
And then included Stone’s denial that Russia had hacked the DNC in his statement before HPSCI.
“These hearings are largely based on a yet unproven allegation that the Russian state is responsible for the hacking of the DNC and [the Clinton Campaign chairman] and the transfer of that information to [Organization 1].”
The indictment makes these two nods to attribution even as (as a number of people have observed) in their motion to seal Stone’s indictment, prosecutors deemed Stone’s indictment to be related to the GRU indictment, and his docket includes one of the DC AUSAs also on the Internet Research Agency case, Jonathan Kravis. (I’ve updated my running docket of Mueller and potentially related cases here.)
Remember, the GRU indictment describes (but doesn’t charge) Stone’s communications with Guccifer 2.0.
On or about August 15, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, wrote to a person who wasin 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.”
So prosecutors are saying that Stone’s crimes are more closely related to the actual Russian hack (which, remember, continued into September, after Stone deemed the DCCC analytics Guccifer 2.0 released to be “standard”) than they are to Flynn or Manafort or Papadopoulos or anyone else’s indictments.
Mind you, WikiLeaks appears as an unindicted co-conspirator in both the Stone and the GRU indictments, which may explain the connection.
But for some reason, Mueller thinks it important to note in Stone’s indictment that he pretended to believe Russia didn’t hack the DNC long after the hack had been attributed, without ever once mentioning that he had also spoken with the GRU persona dumping files.
Update: I’ve taken out the reference to Sam Nunberg, who says he’s not the person listed in this indictment.
Update: I’ve corrected this to reflect it was Jerome Corsi’s stepson who appeared before the grand jury Thursday. h/t AK
As I disclosed last July, I provided information to the FBI on issues related to the Mueller investigation, so I’m going to include disclosure statements on Mueller investigation posts from here on out. I will include the disclosure whether or not the stuff I shared with the FBI pertains to the subject of the post.
Uh huh, exactly. But it is there boiling below the surface nevertheless.
It seems straightforward to me: Russia to WikiLeaks to the Trump campaign by various couriers, with messages out loud on radio, even.
Marcy is a thermos of hot cocoa in the winter of our discontent…
Mm-mmm, good! Schadenfreudelicious, even.
Bonus: helps to fortify against the schaden-froid. Brrrr!
Pardon my ignorance on these matters but I have read several theories in the press that the lack of conspiracy charges and allegations indicates that the special counsel doesn’t have anything prosecution worthy re: conspiracy… but it seems to me that he is holding those cards close to his chest as part of a greater strategy… is this an interim effort to flip stone or is there a larger mostly invisible 3d chess game going on?
A lot of “the prosecution doesn’t have anything prosecution worthy,” bunk is wishful thinking by the president’s supporters in the MSM and is intended for his ears only.
To add to what EoH is saying, it’s worth referring back to the post on this blog pointing out that the evidence of Trump directing his team to lie has been public before the Buzzfeed piece, but the media wouldn’t say so.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/01/23/how-trump-directed-don-jrs-june-9-no-follow-up-false-statement-to-congress/
The evidence of conspiracy is already there, but the press is refusing to acknowledge it, and any reasonable analysis will conclude that Mueller has more than that, not zero.
Whether this includes more than the list of people already indicted, we can’t say for sure. But ruling it out seems like a much bigger stretch than acknowledging it.
It includes much more than what is already indicted. Much more. The clackers on TV and conservative media saying “yeah, but there is nothing really there” are dopes. There is a ton there in plain sight. And, apparently, these clacking heads have never experienced how old school prosecutors work the spokes to get to the hub of a complex conspiracy case.
It is sometimes laughable as to the willful ignorance about this. Greg Jarrett on Fox can be excused because, although a lawyer by degree and early practice as an associate, he doesn’t know jack and is only a TV presence. Jon Turley is a different matter, and he ought quit embarrassing himself.
we’ll find out in time…
Either flip Roger or see what evidence is in his home or at least get him to incriminate Corsi which will get to their success at hastening the WikiLeaks release in October. There are a lot of moving parts in that last conspiracy indictment and it’s the one that will cause Trump to melt down (bc Don Jr, at a minimum, will be named). One shot at the king, so make sure all the pieces are in place.
Several former prosecutors, including one of the guys who prosecuted Scooter Libby for false statements, said that indictment is as rock solid as they have ever seen. So that’s one of the easy ones. The conspiracy will be harder.
