While Donald Trump, a/k/a Der Trumpenführer, has declared a bogus national emergency to improperly secure funding for his border wall to thrill his knuckle-dragging, racist base, it now appears that Trump's real emergency is that special counsel Robert Mueller is close to connecting the dots to document a criminal conspiracy between Trump and Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election. Loud mouth braggart Roger Stone is, per new court fillings looking more and more like he was the Trump-Russia-Wikileaks go between. Expect more shrieks of "witch hunt" as Mueller finds more and more witches and draws his noose closer and closer around Trump. The take away is that when Trump asked Russia to "find Hillary's 30,000 emails" during one of the debates, he was in active communication with Russian operatives through Stone and perhaps others. A piece in The Hill looks at this new development which should shut up some of the blathering talking heads who say that Mueller has found not hints of direct collusion with an enemy power. Here are excerpts:
Special counsel Robert Mueller said in a new court filing that search warrants have uncovered communications between longtime GOP operative Roger Stone and "Organization 1,” which is widely believed to be WikiLeaks.Mueller made the disclosure in a filing Friday arguing that Stone’s case is related to the one involving Russian military hackers who are alleged to have breached the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and personal account of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.
The communications were uncovered in search warrants executed on accounts in the investigation into Russian hackers, Mueller said.
The hacked emails were given to WikiLeaks, which later released them, in what U.S. intelligence officials say was part of a broader plot by the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
Mueller’s prosecutors wrote Friday that in the course of investigating the email hacking “the government obtained and executed dozens of search warrants on various accounts used to facilitate the transfer of stolen documents for release, as well as to discuss the timing and promotion of their release.”
“Several of those search warrants were executed on accounts that contained Stone’s communications with Guccifer 2.0 and with Organization 1,” the filing states.
The special counsel said the search warrants would be produced to Stone’s defense attorneys in discovery and included in a sealed addendum to Friday’s filing.
A longtime friend of President Trump, Stone was indicted in Washington, D.C., late last month for lying to Congress about his communications regarding WikiLeaks, witness tampering and obstructing a congressional investigation. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Stone has said he never directly communicated with WikiLeaks but instead used a backchannel. Stone, who made public statements that appeared to forecast WikiLeaks releases before the 2016 election, has maintained that he had no inside knowledge of the hacked emails before WikiLeaks released them.
They [prosecutors] said that during his [Stone’s] testimony before the House Intelligence Committee he claimed that former New York radio host Randy Credico was his backchannel to the organization. Stone also allegedly testified that he did not ask any other individual to contact the group.
Credico has repeatedly denied being Stone’s source. Emails exchanged between Stone and another individual, believed to be conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, allegedly show Stone had asked Corsi to get in touch with WikiLeaks about any damaging Democratic emails the group might have in its possession.
Last July’s indictment against the Russian hackers cited communications between Guccifer 2.0, who is identified as a Russian GRU officer, and “a person who was in regular contact with senior members” of Trump’s campaign. Stone has acknowledged that he is likely the person referred to in the indictment.
Trump has denied any collusion between his campaign and Moscow and regularly derides the investigation as a “witch hunt.”
Stone’s case is expected to go to trial later this year; prosecutors and his attorneys have asked for extra time to prepare, given the amount of evidence in the case.
On Friday, Jackson issued a gag order restricting Stone and his attorneys from discussing the case publicly.
1 comment:
Of course Stone had contact (s) with Wikileaks. That’s why they dropped by his house without warning. What I’m curious about is that gag order....
Post a Comment