Reposted from My Substack
Obviously, one of the big divides in the country has been the investigation of Trump and Russia that began during the 2016 campaign. I would argue that it has been that investigation that has been one of the key elements undermining national faith in our justice system, leading to lack of faith in our elections and lack of faith in the new investigations of Trump that have occurred since.
It’s all been a “hoax”, it’s all been a “scam.” Or so we’re told.
Just listen a Trumpsters tell us that “everything is a lie.”
The fact though is that it wasn’t a hoax, it was never a scam. Trump did collude with Russia and with Wikileaks in an effort to steal the 2016 election. And it worked.
I was just posting this on Xwitter the other day.
People who say that 'Russia Russia Russia" was a hoax, repeatedly ignore that a half dozen Trump associates were in regular contact with Russian Intelligence and Assets. 5 of them were convicted for lying about it.
The only one of those half-dozen who *didn't* lie about it was Rick Gates, Paul Manafort's deputy. Guess who it was that Trump *didn't* pardon when he finally decided to? Rick Gates. And also Michael Cohen who had also decided to tell the truth.
Manafort, through Gates, was in contact with GRU asset Konstantin Kilimnick. Gates associate Alex Van Der Zwann lied about this to the FBI and was prosecuted. Michael Cohen was in contact with Dmitry Peskov trying to get Trump Tower Moscow built and lied about it.
Roger Stone lied about being in contact with Russian operative Guccifer 2.0 and data hacked from the DCCC by the GRU. He also lied about coordinating the release of the Podesta emails between the Trump campaign and Wikileaks for maximum effect.
None of these lies - under oath - were accidents or coincidences. They show a deliberate effort to work in coordination with the Russians to steal the election. But "Collusion" is not a crime, and Trump was immune from prosecution. So we got what we got - 5 Liars Convicted.
And I got this response.
Roger Stone @RogerJStoneJr
Bullshit
https://stonezone.com/democrats-desperately-recycle-the-fake-russian-collusion-narrative-yet-again/
So let’s dive in shall we?
Let me say up front that I am generally skeptical of law enforcement for many reasons. The Innocence Project and the Exoneration Project have shown that the Justice system does, far too often, indict and prosecute innocent persons. One recent estimate I’ve heard is that about 50,000 innocent people are being held in our jails right now. So when someone has a legitimate claim that they’ve been wrongly prosecuted and railroaded — I take it seriously, as should we all.
In his post, he starts with:
One thing is absolutely clear about the Democrat/fake news media cabal: it doesn’t matter how debunked, discredited, and disproven any of their false narratives are—they will simply continue to receive the same disinformation as if it has never been publicly refuted. The entire Russian Collusion Hoax, the insistence that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election to assist Donald Trump is a perfect example of this technique. I have rebutted every attack on me by the Democrats and their allies in the media, but it is their practice to ignore the facts while recycling the same old defamation.
To be clear, I was recounting the results of the court cases against him not media reports. He was prosecuted and convicted for all this. He says this was “debunked, discredited and disproven?” By who? Where?
Well, apparently, right here and right now - by him. He thinks.
In 2019, I was falsely charged by Special Counsel Robert Mueller with lying under oath in my voluntary testimony to the House Intelligence Committee. While I concede that I did make misstatements, none of these were either material nor did they conceal any underlying crime.
The judge gets to decide what is “material” and she did. Lying to Congress is a crime in and of itself under 18 U.S. Code § 1001.
(a) Except as otherwise provided in this section, whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully—
(1) falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact;
(2) makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or
(3) makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry;
shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or, if the offense involves international or domestic terrorism (as defined in section 2331), imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both. If the matter relates to an offense under chapter 109A, 109B, 110, or 117, or section 1591, then the term of imprisonment imposed under this section shall be not more than 8 years.
(b) Subsection (a) does not apply to a party to a judicial proceeding, or that party’s counsel, for statements, representations, writings or documents submitted by such party or counsel to a judge or magistrate in that proceeding.
