Roger Stone Russia Collusion Indictment Of The Office Of Special Counsel, Robert Mueller - Watergate Is Back

Defango makes history being the first person in history to report the reanimation of the Watergate investigation with the Grand Jury indictment from the Office of Special Counsel for bearing false wtiness in the Trump-Russia investigation, in 3D VR.

Watergate is coming back into existence, for a reason.

Pay attention to the players coming to the stage.

DC Press Kids now have a mascot. These lazy CNN Press Kids will only get staged Roger Stone raids their whole career. pic.twitter.com/02svPxMMis

— TruthLeaks (@GeorgWebb) January 26, 2019

"I did not bear false witness"

Yes, the Roger Stone raid was a bit over the top dramatic, but it was well coordinated, all the way down to the cell phone live stream, with the coffee and donut scrum set up a half hour before, across the street.

Mueller Reveals Link Between Trump Campaign and WikiLeaks’ Efforts to Damage Clinton

WASHINGTON — The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, revealed on Friday the most direct link yet between the Trump campaign’s and WikiLeaks’ parallel efforts to use Democratic Party material stolen by Russians to damage the campaign of Hillary R. Clinton.

In an indictment unsealed on Friday, the special counsel disclosed evidence that a top campaign official in 2016 dispatched Roger J. Stone, a longtime adviser to President Trump, to get information from WikiLeaks about the thousands of hacked Democratic emails. The effort began well after it was widely reported that Russian intelligence operatives were behind the theft, which was part of Moscow’s broad campaign to sabotage the 2016 president election.

The indictment makes no mention of whether Mr. Trump played a role in the coordination, though Mr. Mueller did leave a curious clue about how high in the campaign the effort reached.: A senior campaign official “was directed” by an unnamed person to contact Mr. Stone about additional WikiLeaks releases that might damage the Clinton campaign, according to the court document.

Mr. Stone was charged with seven counts, including obstruction of an official proceeding, making false statements and witness tampering.

F.B.I. agents arrested him before dawn on Friday, appearing at his Fort Lauderdale, Fla. home with ballistic vests and guns drawn. Agents typically use those tactics as a precaution to secure possible evidence and protect themselves in case a suspect fights arrest. F.B.I. agents were also seen carting hard drives and other evidence from Mr. Stone’s apartment in Harlem.

Mr. Stone appeared briefly in Federal District Court in Fort Lauderdale on Friday morning, his ankles and waist shackled in front of a packed courtroom. Mr. Stone, known for his dapper wardrobe, was dressed simply in a navy blue cotton polo shirt, bluejeans and his trademark round, black-rimmed glasses, his demeanor flat.

He posted a $250,000 bond, was ordered to surrender his passport and agreed to appear in federal court in Washington later. His lawyer, Grant Smith, dismissed the charges, calling them “ridiculous,” and said, “this is all about a minor charge about lying to Congress about something that was apparently found later.”

Mr. Stone posted a photo of himself on Instagram on Friday under the banner “Who Framed Roger Stone.” Part of the caption read, “this morning’s news is deeply saddening. Robert Mueller’s early morning raid was straight out of the Gestapo’s playbook.”

The indictment is the first in months by Mr. Mueller, who is investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and possible coordination with Trump campaign associates. Citing details in emails and other forms of communications, the indictment suggested that Mr. Trump’s campaign knew about additional stolen emails before they were released and asked Mr. Stone to find out about them.

According to the indictment, between June and July of 2016, Mr. Stone told “senior Trump campaign officials” about the stolen emails in WikiLeaks’ possession that could be damaging to Mrs. Clinton. On July 22, WikiLeaks released its first batch of Democratic emails. After that, according to the indictment, the Trump campaign sought more.

“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,” the indictment said, referring to WikiLeaks.

The White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, sought to broadly distance Mr. Trump from the charges. “The charges brought against Mr. Stone have nothing to do with the president,” she told CNN. Asked whether he directed a campaign aide to contact Mr. Stone about the WikiLeaks emails, she repeated that the charges did not involve the president.

