- Source: AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
Longtime Trump associate Roger Stone was arrested
Thursday night for one count of obstruction, five counts of false statements
and one count of witness tampering as part of the larger special counsel Russia
investigation. The FBI raided his home and "terrorized" his family,
Stone said outside a Florida courthouse Friday. He told a crowd of hecklers he
plans to plead not guilty to the alleged crimes.
Of course, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee
Sanders expected the press pool to ask her for her reaction to Stone's arrest.
But she wasn't a fan of how some reporters framed their inquires, particularly
the individual who suggested that President Trump encouraged Stone to lie to
Congress.
----
Sanders on the charges
against Roger Stone: "This doesn't have anything to do with the
president"
Reporter: "Was the
president encouraging false statements, obstruction, things that are charged in
the indictment?"
Sanders: "That is probably one of the more ridiculous and insulting
questions... frankly, it's just insulting, it's just not true"
Sanders had some questions of her own during her guest
appearance on CNN Friday morning.
Sarah Sanders asks the
correct question after Stone's indictment:
When will the FBI surround the homes of & arrest, "Hillary Clinton, James Comey, James Clapper? People we know have also made false statements [to the FBI] - will the same standard apply?"
100% correct.
“We’ll
let the courts make the decision," she said. "A bigger question is: If this is the standard,
will the same standard apply to people like Hillary Clinton, James Comey and
[James] Clapper?”
Both Clinton and Comey have themselves been accused of
making false statements to authorities.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/cortneyobrien/2019/01/25/sarah-sanders-so-hillary-will-be-arrested-now-right-n2540240?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=&bcid=1b87ed489cb499e9d52de389e64c7f01&recip=19399969
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RELATED
ARTICLE
In
new Mueller indictment, what is Roger Stone charged with doing?
By Byron York |
Washington Examiner
Count Four alleges that Stone lied when he said he did
not ask Credico to communicate anything to Assange.
In fact Stone asked
both Credico and Corsi to get in touch with Assange "to pass on requests
... for documents Stone believed would be damaging to the Clinton
campaign."
Count Five alleges that Stone lied when he told the House
that he and Credico did not communicate via text message or email about
WikiLeaks.
Records show Stone told the committee the two talked over the phone, when in
fact, according to the indictment, "Stone and [Credico] ... engaged in
frequent written communications by email and text message."
Count Six alleges that Stone lied when he testified that
he had never discussed his conversations with Credico with anyone at the Trump
campaign.
In fact, "Stone spoke to multiple individuals involved in
the Trump campaign about what he claimed to have learned from his intermediary
to [WikiLeaks]."
Count Seven is a witness tampering charge, alleging that
Stone tried to convince Credico to take the Fifth or to lie to the House
committee.
The indictment does not allege that Stone had any direct
communications with Assange, nor does it allege that Stone or anyone else at
the Trump campaign had any direct communications with Assange or any
foreknowledge of actions that WikiLeaks took.
At various times, Stone claimed
to have foreknowledge — a hint that something big was up — but the indictment
suggests that he did not, in fact, know what WikiLeaks was going to do.
The indictment does say there were communications between
Stone and people in the Trump campaign related to WikiLeaks.
Of course,
everyone in the world was talking about the WikiLeaks disclosures in the days
following their publication.
The indictment says:
"After the July 22, 2016
release of stolen DNC emails by [WikiLeaks], a senior Trump campaign official
was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other
damaging information [WikiLeaks] had regarding the Clinton campaign. Stone
thereafter told the Trump campaign about potential future releases of damaging
material by [WikiLeaks]."
There has already been much speculation about that
passage.
The first thing to note is that it concerned the period after WikiLeaks'
disclosure of DNC emails — no allegation of foreknowledge.
But what does
"was directed" mean?
Does it mean that Donald Trump himself directed
someone on his campaign to get in touch with Stone to find out what was going
on? It could.
There's no doubt that everyone in the political world was trying
to figure out what was going on in the days after release of the DNC emails.
Were there more? About what? Were they going to be released?
Whoever the "was directed" person was, the
Stone indictment, like all Mueller has issued until now, does not allege that
there was a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia to influence the
2016 election.
The indictment also suggests that by October 2016, with
the election fast approaching, the Trump campaign was no longer paying any
attention to Stone. In one email, Stone said he would tell a top Trump campaign
official about WikiLeaks, "but he doesn't call me back."
In the end, it appears Stone's big problem was his big
mouth. He liked to brag about being behind all sorts of nefarious deeds when in
fact he was not, or he had a tangential connection to them.
That led to this
chain of events: 1) Stone bragged in public; 2) the House committee asked him
about his bragging under oath; and 3) Mueller investigated the veracity of
Stone's sworn testimony.
If Stone had not popped off about himself all the
time, he probably would not have gotten himself in trouble.
Stone presented a pretty accurate picture of himself in
an interview last November with CNN's Michael Smerconish.
"What I have
done here is perfectly legal," Stone said. "I took a solid tip and
entirely public information, it could be gleaned from the WikiLeaks Twitter
feed and by setting a Google News Alert on Julian Assange and reading every
interview, to hype and punk and promote and posture and bluff the
Democrats."
The problem came when Stone was asked under oath about
his statements.
It is one thing to hype and punk and promote and posture and
bluff when talking to the press, but another to hype and punk and promote and
posture and bluff when testifying under oath to a congressional committee.
Roger Stone knows that now.