(c) With respect to any matter within the jurisdiction of the legislative branch, subsection (a) shall apply only to—
(1) administrative matters, including a claim for payment, a matter related to the procurement of property or services, personnel or employment practices, or support services, or a document required by law, rule, or regulation to be submitted to the Congress or any office or officer within the legislative branch; or
(2) any investigation or review, conducted pursuant to the authority of any committee, subcommittee, commission or office of the Congress, consistent with applicable rules of the House or Senate.
As I understand the way the statute is written, the issue of “materiality” relates to false statements made in court under oath during a legal procedure, but it does not relate to false statements made during a committee or subcommittee hearing by Congress. A lie to Congress is a crime in and of itself and does not require being “material” to any other underlying crime. [I’m open to elucidation on this matter.]
Stone continued.
In fact, government prosecutors never provided any actual evidence that I had either colluded with Russian intelligence or collaborated with WikiLeaks in their release of documents from the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign (which U.S. intelligence agencies falsely claimed were obtained through an online hack of the DNC’s computer servers).
This is very funny. Do you see what he did there? Stone wasn’t charged with “colluding with Russia […] in their release of documents from the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.” That didn’t happen.
He was charged with lying to Congress about two completely different hacks and leaks. First, the hack of data from the DCCC - which included their entire district-by-district election plan, and also the hack and release of John Podesta’s emails. So, sure, he’s technically correct that “prosecutors never provided any actual evidence” over the DNC hack because - they didn’t. That hack wasn’t at issue in his case. Clever.
In fact, the FBI admitted in discovery before my trial that they had never inspected the computer servers of the DNC and had relied entirely on a third-party, a left-leaning IT company called Crowdstrike, whose report alleged that the DNC had been the target of an online hack by the Russians.
Again, this is an artful dodge.
Technically what he’s saying is true. At least initially.
“The FBI repeatedly stressed to DNC officials the necessity of obtaining direct access to servers and data, only to be rebuffed until well after the initial compromise had been mitigated,” the official said.
“This left the FBI no choice but to rely upon a third party for information. These actions caused significant delays and inhibited the FBI from addressing the intrusion earlier.”
CrowdStrike, the private security firm in question, has published extensive forensic analysis backing up its assessment that the threat groups that infiltrated the DNC were associated with Russian intelligence.
This was while the hack was taking place. Crowdstrike had been called in by the DNC to analyze their system, and they did that. But their process was to look at the systems which they were currently using to run their email and to repair them and remove the hackers. The FBI normal process would have been to *take* the servers for analysis - in which case the email system would have been compromised. That’s one reason they said “no.” But it’s not like the FBI was kept from accessing the data, they weren’t.
The FBI reviewed a digital copy of the hard drive from the DNC's server cloud — so no, they didn’t look a physical computer server because there wasn’t one. Comey testified to this. They confirmed the presence of APT28 and APT29 - both Russian intelligence.
@RogerJStonejr
Comey’s testimony.
HURD: Have you been able to -- when did the DNC provide access for -- to the FBI for your technical folks to review what happened?
COMEY: Well we never got direct access to the machines themselves. The DNC in the spring of 2016 hired a firm that ultimately shared with us their forensics from their review of the system.
HURD: Good copy. So director FBI notified the DNC early, before any information was put on Wikileaks and when -- you have still been -- never been given access to any of the technical or the physical machines that were -- that were hacked by the Russians.
COMEY: That's correct although we got the forensics from the pros that they hired which -- again, best practice is always to get access to the machines themselves, but this -- my folks tell me was an appropriate substitute.
The FBI were the first to notice and identify the hack. They immediately contacted the DNC, but they didn’t go directly to Chairman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, they called the DNC helpdesk. This meant that the report was dropped and forgotten for months until the DNC finally noticed the problem themselves and called in Crowdstrike to analyze the issue.
HURD: The -- at what point did the company and the DNC use -- share that forensic information to you?
COMEY: I don't remember for sure. I think June. I could be wrong about that.
ROGERS: The company went public in June of 16, with their conclusions. I would assume it was around that time.
COMEY: I think it was about the time -- I think it was a little bit before the announcement, but I'll say approximately June.
