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