On KCRW’s Left, Right, & Center podcast (January 25th), Rich Lowry says:
“This is the strongest indication yet that there wasn’t any [snip] conspiracy or coordination with the Russians or Wikileaks whatsoever. What we know from this indictment is that senior Trump campaign officials were trying to get it from Roger Stone who was using a couple [sic] cut outs to try to get it. Which they wouldn’t have had to do if there was some deep conspiracy or coordination between the two.”
Based on your reporting, Marcy — I get that Lowry is a missing a key point that, contrary to what Lowry says here, evidence does exist that Julian Assange/Wikileaks coordinated the timing of the release of emails with the Stone/Corsi crew (per your comment: Either flip Roger or see what evidence is in his home or at least get him to incriminate Corsi which will get to their success at hastening the WikiLeaks release in October.)
But I am a little stymied about how to dismiss Lowry’s larger point – which is that why rely on Roger Stone (from whom Bannon wasn’t always even returning messages)? Wouldn’t part of the quid pro quo after the June 9th Trump Tower meeting have involved access to a better calibre of pass throughs than Roger Stone and those in his orbit? Or, even more directly as Rich Lowry says, wouldn’t the Russians have provided a better access route to the GRU hacked materials than one that depended on Roger Stone?
Couple of points. First, Lowry is a dope and would not be able to put all the parts together in terms of criminal conspiracy. Secondly, keep in mind how close Manafort and Stone are, and how far back they go together.
The Stone complaint simply drips of a larger conspiracy yet to be filed as an indictment. But, again, if he has discernible skills, this area of analysis is certainly not among them by Lowry.
This is Rich Lowry you’re talking about, a lifetime member of the right-wing news ecosystem. He has a vested interest in not understanding the conspiracy to defraud the U.S. underpinning Trump’s election — and in my personal opinion, members of Congress who received NRA money for the 2016 race.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” — Upton Sinclair
The entire conspiracy didn’t rely on Stone alone. Let’s not forget the Russian Internet Research Agency was at work on behalf of Trump beginning in 2015, possibly even as early as 2013. It pumped out content fluffing Assange’s image as a so-called whistleblower days before October 4, 2016.
Graphic in New Knowledge’s white paper submitted to Congress shows IRA’s posting activity across the three major social media platforms from 2012 to 2018.
This was part of the conspiracy, too; Lowry’s agenda isn’t to inform but to point to what he can portray as gaps in knowledge while ignoring the rest of the Russian machine which had been grinding away.
Welcome to emptywheel, by the way.
Let’s not forget the starbursts and happy leg the idiot Lowry famously got over Sarah Palin. Never forget.
Oh cheezits I forgot about his internet boner for the Snow Bimbo. Mind bleach, stat!
“One shot at the king, so make sure all the pieces are in place.”
Love this line – it really sums up the whole Mueller investigation. That would make a good title for the book about the investigation: “One Shot at the King.”
Thanks, Marcy, for all the very clear and detailed break-downs of the recent indictments and court filings. It’s invaluable work.
This, from Joyce White Vance seems to make a lot of sense to me:
Brilliant Marcy. Thank you so much for putting such a level headed review on these matters.
Nice to see you again here at emptywheel. Please be sure to use the same username each time you comment so that community members get to know you. Thanks.
“As I noted above, Mueller got aggressive with Stone to get him to flip on others.”
This is the one assertion I would question. Stone loves attention, the sense of being important, and the aura of martyrdom. Looking at him after his court appearance, he looked radiant, as if his every desire had been consummated.
I would guess that Mueller understands Stone’s psychology and would act accordingly. The one thing that would discomfit Stone would be a gag order.
As I was reading your comment I was thinking, “yeah, but wait until ABJ slaps a gag on him.”
He’s already arguably noncompliant with what the FL judge set. But ABJ will set a gag on him, I’m fairly sure, which he is constitutionally incapable of obeying. That almost got Paulie sent to jail. It might do so for Roger sooner rather than later.
I was thinking exactly that watching CNN last night. Gag orders ought be few and far between, but Stone is simply begging for one, and should be so obliged by ABJ.
Not much else would make Sir Roger look a victim in the eyes of the Base. If they only knew how few of them would be admitted even as gardeners in the community Sir Roger once enjoyed living in in Florida.