HURD: So -- so that was -- how long after the first notification of -- that the FBI did of the DNC?
COMEY: Ten months.
HURD: Ten months? So the FBI notified the DNC of the hack and it was not until 10 months later that you had any details about what was actually going on forensically on their network?
COMEY: That's correct, assuming I have the dates about right. But it was -- it was some months later.
HURD: Knowing what we know now, would the FBI have done anything different in trying to notify the DNC of what happened?
COMEY: Oh Sure.
HURD: What -- what -- what measures would you have done differently?
COMEY: We'd have set up a much larger flare. Yeah we'd have just kept banging and banging on the door, knowing what I know now. We made extensive efforts to notify, we'd have -- I might have walked over there myself, knowing what I know now. But I think the efforts we made, that are agents made were reasonable at the time.
Comey specifically said that “my folks tell me this is an appropriate substitute” so having direct access to the physical servers was not an issue for them. They had everything they needed.
I have to admit this confused me at the time, and I nearly asked one of the Deputy Press Secretaries at DNC — who I was corresponding with — about it, but the answer is available at Crowdstrike.
We have never had physical possession of the DNC servers. We conducted our investigation using a process called “imaging” — an established practice in cyber investigations that involves making a copy of the hard drives and memory. This is standard procedure for cyber investigations.
We worked closely with law enforcement and provided all forensic evidence and analysis to the FBI as requested.
September 20, 2016: “On September 20, 2016, the GRU began to generate copies of the DNC data using [redacted] function designed to allow users to produce backups of databases (referred to [redacted] as “snapshots”). The GRU then stole those snapshots by moving them to [redacted] account that they controlled, from there the copies were moved to GRU-controlled computers. The GRU stole approximately 300 gigabytes of data from the DNC cloud-based account.”
[…]
FANCY BEAR (also known as Sofacy or APT 28) is a separate Russian-based threat actor, which has been active since mid 2000s, and has been responsible for targeted intrusion campaigns against the Aerospace, Defense, Energy, Government and Media sectors. Their victims have been identified in the United States, Western Europe, Brazil, Canada, China, Georgia, Iran, Japan, Malaysia and South Korea. Extensive targeting of defense ministries and other military victims has been observed, the profile of which closely mirrors the strategic interests of the Russian government, and may indicate affiliation with Главное Разведывательное Управление (Main Intelligence Department) or GRU, Russia’s premier military intelligence service.
[…]
COZY BEAR (also referred to in some industry reports as CozyDuke or APT 29) is the adversary group that last year successfully infiltrated the unclassified networks of the White House, State Department, and US Joint Chiefs of Staff. In addition to the US government, they have targeted organizations across the Defense, Energy, Extractive, Financial, Insurance, Legal, Manufacturing Media, Think Tanks, Pharmaceutical, Research and Technology industries, along with Universities. Victims have also been observed in Western Europe, Brazil, China, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, South Korea, Turkey and Central Asian countries. COZY BEAR’s preferred intrusion method is a broadly targeted spearphish campaign that typically includes web links to a malicious dropper.
So the shibboleth that the FBI “never had possession of the DNC server” is nonsense. The servers were cloud-based and both Crowdstrike and the FBI confirmed the hack using APT28 and APT29 by examining copies of the hard drives and memory. Both APT28 (GRU) and APT29 (FSB) use very specific custom hacking tools that are well-known in the intelligence industry and are easy to identify and confirm.
There is no big “gotcha” mystery here. Russia did the hack. Period.
Also, the servers were not secretly sent to Ukraine - largely because Crowdstrike isn’t a Ukrainian company.
-
We were founded in California and are headquartered in the heart of Silicon Valley in Sunnyvale, California. We are one of the fastest growing global companies in cybersecurity today.
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Our founders have no connections to Ukraine. Suggestions to the contrary are completely false.
But again, this entire issue is a distraction. The DNC hack wasn’t at issue in Stone’s case. He didn’t lie about that.
