New York Magazine's Jonathan Chait explains how Special Counsel Robert Mueller's zeroing in on Roger Stone, Donald Trump's longtime political advisor, could spell big trouble for the president.
There is a large and growing pile of evidence suggesting Stone had contacts with WikiLeaks during the campaign, which enabled him to flaunt his advance knowledge of stolen Democratic emails. (The latest addition to the pile is that, on a conference call selling his political insight, Stone “told callers about WikiLeaks’ plans to release information that he said would affect the 2016 presidential campaign,” reports The Wall Street Journal.
Yesterday, the Washington Post reported on Stone’s jeopardy. What makes the Post story novel, and potentially more explosive, is that it reports not only that Robert Mueller is investigating Stone’s back channel to WikiLeaks, but also his “private interactions with senior campaign officials.”
Here’s why this is significant. Stone communicated regularly and directly with Trump during the campaign. The odds that Stone, a notorious braggart seeking to curry favor with Trump — notorious also for being unhindered by ethical scruples — would fail to share his knowledge of what the hackers had up their sleeves are extremely remote. The catch is that, unless he recorded it in a memo, it will be hard to prove that Stone told any of this to Trump.
However, if Mueller has Stone's communication with senior campaign officials, he may have the proof he needs.
Those officials, some of whom have rolled on Trump already, could tell Mueller what Stone knew, and even what he told Trump. One likely candidate to have heard some word from Stone is Paul Manafort, Stone’s former business partner and a current Mueller witness. That testimony could very easily establish Trump’s role as an accessory after the fact to Russian hacking.
Because Stone's known to play fast and loose with the truth, the Washington Post put together an updated timeline of what we know for sure so far about his remarks and WikiLeaks and the 2016 campaign.
March 28, 2016. Apparently at the recommendation of Stone, Paul Manafort is hired to lead the Trump campaign’s efforts to secure delegates for the convention. The two had worked together at a prominent lobbying firm for years. [For more, click on Roger Stone's name on our interactive "Everything We Know about Russia and President Trump" timeline.]
Spring 2016. Stone tells a confidant that he had spoken with Julian Assange and learned about emails in the possession of WikiLeaks that would be problematic for Democrats, including Podesta.
April 18, 2016. Using credentials obtained by hacking the Democratic Party’s congressional campaign arm, hackers believed to be linked to Russian intelligence gain access to the Democratic National Committee’s network.
(...)
Aug. 5, 2016. Stone writes an essay for Breitbart blaming the DNC hacks on Guccifer 2.0 instead of on Russian hackers.
Aug. 8, 2016. Stone tells a Republican group that he’s been in contact with Assange and that the next documents to be released were related to the Clinton Foundation.
Aug. 9, 2016. WikiLeaks denies having had contact with Stone in a tweet.
Aug. 12, 2016. Guccifer 2.0 releases more information purportedly stolen from the DCCC. The hacker thanks Stone on Twitter for his defense.
Aug. 14, 2016. Stone and Guccifer 2.0 begin having a conversation over Twitter direct messages. Stone later releases the messages.
Read more: A timeline of the Roger Stone-WikiLeaks question (Washington Post)
How Roger Stone Could Implicate Trump for Colluding With Russia (Intelligencer)