I don’t care, they can clack all they want. This is a case where it is appropriate.
What about Nevins (WSJ)
How Alleged Russian Hacker Teamed Up With Florida GOP Operative
Political consultant Aaron Nevins received documents from hacker ‘Guccifer 2.0’ and posted some on his blog
By Alexandra Berzon and Rob Barry
Updated May 25, 2017 11:33 p.m. ET
He has said he was just a witness and cooperated fully. I buy that. But he may implicate some GOPers in FL, which also happens to be Roger’s state.
Don’t know how fearless leader figures to get away with calling herself “a leading purveyor” of Mueller’s ‘report’ being in the form of talking indictments, when AFAIK she’s the Louis Vuitton of this bag line.
I’ve been reading in the tweetosphere how the 3 Stars of keeping current with the inexorable march towards tracking Trump and Putin to the same magic-fingered Motel 6 are the right irreverent Popehat, the tireless southpaw and our own fearless, and even under oath I’d agree; but in this company, emptywheel is Aramis (such is Popehat’s graceful self-effacement, I’m sure he’d admit to Porthos) & indeed serves in the roles of BOTH Aramis & d’Artagnan – gifted with the skill of coaxing delicious feuilletines from feuillettes feuill of feuilletons.
Eh, that is fine company and both good friends of this blog and the people here (especially Ken). We’ll take that.
Very fine company indeed.
From southpaw, I just learned (“Maybe I’d read it / Maybe I’d forgot” ~ Randy Newman) that the case of US v Roger Stone has been assigned to Judge John Sirica … uh, check that: Judge Amy Berman Jackson.
THe equivalent would be Beryl Howell, who will one day approve of sharing the GJ report with HJC, wouldn’t it?
At this point, anything out of Mueller’s shop filed in DC should go to ABJ. District clerks should be about efficiency (especially when they were, at the time, running out of money to operate). And they generally try to be. The assignment makes sense.
Folks, it isn’t about 3D chess and it’s not a game. It’s about investigating and then bringing cases to trail which is a long, mostly boring, process. There is no magic. Mueller doesn’t sit back in his chair all day thinking of strategy or the next move. Sure, he’s methodical, but so is any senior prosecutor. And yes, he has evidence the public doesn’t but lets not get carried away assuming what that evidence is. It might be fun to think about, but please don’t carried away. Marcy’s breakdowns always do a good job parcing what’s real and what’s imagined and that’s what I appreciate about her.
These breakdowns look exactly like Glenn Beck blackboard art. Except with facts.
I take constant comfort that so many bad actors in this conspiracy are so vocal that the OSC “knows everything.” Like allowing desperate gamblers to repeatedly bet everything against the house.
Expect the MSM to now suddenly recall, “Oh, right! The DNC hack!” Rudy set up for this last week when, despite all the focus on real estate, he claimed the only possible crime would be Trump himself personally typing malicious code into a command line from the Kremlin basement. (I paraphrase.)
The other background event very conspicuously omitted from Mueller’s narrative in this indictment is the Trump Tower meeting. The blow-by-blow timeline doesn’t really pick up until July 22. All of the language about communication earlier in the summer is notably cagey, and that is where I would expect the most damning evidence of collusion to show up.
Also, two other crimes not charged: pathetic opsec, and 2 counts of pop culture malappropriation (Godfather II, Wizard of Oz).
i thought it interesting the indictment came from Stone’s congressional testimony, which i understood was kept from Mueller when the Republicans controlled the committee. If Mueller got this testimony only since the Democrats took control of the House, and then issued these charges so rapidly, is this quickly organized indictment significant?
No. There is a difference between Mueller having a certified transcript and knowing what happened short of that. Do not mistake the two.
What access would he have had to the gist of the testimony in advance of transcripts?
Oh, would have known the gist of it, but you want an official transcript to go to the GJ.
Understood. Thanks.
The case is building for June 14th to be the key date in this caper. 5 days after Trump Tower meeting with Russians and the day Cohen canceled his Russia trip. And Marcy writes, “That’s all the more interesting given the way the indictment lays out the attribution to Russia made in mid-June.”
Lanny Wiles is the missing link according to an article called:
Who is Lanny Wiles? by Terry J Clark
Ties together the June 9 Trump Tower meeting plus Rohrbacher. Says Wiles was working against the Magnitsky Act.