After the FBI’s embarrassing admission in my trial, DOJ prosecutors insisted, without proof, that they had additional evidence that would prove that the DNC had been hacked by the Russians but they never provided any because, in fact, there is none.
Of course, they didn’t present it at his trial, he wasn’t being tried for anything related to that. Why should they prove an issue that doesn’t relate to his case? Do you see how this works?
Mueller’s prosecutors insisted that I be tried before Judge Amy Berman Jackson because they said my case was “related” to the so-called Russian hacking case which never even reached the discovery phase, and promised the judge that they would produce evidence against me at my trial collected from the warrants in that case. Again, they never provided any such evidence because none exists.
So here we see the connection - the DNC hack wasn’t relevant to his case, but it was potentially relevant to Judge Amy Berman Jackson. That’s about making things convenient for her, not Stone.
He says here that the “Russian hacking case.. never even reached discovery phase” — well that’s because they never had any of the hackers in custody in order to do any discovery. They were Russian officers of the GRU and FSB who are still in Russia.
Alternately, he may be referring to the Russia Troll Farm case, which did get started — but was shut down by Bill Barr using the excuse that the DOJ didn’t want to share classified evidence, sources and methods with Yvgenvy Proghozin and his companies.
Justice Department prosecutors on Monday filed a motion to dismiss charges against the shell companies accused of financing the Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll farm that engaged in a social media disinformation scheme to interfere in the 2016 election.
The big picture: Prosecutors claim that the Russians were essentially able to evade accountability and punishment while taking advantage of the discovery process to potentially harm U.S. national security.
Context: The shell companies, Concord Management and Concord Consulting, were charged by special counsel Robert Mueller in 2018 along with 13 Russian individuals and the troll farm itself — known as the Internet Research Agency. The scheme, outlined in the 2018 indictment and again in the Mueller report, sought to sow political discord ahead of the 2016 election.
Details: The Concord companies sought to fight the indictment in court, unlike the other Russians charged by Mueller. In doing so, prosecutors say they were able to "obtain discovery" from the U.S. government regarding its efforts to "detect and deter foreign election interference" — while also ignoring court-issued subpoenas.
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"In short, Concord has demonstrated its intent to reap the benefits of the Court’s jurisdiction while positioning itself to evade any real obligations or responsibility," prosecutors argued in the filing.
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"It is no longer in the best interests of justice or the country’s national security to continue this prosecution."
In reality, there are procedures in place, known as CIPA, as we’re seeing with the Florida classified documents case against Trump, to safeguard that information and control the defendant’s access to it. Bill Barr threw that procedure out the window then tossed up his hands in helplessness. “Oh, well - can’t prosecute due to national security.” He simply threw the case.
So when Stone says they “didn’t reach discovery” again, that’s true — but a) this wasn’t related to the DNC, DCCC or Podesta hack and b) it was about the troll efforts by the Russians through social media. None of which related to Stone’s case. Although this is true, it doesn’t matter. Repeatedly Stone pokes holes in something, but it’s not the case against him.
All he’s done so far is offer distractions about issues that don’t relate to his actual case.
The real reason I was charged with these wholly fabricated crimes was to pressure me into offering false testimony against President Donald Trump. Mueller’s prosecutors wanted me to testify, falsely, that I had discussed and even predicted the WikiLeaks disclosures in multiple phone conversations with candidate Trump in 2016.
He wasn’t charged with any of the crimes he’s discussed so far, but now he’s getting somewhere. Finally. And since we’re talking about phone conversations — there were quite a few of those, and there were witnesses to these conversations.
When Mueller’s report was originally released Roger Stone’s case was still pending so all references to it were redacted. But his case is over now and thanks to a Buzzfeed lawsuit a new version without those redactions has been released.
Michael Cohen was a witness to a phone conversation between Stone and Trump.
According to Michael Cohen, Stone told Trump in a phone call before July 22 that “he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and in a couple of days WikiLeaks would release information.” After the July release, Trump “said to Cohen something to the effect of, ‘I guess Roger was right.’” (Vol. I, p. 53)
Paul Manafort was a witness.
