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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRoger Stone's downfall isn't the fault of Mueller. It's the fault of Stone's arrogance.
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/01/criminal-attorney-says-roger-stone-death-wish-poking-mueller-eye-come/The only thing that he did that was illegal was lie to Congress, Lauro continued. And he had no reason to do that. He could have gone into Congress and said, I did all this stuff. I tried to reach out to Assange. I tried to find out what these emails were about. I even told the campaign about it. Nothing is improper or illegal.'
The House committee was headed by Republicans.
Stone knew that they would never hold him accountable for lies.
So he didn't bother to make the conscious effort to tell the truth.
empedocles
(15,751 posts)FakeNoose
(32,917 posts)I'd say the chances are pretty good. Cheeto was already on the "No Collusion" bandwagon when Stone testified to the House committee. If Stone had testified he was in contact with Wikileaks and a go-between for the Trump campaign, it starts looking like collusion after all.
DinahMoeHum
(21,839 posts)Stone is an arrogant fuck who thinks he can outsmart everybody, including Mueller.
Thing is, I doubt there's anything valuable he can give to Mueller that Mueller doesn't already know. He is not somebody whose testimony would be critical for any one case; and in any event, given his past behavior, he would be a most unreliable witness for any prosecutor.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/no-escape-for-roger-stone-muellers-case-is-a-slam-dunk-and-hes-too-slimy-to-get-flipped
Claritie Pixie
(2,199 posts)1. They do whatever they want whenever they want - hurting people and law-breaking are part of their game.
2. They are always victims and never take responsibility for their actions, no matter how egregious, even when caught red-handed.
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)And that's because he probably knew all along (thanks to Junior informing him of the Trump Tower meeting) that the provenance of this information was RUSSIA. Mueller may or may not have proof of that, but Stone himself knew it was so, BUT didn't know what Mueller knew, so ... he just went the lying route.
He also probably knew that he really crossed the line by ASKING for a specific release (one of the bits of evidence in the indictment shows him specifically asking if Wiki had info on a particular Anti-Clinton August 2016 news story, and if so could they release it) because in so doing, he was in effect soliciting the release of KNOWN STOLEN documents.
The fact that he continued to solicit information from Wiki in general AFTER the early Oct 2016 announcement by the Obama admin, backed by unanimous assessment from 12 Intel services, that RUSSIA was behind Wiki's data ... means he absolutely should have known that at MINIMUM, a campaign financing crime was taking place every time this data was released IF it could be shown that the Campaign was involved.
Which it OBVIOUSLY was ... in fact, I'd argue that by Trump's leveraging this information in public, saying things implying Hillary was 'unfit' when expecting Wiki to soon drop stolen docs saying that very thing ... violates Campaign Finance laws even if it the info didn't come from Russia, but becomes more illegal if it did, and you had reason to believe it did.
I suspect that this case against Stone is a stepping stone to get to the person in the Trump Campaign that Stone was coordinating with. I suspect Junior, but it could have been Bannon or Jared as well. That person is gonna be in some real SHIT, ESPECIALLY if there's proof that the Wikileaks data WAS, in fact, the promised 'Dirt' from the June 2016 meeting at TT, and hence they knew all along Russia was behind the WL data dumps. And IF someone in the campaign DIRECTED Stone to ask Wiki for SPECIFIC info to be dumped in August 2016, knowing this was data stolen by Russia?
Whoa Nelly ...
I.E. I think that the reason Stone's not being charged with conspiracy is that Mueller doesn't want to tip his hand by making it public WHO (from Trump's Campaign) KNEW, and WHEN THEY KNEW ... that Wiki was releasing data stolen by Russia.