From 2 years ago is the only “date” I see. Don’t know credibility of source. Trump-Russia.com
CNN had this about Bryan Lanza (former sr. campaign aid to DT) and reducing Deripaska sanctions thru EN+
Former Trump campaign aide is helping Russian firm shed sanctions
By Sarah Westwood and Sara Murray, CNN
Updated at 8:05 AM ET, Mon May 14, 2018
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/12/politics/washington-lobbying-trump-era/index.html
Great reporting! And bmaz is right up top—to
support a lying to Congress charge (which btw is always a crime, whether you’re under oath or not—contrary to what some pundits are positing) Mueller needed the official transcript, which the Nunes-led Rs were burying.
A mighty power is the willful delusion of Trump defenders, high and low. Jonathan Turley has a piece at USA Today about how this indictment is a big disappointment for liberals’ Trump impeachment fantasies because there’s nothing about Russia collusion in it and it’s just about more “process crimes.” (The guy is a law professor at a major university!) And the reader comments are dripping with “lol another mueller nothingburger” type comments.
I know this is a major “duh!” observation at this point, but I still just can’t stop being amazed. How do more or less functional human brains do contortions like this?
Confirmation bias is a powerful self delusional process, Yohei!
To harp on my point further… One rank and file Trumpist’s contribution to Turley’s analysis: “explain why Trump would need Stone for this information if he was colluding with Russia?”
Apparently this guy thinks “to collude” means “to communicate telepathically with.”
I’m sorry if this is beneath the level of discussion that belongs here, but… I just had to dump it somewhere before it rotted my brain from the inside.
It was interesting how the reporting today inflected from “this isn’t a speaking indictment” to “this is a speaking indictment of a conspiracy that hasn’t yet been charged.” The specificity of Stone’s requests, in particular, didn’t need to be in the indictment, but were there anyway.
I’m not sure that it’s a built-to-flip indictment. I think it anticipates a Manfortian trajectory — that there may be a superseding, and that Roger the Ratfucker will dick around any “cooperation” he tries to finagle. I do think it sends a very big signal to people within the campaign who were either hacked-email-curious or Wikileaks-curious, especially those who have already sat down with a congressional panel.
Agree he’s more likely to get into trouble and then get a superseding than cooperate, bc he’s a shithole and thinks pardon is his win. But I still think the unspoken here is really really interesting, especially that it’s being treated as a related case to the GRU indictment.
Oh, I completely agree that the unsaids matter more here than the saids. Mueller has now unpeeled the onion to include the penumbra of the campaign, bootstrapping all the way: GRU to “a person who was in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign” (Stone) and Organization-1, now Stone to Organization-1 and the campaign.
As you say upthread, there aren’t many intermediary layers before Mueller has to come at the king, or at least the inner court. Perhaps to US actors in Florida extending from the GRU or IRA indictments, perhaps foreign entities or dirty influence peddlers during the transition.
Or: who in the inner court might be split out from the family and tossed overboard by them? If Mueller has receipts on Parscale doing more than promote Wikileaks from his iPhone then maybe him, but Parscale has bound himself to the family as the 2020 campaign manager.
do not have an American legal back ground dealing with these matters, as I read the first part of the post, yes there are lots of referances to “campaign”. Perhaps it is Mueller’s intent to wrap up the “campaign” as an entity and charge it, as if you would charge a corrupt organization…or it maybe he is sending a message by repeating the word.
Everything I’ve seen about Mueller speaks of “deliberate” so if something is “missing’ its deliberate.
Stone is a very strange person and he has an “act”. its about to fall apart. don’t know how much he drinks now, but its going to increase.
I’m glad you are following-up on the go-betweens sketchiness, because it never made sense to me. And in the indictment, it’s almost like there’s some parallelism set up between ~ Corsi (Malloch) vs ~Credico (info given to Kunstler).
From para. 17, where an associate of [Bannon’s] texts _Stone_ to say “well done” after the Oct 7th WikiLeaks Podesta dump: isn’t that clear campaign conspiracy? Especially given prior cited communications, and hypothetically even if Stone didn’t know or signal to any campaign officials that it would be specifically re Podesta. While that para. ends by focusing on Stone taking credit, the campaign (or Bannon associate) _gave_ him credit. That “well done” stands out like the “was directed” part, like they are completing the circuit.
