The 10 Most Important Takeaways From Mueller's Roger Stone Indictment

President Trump’s longtime advisor, Roger Stone, was indicted by Robert Mueller and the special counsel today. While the specific criminal charges Stone faces are all related to lying to congress and obstructing the investigation, the indictment spends the first nine pages detailing what can only be described as collusion.

In Paul Manafort’s own words:

”Roger’s relationship with Trump has been so interconnected that it’s hard to define what’s Roger and what’s Donald.” pic.twitter.com/w1C6aAXAbh

— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) January 25, 2019

This indictment could not make it clearer that there was communication between the very top of the Trump Campaign and Wikileaks—all facilitated by Roger Stone's universe of shady characters. Here are the ten biggest excerpts from Robert Mueller's 24-page indictment.

1. “Senior Trump Campaign officials” are wrapped up in Roger Stone's mess with Wikileaks

Organization 1 is definitely Wikileaks, given that Stone tweeted things during the 2016 campaign like “Wednesday, Hillary Clinton is done #Wikileaks.” Jay Sekulow, counsel to the president, released a statement that is betrayed by this allegation by Robert Mueller and the special counsel (and others below), saying “The indictment today does not allege Russian collusion by Roger Stone or anyone else. Rather, the indictment focuses on alleged false statements made to Congress.”

2. Roger Stone is indeed in hot water over lying to congress…over what's detailed in #1

3. More “senior Trump Campaign officials” involved in Wikileaks shenanigans

4. Who directed the “senior Trump Campaign official” to contact Stone about Wikileaks?

5. Stone was asking Wikileaks to release documents that would confirm the Trump campaign's narrative

6. More evidence of collusion between Wikileaks and “high-ranking Trump Campaign officials”

7. Given the wealth of information detailed in the previous six excerpts, this lie is incredibly brazen

8. Steve Bannon is implicated in collusion

We don't know how implicated he is, but this passage is an e-mail exchange between Stone and “the high-ranking member” of the Trump Campaign, and we can confirm that thanks to reporting by the New York Times on this exact e-mail.

The question now becomes, is “the high-ranking member” of the Trump Campaign in this passage (Bannon) also the same as “the high-ranking member” in some of the incredibly damning previous passages?

9. Stone referenced The Godfather in trying to convince Person 2 to mislead congress

Person 2 is almost surely Randy Credico, whose dog was threatened by Stone in a subsequent e-mail.

Here's Randy Credico with his dog, Bianca, who is mentioned in the Stone indictment pic.twitter.com/mmuJDIpyl6

— Betsy Woodruff (@woodruffbets) January 25, 2019

10. Here is everything that Roger Stone is currently charged with

Just to recap where we stand now: Trump’s lawyer/fixer (Michael Cohen), Trump’s Campaign Chairman (Paul Manafort), Trump’s National Security Advisor (Michael Flynn), Trump’s Deputy Campaign Manager (Rick Gates), and a foreign policy advisor (George Papadopoulos) have all been found guilty or pleaded guilty, while Trump’s longest serving political adviser (Roger Stone) and Trump transition Congress liaison (Rep. Chris Collins) have been indicted. But sure, this is all one big witch hunt.

Jacob Weindling is a staff writer for Paste politics. Follow him on Twitter at @Jakeweindling.