After the first WikiLeaks dump, Manafort spoke with Trump about Stone’s apparent foreknowledge of the release. Trump “responded that Manafort should stay in touch with Stone. Manafort relayed the message to Stone[.]” (Vol. I, p. 53)
Rick Gates was a witness.
“Gates also stated that Stone called candidate Trump multiple times during the campaign. Gates recalled one lengthy telephone conversation between Stone and candidate Trump that took place while Trump and Gates were driving to LaGuardia Airport. Although Gates could not hear what Stone was saying on the telephone, shortly after the call candidate Trump told Gates that more releases of damaging information would be coming.” (Vol. I, p. 54)
And Steve Bannon was a witness.
“Stone also had conversations about WikiLeaks with Steve Bannon, both before and after Bannon took over as chairman of the Trump campaign” in August 2016—telling Bannon after he became chairman that WikiLeaks would soon release material damaging to the Clinton campaign. (Vol. I, p. 54)
So did Stone “discuss and even predict the WikiLeaks disclosures in multiple phone conversations with candidate Trump in 2016?” Yeah, he kinda did. That was the case.
In fact, both Gates and Bannon testified in his case — that he did.
Former Trump campaign manager and White House strategist Steve Bannon testified in the Roger Stone trial on Friday, and it did not go well for Stone. Bannon, who was subpoenaed as a witness, told the court that Stone claimed to be in contact with Wikileaks prior to the release of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails, something Stone denied to the Mueller investigation and Congress.
“He had a relationship, or told me he had a relationship with WikiLeaks,” Bannon, who was sporting his trademark look of too-many-shirts told the jury. “It was something I think he would frequently mention.”
But more than that, according to Bannon, Stone also said he was in touch with Wikileaks’ top brass. “I was led to believe he had a relationship with WikiLeaks and [its founder] Julian Assange,” Bannon said.
Stone continued.
@RogerjSstoneJ "I refused to lie in this regard and thus was subjected to a Soviet-style show trial in Washington D.C., in which my constitutional rights were violated”
In exactly what way?
@RogerJstoneJr "I was not allowed to put forward forensic evidence or expert testimony that would prove that the underlying premise of my indictment, that “the Russians had hacked the DNC,” was false."
Did you subpoena @CrowdStrike?
Of course, he didn’t. Because proving whether Russia hacked the DNC isn’t the point.
Equally innocuous was my one and only Twitter Direct Message exchange with a flack for WikiLeaks, which is also innocuous in its content in that it, once again, provided no evidence of cooperation, collusion, or collaboration.
Whether he was in direct communication with Wikileaks is not the issue. The charges were that he was using a chain of intermediaries to reach Wikileaks starting with Jerome Corsi and Ted Malloch.
Following the initial July 22 release, Stone reached out to right-wing media personality Jerome Corsi instructing him to “[g]et to Assange … and get the pending [WikiLeaks] emails[.]” Corsi began his own outreach to Assange through an associate, Theodore Malloch. On Aug. 2, Corsi wrote to Stone, “Word is friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps. One shortly after I’m back. 2nd in October. Impact planned to be very damaging.” (Vol. I, p. 52)
Corsi, under oath, has himself confirmed that he was engaged in this back and forth communication through Malloch to Assange.
Conservative activist Jerome Corsi, a key witness in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, said Tuesday he told a federal grand jury he helped longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone create a “cover story” for a 2016 tweet that appeared to foreshadow email releases by WikiLeaks.
Mr. Stone’s tweet on Aug. 21 of that year read: “Trust me, it will soon the Podesta’s time in the barrel.” Weeks later, emails stolen from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta were dumped online by WikiLeaks, raising questions about whether Mr. Stone had early knowledge of the emails and the plans to release them. Officials say the messages were stolen by Russia and turned over to WikiLeaks for release in hopes of damaging Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.
Stone continued.
Both Mueller and the bloodthirsty fake news media made much of an innocuous Twitter Direct Message exchange between me and the online persona of “Guccifer 2.0.” The Department of Justice and the CIA insisted that Guccifer 2.0 was a “Russian hacker” responsible for the hack of the DNC, but all failed to note that my limited exchange with this alleged hacker through Twitter Direct Message only took place three months after WikiLeaks had already published the DNC and Clinton campaign material, and that the actual full text of our exchange was completely innocuous—providing no evidence whatsoever of either collusion or collaboration.