The indictment does not mention whether Mr. Stone or any other Trump associate knew about the Russian operatives’ plans before they hacked the Democrats. As Mr. Mueller’s investigators interviewed witnesses and reviewed documents, they sought to answer that question, according to two people briefed on the inquiry. To make a case that Mr. Trump’s associates conspired with the Russians, the investigators indicated, they needed to show that the associates knew about the hacks in advance — knowing about the fruits of what Russia stole was not enough, the people said.

A self-described dirty trickster, Mr. Stone began his career as a campaign aide for Richard M. Nixon and has a tattoo of Nixon on his back. He has spent decades plying the political dark arts — including scandal-mongering — to help influence American election campaigns, and has long maintained that he had no connection to Russia’s attempts to disrupt the 2016 presidential election.

He sometimes seemed to taunt American law enforcement agencies, daring them to find hard evidence to link him to the Russian election interference. His brash behavior made him less of a subject of news media scrutiny than other current and former aides to President Trump — like the character in a whodunit whom readers immediately dismiss as too obvious to have committed the crime.

In June of 2016, days before Russia was publicly identified as having stolen the emails, senior Trump campaign officials and Mr. Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. had a meeting with a Kremlin-linked attorney about getting information that could be damaging to Mrs. Clinton.

It is illegal for a political campaign to accept foreign aid, and Mr. Trump and his son have said they did nothing wrong because they did not receive any damaging materials because of that meeting.

Mr. Stone has said publicly that he was in contact with WikiLeaks and suggested on Twitter that additional damaging information would be coming.

But the special counsel’s investigators spent months encircling Mr. Stone, renewing scrutiny about his role during the 2016 presidential race. Investigators interviewed former Trump campaign advisers and several of his associates about Mr. Stone’s fund-raising during the campaign and his contacts with WikiLeaks.

Three senior Trump campaign officials have told Mr. Mueller’s team that Mr. Stone created the impression that he was a conduit for inside information from WikiLeaks, according to people familiar with their witness interviews. One of them told investigators that Mr. Stone not only seemed to predict WikiLeaks’ actions, but also that he took credit afterward for the timing of its disclosures that damaged Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.

In October, Mr. Stone exchanged emails with Stephen K. Bannon, then the chief executive of Mr. Trump’s campaign. In one exchange, Mr. Stone wrote that more WikiLeaks disclosures were forthcoming, “a load every week going forward,” according to the indictment. Mr. Bannon appears to be the official described in the court document as “the high-ranking Trump Campaign official,” based on previous disclosures about the email exchange.

Tuesday, October 4, 2016
FROM: Steve Bannon
TO: Roger Stone
EMAIL:
What was that this morning???

Tuesday, October 4, 2016
FROM: Roger Stone
TO: Steve Bannon
EMAIL:
Fear. Serious security concern. He thinks they are going to kill him and the London police are standing done.
However —a load every week going forward.
Roger stone

Tuesday, October 4, 2016
FROM: Steve Bannon
TO: Roger Stone
EMAIL:
He didn’t cut deal w/ clintons???

A day before Mr. Stone and Mr. Bannon emailed about WikiLeaks, Donald Trump Jr. exchanged Twitter messages with the WikiLeaks Twitter account and asked, “What’s behind this Wednesday leak I keep reading about.”

At the end of that week, on Oct. 7, WikiLeaks released more than 6,000 emails related to John D. Podesta, the chairman of the Clinton campaign. The release came 30 minutes after The Washington Post published a recording of Mr. Trump bragging on the set of “Access Hollywood” about assaulting women. The timing has raised questions about whether the WikiLeaks release was an attempt to distract the public from the tape and redirect negative attention from Mr. Trump to the Clinton campaign.

In social media posts and numerous interviews before the 2016 election, Mr. Stone indicated that he had advance knowledge that a trove of information damaging to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign might be about to spill into public view, and even suggested that he had personally spoken to the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange.