Para.13 a. (repeated in 23 a and 30 a): ~ July 25th Stone tells Corsi to get to Assange and get the emails- and says they are about the Foundation “allegedly.” Where did Stone get this idea- I don’t remember-from whom/how was this alleged?
On 7/15/16, Politico writes:
The bold above links to the following 6/21/16 article: Trump accuses Hillary Clinton of laundering State Dept. money to Bill
More info about the above from Media Matters here: GOP Lawmakers Latch Onto Fox’s Unsubstantiated Claims About A Clinton Foundation Investigation 7/19/16
One 7/6/18 example from FOX News, Hannity:
Fox’s Eric Bolling And Giuliani Baselessly Speculated On “Investigation” At Clinton Foundation.
On 7/26/16 Media Matters reported:
The Trump Campaign Is Paying A Fox News Analyst $13,000 A Month Fox News continues to employ contributor Walid Phares while Donald Trump’s campaign pays him $13,000 a month. Phares regularly appears on the network to boost Trump on foreign policy issues. […] During a June 17 appearance on Hannity, Phares called for an investigation into the Clinton Foundation’s finances and said Clinton’s foreign policy “concerns me.”
**
On 8/10/16 Media Matters reports:
Running With Judicial Watch’s Storyline, Media Manufacture Another False Clinton Email Scandal Media are rushing to promote a new email dump from the conservative group Judicial Watch that they suggest, in the words of The New York Times, shows that the Clinton Foundation “worked to reward its donors with access and influence at the State Department” under Hillary Clinton. But a closer look at the Judicial Watch emails suggests there is far less to the story than it appears and brings into question the conclusions the Times and other outlets have inferred from the newly released emails. Indeed, the very details that undermine those conclusions are frequently included in the reports themselves. […]
**
On 8/19/16 Media Matters writes:
Roger Stone Confirms That He’s In Communication With Julian Assange From an August 8 speech to the Southwest Broward Republican Organization: [video] Transcript:
[quote] QUESTIONER: With regard to the October surprise, what would be your forecast on that given what Julian Assange has intimated he’s going to do? // ROGER STONE: Well, it could be any number of things. I actually have communicated with Assange. I believe the next tranche of his documents pertain to the Clinton Foundation but there’s no telling what the October surprise may be. [end quote]
CNN had a contributor, old white haired guy, always sat in front of flags in his home office, who it was revealed was also getting a paycheck from Trump. Eventually they ditched him. I don’t recall his name or whether this happened before and/or after the election. Do you remember him? Affable enough guy who always came up with lame excuses in defense of Trump, no matter what.
Do you mean Newt Gingrich?
Fox News Suspends Contributor And Potential Trump Running Mate Newt Gingrich
July 12, 2016 Fox News has suspended Newt Gingrich from his contributor position “effective immediately” while he jockeys to be Donald Trump’s running mate. […] Gingrich’s media career has been marked by egregious ethical violations and outrageous commentary. He has also repeatedly scammed subscribers to his email list with warnings about the Illuminati and promises of miracle cancer “cures.”
Maybe not…no flags.
No, he was thin and pale and kinda vampire-looking. But I suppose that describes like 99% of them. This was on CNN, though, not Fox.
Jeffrey Lord.
Yes, thank you and Eureka.
Jeffrey Lord?
Today, again, people are wondering how Sean Hannity [see bolded, above] may fit in. ie: Kurt Eichenwald:
Marcy wrote about that, 4/17/18, here, after Michael Cohen named Sean Hannity as his mystery third client:
IT’S NOT HANNITY’S PEE TAPE THAT MATTERS
Remember the fake Hannity account, where supposedly Assange mistakenly messaged Hannity about dirt on Warner?
US lobbyist for Russian oligarch visited Julian Assange nine times last year
It is unclear whether Adam Waldman’s 2017 visits had connection to Oleg Deripaska
Adam Waldman was/is(?) a lobbyist for Deripaska. He also served as counsel for Sergei Lavrov. The article says Waldman has connections with ‘Democrats’ on Martha’s Vineyard. I wonder if that means Dershowitz, who whines about party invites on the island. It’s all very coincidental how everything leads back to Deripaska. It’s not even 6 degrees of separation, like Kevin Bacon, it’s closer.
@ harpie- a million thanks, I am still reading, and I am a little slow today. So is the implication that he got the idea from RWNJ circles, but source is unknown?