Again, no one suggested that Stone was in contact with Guccifer before the DNC hack.
The issue here is that the hack had already happened and it had been reportedly done by Russia according to the DNC and FBI. Guccifer 2.0 was reportedly a hacker, or group, who publically took responsibility for doing the DNC hack. They owned it.
So naturally, Stone wanted to be “buddy buddy” with Guccifer and yet he still claims - even to this day — that he had “no idea” that Guccifer was Russian intelligence. Really dude? That’s a shocker?
Stone’s DMs with Guccifer mostly related to the DCCC hack and theft of their election plan which had been provided to Stone by a third party but reportedly hacked by Guccifer. Guccifer asked his opinion of the data and he stated that it was “pretty standard stuff.”
Okay, that’s just as “innocuous” as staging a bank robbery and then asking someone else to count the money for you. Y’know - innocently. Never mind that it’s stolen property.
But that wasn’t all. Not according to what Stone told CBS.
That “exchange” appears to have started after Guccifer’s first account was suspended and then re-activated in mid-August.
“Delighted you are reinstated,” Stone wrote.
Guccifer responded: “do u find anything interesting in the docs i posted?”
These would be the DCCC documents which had been hacked.
A day later, according to messages confirmed by Stone, he asked Guccifer to retweet an article Stone had written.
“PLZ RT: How the election can be rigged against Donald Trump,” Stone wrote,
Guccifer replied “done” and later on the same day “please tell me if i can help you anyhow.”
Earlier this year U.S. intelligence concluded that the Guccifer sites were a front for Russian military intelligence; Stone says he had no idea.
“In a way you’re encouraging them to release more information,” Pegues said.
“That’s called networking, remember I have no idea that this gentleman is allegedly a Russian,” Stone said.
It was public knowledge that Russia reportedly did the hack. This person claimed to have done the hack. And yet “I have no idea this gentleman is allegedly a Russian.”
:Eyeroll:
“Well did you at any point think it was bizarre that all of a sudden this persona was putting out this damaging information about Democrats?” Pegues asked.
“I do know this, I have not coordinated with him or communicated with him or directed him to do any of it,” Stone replied.
On at least 16 different occasions during the 2016 campaign, Guccifer disclosed Democratic Party data targeting Hillary Clinton and Democratic candidates in at least six different states.
K, so yeah, “Innocuous.”
But it goes further, it wasn’t just the case that Stone “didn’t know” that Guccifer 2.0 was a Russian operative, he wrote an article on Breitbart denying that they were - and that was why Guccifer ultimately contacted him. Stone was a fan of someone who had committed criminal acts.
This is what he testified to Congress.
Finally, let me address this limited, benign, and now entirely public exchange with a persona on Twitter calling themselves Guccifer 2.0. While some in the intelligence community have claimed that Guccifer 2.0 is a Russian cutout and that it is responsible for the hacking of the DNC servers, neither of these assertions can be proven by this Committee or the aforementioned intelligence community. I wrote an article for Breitbart on August 5, 2016, in which I express my view that Guccifer 2.0 was not a Russian asset, at the same time reporting their claim taking credit for hacking the DNC. My only exchange with Guccifer 2.0 would begin on August 14, 2016, after my article appeared, and ran through September 9, 2016.
So it wasn’t just that Stone was simply “unaware” he was campaigning for the idea that Guccifer had nothing to do with Russia. Stone was cheerleading for him.
Stone’s article continued.
Mueller also concluded in his long-hidden report that he could find no evidence of the claim by right-wing gadfly Jerry Corsi that I had contacted Corsi in the wake of the shocking NBC disclosure that Donald Trump had joked about grabbing women by their genitalia and urged him to contact WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange to urge Assange to expedite the release of the damaging material WikiLeaks had obtained regarding Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee.
