They got Roger Stone. Now what?
The 360 is a feature designed to show you diverse perspectives on the day’s top stories.
Speed Read
Who: Roger Stone, President Trump’s longtime political adviser and friend
What: The eccentric Republican operative, who served briefly on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, was arrested by the FBI at his home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., after being charged on seven counts of obstruction, false statements to Congress and witness tampering. He appeared in court later that day and was released on a $250,000 bond.
Outside the courthouse, a defiant Stone told reporters: “I will plead not guilty to these charges. I will defeat them in court. I believe this is a politically motivated investigation. There are no circumstances whatsoever that I will bear false witness against the president.”
Why: In the indictment, special counsel Robert Mueller’s office says Stone briefed “multiple” Trump campaign officials about the imminent release of stolen Democratic emails by WikiLeaks during the 2016 presidential campaign and then sought to obstruct a congressional inquiry into the matter. And when associate and radio talk show host Randy Credico publicly disputed Stone’s account to investigators (as first reported last April on the Yahoo News “Skullduggery” podcast), Stone lashed out at him and even threatened his dog, according to the indictment: “You are a rat. A stoolie. … Prepare to die [expletive].”
Stone said that any “error” that he might have made in his congressional testimony was “immaterial and without intent.” He also said that FBI agents who arrived at his home in the pre-dawn hours to arrest him “terrorized my wife, my dogs.” He later backtracked and acknowledged that the agency acted professionally.
What’s next: Stone, appearing in a Washington, D.C. court on January 29, pleaded “not guilty” to the charges against him. His next court appearance is scheduled for February 1.
Perspectives
Stone’s arrest shows the Mueller probe is ongoing, not wrapping up.
“Standing alone, the Stone indictment charges serious crimes. In context, it portends more charges to come.”
— Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade, USA Today
“If Mr. Mueller is indeed less interested in Mr. Stone than the potential evidence on his phones and computers, the conventional wisdom that the special counsel probe is wrapping up — and could issue a final report as soon as next month — seems awfully implausible. … We may ultimately look back on Mr. Stone’s arrest not as the beginning of the special counsel’s endgame, but the point when the investigation began to really heat up.”
— Cato Institute fellow Julian Sanchez, New York Times
“Although the conventional wisdom in Washington is that the special counsel is wrapping up, the Stone indictment shows he’s still steaming ahead. The indictment was such bad news for Trump that it was predictable that he would try to squash it with an even bigger story, his surprise agreement to end the government shutdown in three weeks, which quickly took the lead on most websites.”
— former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson, The Guardian
It just got a lot harder for Trump to argue “no collusion.”
“We have collusion between Stone and WikiLeaks about a crime, stealing emails, and between Stone and a Trump campaign senior official about that activity. We will see which characters, if any, committed which crimes. But the president is a hair’s breadth from being implicated in collusion (or knowledge of collusion).”
— Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post
“The indictment’s 24 pages offer one of law enforcement’s most thorough descriptions to date of how intimately Trump’s closest advisers worked with WikiLeaks and Russian-sponsored hackers during the 2016 campaign. The indictment also draws a very full portrait — via testimony, public statements, email and other evidence — of just how readily and actively the Trump campaign colluded with a foreign power in its bid for the presidency.”
— Timothy O’Brien, Bloomberg
“If Mueller believes Stone was ‘acting on behalf of the Trump campaign’ in seeking advance knowledge of coming dumps of information stolen by Russia to interfere in the election, it could pave the way for more criminal charges. … We can’t yet know the full legal significance of this latest news. But it’s obvious the notion there was ‘NO COLLUSION!’ is becoming tougher and tougher to sustain.”
— Greg Sargent, Washington Post
Actually, the indictment proves there was no collusion.
“It alleges no involvement — by Stone or the Trump campaign — in Russia’s hacking. The indictment’s focus, instead, is the WikiLeaks end of the enterprise — i.e., not the ‘cyberespionage’ of a foreign power that gave rise to the investigation, but the dissemination of the stolen emails after the hacking. And what do we learn? That the Trump campaign did not know what WikiLeaks had. That is, in addition to being uninvolved in Russia’s espionage, the Trump campaign was uninvolved in Julian Assange’s acquisition of what Russia stole.”
— Andrew McCarthy, National Review
“President Trump’s enemies are desperate to find something — anything — in the Mueller investigation that points to wrongdoing by Trump because they want to see the president impeached and forced from office. So far, nothing that has been made public is the ‘smoking gun’ they fantasize about that could show Trump engaged in any criminal activity.”
— Gregg Jarrett, Fox News
Stone must have made Mueller really angry.
“Stone was not afforded the customary voluntary surrender option usually seen in white collar criminal cases. Most likely, the raid was intended to send a clear message to other witnesses and potential defendants that witness tampering, a federal felony with a sentence of up to 20 years if it involves physical intimidation, will not be tolerated by the polite but tough former FBI director. … Whatever Mueller discovered enraged him enough to send a Navy Seals-like team to a 66-year-old man’s house at 6 a.m. Mueller really wanted to startle Stone – and anyone else thinking about witness tampering.”
— Paul Callan, CNN
The walls are closing in.
“To anyone keeping abreast of the unfolding events in the Mueller investigation, this level of sleaze is not at all surprising. The walls have been closing in for some time. As a key member of Trump’s inner circle, Stone and his course of conduct during the campaign and after have exemplified a culture of cronyism and corruption that ignored all ethical standards and rewarded fabrication over the hard truth of reality.”
— Former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, Washington Post
Stone’s arrest was appropriate.
“Law enforcement simply does not hand a summons to someone who threatens to kill a witness and trust that person to act responsibly with it. No conscientious prosecutor would think a summons appropriate there, or think that a threat to kill a witness is simply what targets of grand jury investigations routinely do. … Arresting Stone was lawful, appropriate and fully justified by his own words and conduct.”
— former U.S. attorney and senior FBI official Chuck Rosenberg, Lawfare
Does Mueller have more evidence?
“The raid on Stone’s home clearly made for great television, but the Stone indictment hardly makes for a great collusion case. Let’s be honest. After more than a year of investigation, Mueller nailed a gadfly on false statements, witness tampering and obstruction rather than illegal collusion with Russia. … This does not mean that Mueller cannot reveal a wealth of evidence of collusion that he will release in the final scene, like some Agatha Christie novel.”
— Jonathan Turley, USA Today
‘Anything but a ‘mere process’ crime
“What Stone allegedly has done is throw sand in the gears of efforts by Congress to learn the extent of Russian interference in a U.S. election. The possibility that a foreign government conspired with a U.S. presidential campaign to sway an American election has been staring us in the face for two years. Congress has no greater public responsibility than fully investigating this nightmarish prospect and taking all steps to prevent its recurrence. Efforts to undermine that imperative are sinister and serious, and anything but a ‘mere process’ crime.”
— former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman, Washington Post