Or- better phrased- _their own RWNJ_ circles, i.e. somewhere in the swill of the conspiracy. Toldya I was slow today.
While searching Politico for the 7-15-16 article, I came across this old gem from 4-18-14, working the program early:
Blackburn: Clinton won’t be first female POTUS – POLITICO
I’m now thinking of this differently than when I posed the question. I then wondered if there was a discrete source for Stone’s supposition to Corsi about what WL had, whether unknown or maybe someone like Guccifer 2.0 (and maybe that was it, or maybe it was any of the other figures and or their sources e.g. cited in the articles harpie posted, etc.).
But now I am framing it – with some additions, into a narrative- as I’d ~thought in the past, as if (specifically) Clinton Foundation emails were RU’s dangle equivalent to Trump Tower Moscow- i.e. promised and wanted badly, but never gonna happen. (In any case, if RU had such info, they may well have never shared it with WikiLeaks). So the frothy right kept on (re)building that case, in anticipation of emails like that. Then they had to change course when Corsi relayed the new plans.
Perhaps CF emails were implied or instead directly requested as the form of ‘dirt’ on Clinton. Maybe there was info implying same- or with contacts to imply same- in the folder Veselnitskaya left behind. Or perhaps instead campaign officials made direct requests- besides what they were broadcasting in plain sight through speeches, Fox, and other media (see e.g. harpie’s links).
So maybe Stone got his ‘allegedly’ from deals and talk swilling post-Trump Tower meeting, affirming where the campaign had wanted to go pre- Trump Tower Meeting.
That would explain why Corsi and Stone didn’t revive the dormant Mercer-sponsored Schweizer GAI report until August, after Corsi got course-corrected. i.e., it wasn’t some iron _they_ had in the fire, it was not _their_ plan all along.
Put another way, Stone ~ July 25th tells Corsi to get the emails, allegedly Clinton foundation ones. Stone maybe even said that as a way of asserting what he had wanted and planned for, rather than as a given (like how e.g. he talked campaign turn-out data with Guccifer- ~~ meh, routine (I want something else)). Corsi comes back on August 2nd to correct Stone: ~ No, it’s going to be about Podesta and sick Hillary. And so their plans change, because RU and WL have the upper hands here (regardless of who has what actual email content).
It’s always bothered me, the degree to which Stone harped on Clinton Foundation mails (in light of what we know came to pass). I had thought of it as ‘placeholder’ talk, a conspiracy to push while they awaited ‘actual’ dirt. But maybe it was part of a suckers’ deal they had negotiated.
I also think of these things as ~ methodological whataboutisms in parallel. The original plan was to “expose” candidate HRC as having a corrupt foundation, when Trump has the corrupt foundation. Then the plan changed (back*) to exposing HRC’s campaign manager’s Russia ties, when Trump had the campaign manager with RU ties.
*I obviously can’t get into all of the details in a comment, but here I refer to Marcy’s posts on the evolution of the GAI report —>>> Podesta accusations. And back in March, Cruz (the Mercer- supported candidate) was still viable. When Trump became the nominee, the initially-desired dirt changed.
Thanks again, harpie, for responding to my Q- it ultimately changed how I am putting together certain things.
*”negotiated” (haha). * other typos and thinking-aloud-eses.
This. They literally could not imagine anyone NOT doing the corrupt things they do. And since [in their view] the Clinton’s did these corrupt things, then there must be evidence…somewhere!
The truth IS out there! don’t you know?
Plus they had to preemptively make the public imagine that others (HRC) did what they actually did. Fill the story-hole.
Assholes. Ooops,Ratfuckers!And they succeeded.
See the 8/10/16 Media Matters article above: Running With Judicial Watch’s Storyline, Media Manufacture Another False Clinton Email Scandal
* link to: Meet Judicial Watch, A Driving Force Behind The Clinton Email Story That Keeps Duping The Press October 2, 2015
Here’s something that I had forgotten, but it is probably locked in Marcy’s brain. Steve Bannon, Jeff Sessions and Nigel Farage had already met in 2012, working on a far right strategy in Europe.