About this, he is somewhat correct. But then Mueller’s report was redacted concerning Stone. Here is what the unredacted report says.
Mueller investigated whether Stone was involved in WikiLeaks’s Oct. 7 release of emails belonging to Clinton aide John Podesta—a release that took place only hours after the Washington Post published the Access Hollywood tape. But the special counsel found little evidence. (Vol. I, pp. 58-59)
However, Mueller isn’t the only one to look at this question. Yet again, Jerome Corsi has revealed that Stone contacted him on that day, desperate to get in contact with Wikileaks and have them release the Podesta emails.
Apparently sensing the cataclysmic damage the comments would wreak, Stone—self-styled dirty trickster and unofficial Trump adviser—spoke by phone to the conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, directing him to get in touch with Julian Assange, whose organization, WikiLeaks, had obtained Russian-hacked emails from Democratic Party staffers, including Clinton campaign chair John Podesta. “Drop the Podesta emails immediately,” Stone instructed, seeking to “balance the news cycle” after the release of the Access Hollywood tape. Thirty-two minutes later, WikiLeaks followed through.
Corsi also repeated and confirmed this on MSNBC.
Corsi: Everything in the indictment is correct.
Here’s the thing - how did Stone know to contact Corsi [or Credico or whoever] to reach Assange if somebody in the Trump campaign — probably Bannon who had been contacted for a response by the WaPo — didn’t tip him off?
If they knew Stone had a connection to Wikileaks, which several of them testified to, why wouldn’t they ask him to use the Podesta emails to create a distraction? How would he even know to do that if they hadn’t told him to?
Also, Bannon testified that he believed Stone was involved in this leak.
WikiLeaks did have a major release starting on October 7 — they began posting the hacked emails of Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta in daily batches. And around that time, Bannon testified, he “believed” I “heard that Roger Stone was involved in the release of those emails.”
He “heard?” Yeah, ok, that must be why his assistant sent a text to Stone afterward that said “Well done.”
According to the indictment, “a senior Trump Campaign official was directed to contact STONE about any additional releases and what other damaging information Organization 1 had regarding the Clinton Campaign.” Organization 1 refers to WikiLeaks.
The indictment goes on to note that Stone received an email from the high-ranking Trump official asking about future email releases in October 2016. Stone assured him that WikiLeaks would release “a load every week going forward.”
Shortly after another email dump, “an associate of the high-ranking Trump Campaign official sent a text message to STONE that read ‘well done.’”
I could go on — because he certainly does in his article — but I’ll leave it here.
Stone continues to claim his innocence, which he can do all he likes, but the fact is that numerous emails, text messages, tweets, DMs and direct testimony all go against him. He can argue that the media is biased and the prosecutors are blood-sucking villains all day — but this case wasn’t built on empty promises and puppy-dog tails, it was built on facts, documentation and evidence. Cohen, Gates, Bannon and Corsi all testified and confirmed the Mueller allegations. He was convicted.
Stone was found guilty of obstruction of a congressional investigation, five counts of making false statements to Congress, and tampering with a witness. The verdict followed a trial in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Stone faces a prison sentence of up to five years for counts one to six and up to 20 years for count seven. He will be sentenced on February 6, 2020, by the Honorable Amy Berman Jackson.
Stone was involved in coordinating information between Trump and Wikileaks. He was in contact with Russian Intelligence via Guccifer 2.0, and he was directly connected to the release of the John Podesta emails by Wikileaks at an opportune moment which was apparently chosen by the Trump campaign.
Let me repeat that, the Trump campaign, thru Stone, arranged for the timing of emails that had been hacked by Russia to be released by Wikileaks.
That would be “coordination” and it would be “collusion”, with both Russia who performed the hacks and Wikileaks who released the material, in order to steal the 2016 election. Collusion was proven.
And it worked.
There has been much talk that Mueller “didn’t find collusion” but the fact is that “Collusion” is not a Federal crime so no one was charged with that, instead Stone was convicted for his lies and obstruction. If Stone, Flynn and Manafort hadn’t lied to the FBI and court — they could have been witnesses against Trump for Conspiracy, which was clearly Mueller’s goal. He couldn’t do that because these three people lied and stonewalled until they were pardoned by Trump.
Mueller had written specific summaries into his report to describe what he found in bite-sized pieces, but Bill Barr ignored those summaries and generated a document with his own conclusions based on the report.
Barr’s summary says the special counsel “did not find that the Trump campaign, or anything associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government” in its efforts to interfere in the 2016 campaign, though it makes clear that Russia did meddle, and points to Mueller’s indictments against the Russian troll farm and Russian military intelligence hackers that targeted Democrats’ emails. (The special counsel defined coordination as “an agreement — tacit or expressed — between the Trump campaign and the Russian government on election interference.”)
But Barr also says Mueller did not establish coordination or conspiracy, “despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign.”
This is all true, Mueller didn’t find the Trump campaign specifically coordinating with the Russian government — only with Russian surrogates and operatives such as Tamofeev, Mifsud, Veselnitskaya and Guccifer 2.0 — but they did establish that the Trump campaign thru Stone coordinated with Wikileaks, which was still a foreign entity. They found this, as I’ve shown, in the Stone trial.
Back to the findings of the report.
The “multiple offers” from “Russian-affiliated” individuals certainly sounds a lot like the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting. It appears that Mueller found that this or other alleged contacts between Trump associates and Russian officials did not rise to the level of criminality, or at least did not meet the definition of “coordination” as the special counsel defined it. But the question is certainly going to be why.
Yes, there is a question as to “why” he didn’t think the repeated attempts of coordination did not meet the standard of a criminal conspiracy. Again, I can only speculate that the primary points of this coordination — Manafort, Stone and Flynn — didn’t provide Mueller and his prosecutors with the truthful testimony that would have allowed for these links to be stitched together into a full criminal conspiracy.
So we didn’t get a conspiracy charge. But Mueller did find multiple instances where the Trump campaign jumped at the chance to take advantage and make use of the criminal actions by the Russians.
WASHINGTON — The Russian government undertook a "sweeping and systematic" campaign to help Donald Trump win the White House in 2016, believing it would benefit from his presidency, and found campaign aides eager to benefit from their help, special counsel Robert Mueller concluded in a report released Thursday.
The investigation did not find that the president or his campaign conspired with Russia to win the election. But the special counsel's report revealed a detailed portrait of a campaign that was receptive to Russia's efforts, was eager to benefit from them, and did not appear to appreciate the massive foreign intelligence operation behind those activities.
"The investigation established multiple links between Trump campaign officials and individuals tied to the Russian government," the more than 400-page report says.
Mueller was not allowed under DOJ rules to indict and try Trump since he was the sitting White House resident, and he was not allowed by rules established by Rod Rosenstein to conduct a counter-intelligence investigation that could have looked at activities between Trump and Russia that may have presented securities threats and vulnerabilities - not just crimes. No one has investigated that possibility.
Ultimately, Mueller found 10 separate incidents where Trump had attempted to obstruct his investigation and found he was “Not exonerated” for those efforts. Later a Federal Judge found that Barr had wrongly dropped the obstruction charges against Trump and lied in his summary of the Mueller report.
The Justice Department under Attorney General William Barr improperly withheld portions of an internal memo Barr cited in announcing that then-President Donald Trump had not obstructed justice in the Russia investigation, a federal appeals panel said Friday.
[…]
At issue in the case is a March 24, 2019, memorandum from the head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel and another senior department official that was prepared for Barr to evaluate whether evidence in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation could support prosecution of the president for obstruction of justice.
Barr has said he looked to that opinion in concluding that Trump did not illegally obstruct the Russia probe, which was an investigation of whether his campaign had colluded with Russia to tip the 2016 election.
A year later, a federal judge sharply rebuked Barr's handling of Mueller's report, saying Barr had made "misleading public statements" to spin the investigation's findings in favor of Trump and had shown a "lack of candor."
So yeah, that happened.
This case was not a hoax. This was a theft, perpetrated by Trump with the help of Russia. And it worked.
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