It also makes Sessions a likelier candidate for early cooperator? (per Flynn’s influence in turning witnesses)
Found it! From
Timeline: Roger Stone and His Interactions with Wikileaks, Russia, and More Ryan Goodman and Laura Rozen November 28, 2018
7/25/16 Stone-associate Charles Ortel emails then Fox News correspondent James Rosen and Fox’s Judge Andrew Napolitano, blind copying Stone, with the subject line: “Fox London needs to meet Assange.” Rosen replies: “”Am told Wikileaks will be doing a massaive dump of HRC emails relating to the CF in September.” Ortel says he forwarded Rosen’s email to Stone.
Here are the two references to 7/25/16 from the Stone indictment:
7/25/16 STONE sent an email to [Corsi] with the subject line, “Get to [Assange].” The body of the message read, “Get to [Assange][a]t Ecuadorian Embassy in London and get the pending [WL] emails . . . they deal with Foundation, allegedly.”
7/25/16 Corsi forwarded STONE’s email to an associate who lived in the United Kingdom and was a supporter of the Trump Campaign [Malloch].
Thank goodness, this was driving me nuts. But I am still glad to have gone the round-about route, because of the shift in thinking about certain aspects of the whole mess.
Jamison Maher says:
January 25, 2019 at 4:04 pm
Chuck Rosenberg, after hearing this theory from someone else on the panel (don’t recall who), postulated that it is possible that the conspiracy may not be a single, organized, or centralized one, but separate, multiple and distinct conspiracies operating simultaneously. (paraphrased) I did not take this as a theory that he was married to, but rather tossing out possibilities in response.
I still wonder how the larger network of international contributors like SCL, Cambridge Analytica, PYS, Black Cube and others fit into it. Maybe they were ‘legal’ activities or maybe they remain as national security issues. But I still feel uncomfortable with the fact that some now work as contractors for the US Gov’t (not linking, see Chris Vickery on twitter if interested).
Marcy: I didn’t catch all of it, but nice job on Chris Hayes’ last night. Unimportant question, but I’m fascinated by the background they choose for remote contributors, do you get a choice?
Not related, but I read this AM that TSA agents will only get a week’s back pay, which is sad. But kudos to Nancy Pelosi for stopping the shutdown: that is a relief for many. If it went on any further it would have been catastrophic. (or more catastrophic than it already was)
While the focus has been on the core campaign imbroglio, I, too, have been wondering about what, if anything, exists concerning the campaign’s coordination and use of illegal info (Wikileaks, Cambridge, SCL, even direct-from-Russia) for use in online marketing campaigns. Wondering if Mueller will ultimately provide insight?
DT camp/Russia collaboration on campaign metrics, targets and timing should form one of the central themes of the conspiracy. That and the quid pro quo; election assistance in exchange for sanction relief, policy gifts, tower deal etc.
I expect we shall discover the DT go-between coordinating data crunchers like Cambridge Analytica, and the GRU team/Russian trolls. Various parties have may not known who was all in involved.
great analysis of the dogs that barked and those who didn’t in Mueller’s super well writ Stone indict.
We get, like you say, “One shot at the king, so make sure all the pieces are in place.” worrisome..
I foresee terrible trouble coming right up –mainly because it sure does look like a lot of the pieces are already in place and this “king” is not going to sit on his hands.
@ harpie- a million thanks, I am still reading, and I am a little slow today. So is the implication that he got the idea from RWNJ circles, but source is unknown?
@ Trip- sounds like you are talking about Jeffrey Lord
Marcy, I think the link to the article about Stone meeting Malloch in NYC is not correct. It probably should be:
A ‘significant figure’ linked to Roger Stone has been compelled to testify in the Russia probe as Mueller homes in on the DNC hack https://www.businessinsider.com/mueller-subpoenas-ted-malloch-to-testify-in-the-russia-probe-2018-3 3/30/18
ew: “Particularly given Stone’s move to begin setting up a cover-story in August 2016, I’m not yet convinced we know who Stone’s real go-between is (and I’m still fairly certain that he and possibly Corsi had actual Podesta emails by then). He could have been working with Malloch directly. Or it could be someone else entirely.”
Is this connected to this [p.16]:?
1/6/17 [Credico] sent STONE an email that had the subject line “Back channel bs.” In the email, [Credico] wrote, “Well I have put together timelines [] and you [] said you have a back-channel way back a month before I had [Assange] on my show . . . I have never had a conversation with [Assange] other than my radio show . . . I have pieced it all together . . .so you may as well tell the truth that you had no back-channel or there’s the guy you were talking about early August.”