Mr. Stone has changed his story in the months since, saying that he was not actually speaking to Mr. Assange and that he had no direct knowledge that Russians were responsible for the Democratic hacking. Still, it was revealed last year that, in the weeks before the election, Mr. Stone was messaging on Twitter with Guccifer 2.0, a pseudonym used by one or more operatives in the Russian intelligence scheme to steal the emails and funnel them to WikiLeaks.

Mr. Stone himself has said publicly that he was prepared for the possibility that he could be indicted, but he has long maintained that he is innocent and has often echoed Mr. Trump’s claims that Mr. Mueller’s investigation is a politically motivated witch hunt.

“This was supposed to be about Russian collusion, and it appears to be an effort to silence or punish the president’s supporters and his advocates,” he said last May on “Meet the Press.”

“It is not inconceivable now that Mr. Mueller and his team may seek to conjure up some extraneous crime pertaining to my business, or maybe not even pertaining to the 2016 election,” he said.

The tumultuous relationship between Mr. Stone and Mr. Trump goes back decades, with Mr. Stone acting as an informal adviser to Mr. Trump as he considered running for president several times. When Mr. Trump formally announced during the spring of 2015 that he was running for president, Mr. Stone was one of the first members of the team, but within months, he had a public dispute with Mr. Trump and left the campaign.

The two men have remained close, though, speaking often by telephone.

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Yamiche Alcindor Reports On Roger Stone Wikileaks Conviction For Bearing False Witness To Congress

Yamiche Alcindor breaks all the hottest, exclusive news.

So they now convict Roger Stone of lying and want to jail him for many years to come. Well, what about Crooked Hillary, Comey, Strzok, Page, McCabe, Brennan, Clapper, Shifty Schiff, Ohr & Nellie, Steele & all of the others, including even Mueller himself? Didn’t they lie?....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2019

Trump associate Roger Stone found guilty of lies that protected Trump

WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 15: Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch acknowledges audience from members of the public in the audience as she concludes her testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill November 15, 2019 in Washington, DC. In the second impeachment hearing held by the committee, House Democrats continue to build a case against U.S. President Donald Trump's efforts to link U.S. military aid for Ukraine to the nation's investigation of his political rivals.  (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Impeachment hearing ends with fireworks and applause

Trump doubles down on tweets attacking witness

Roger Stone, former adviser to President Donald Trump, holds a bible as he arrives at the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse, on November 15, 2019 in Washington, DC.

Trump associate Roger Stone found guilty on all counts

Former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testifies before the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Nov. 15, 2019, during the second public impeachment hearing of President Donald Trump's efforts to tie U.S. aid for Ukraine to investigations of his political opponents. 

Yovanovitch: Trump's attacks are 'very intimidating'

(CNN)Longtime Trump political adviser Roger Stone was found guilty on Friday of lying to and obstructing Congress in a case that has shed new light on President Donald Trump's anticipation of the release of stolen Democratic emails in 2016 by WikiLeaks.

Stone, a political operative and Trump's friend, was found guilty of all seven counts brought by the Justice Department, a victory for special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. Stone was found guilty of five counts of lying to Congress, one of witness tampering and one of obstructing a congressional committee proceeding. Among other things, he misled Congress about his communications with Trump campaign officials in 2016, the jury unanimously decided.

What Roger Stone's trial revealed about Trump and Mueller

The verdict out of Washington marks a stunning conclusion to one of the highest-profile prosecutions to emerge from the Mueller investigation -- a case that began with one of Trump's most vocal supporters arrested during a predawn raid as the special counsel's investigation wound down and since then has gradually revealed new information about the Trump campaign's positive reception to foreign interference in the 2016 US election.

Stone had no audible reaction as the courtroom deputy read the jury's verdict, but he slouched, standing, with a frown. His movements were slow and deliberate as he took a sip of water while each juror stated their position, confirming their unanimous decision, then hung behind in the corner of the courtroom, rarely speaking to others as attorneys and onlookers filed out.

His wife, too, simply looked straight ahead, though a friend of Stone's, Michael Caputo, turned his back to the jurors when all in the courtroom stood to watch them leave. As those in the courtroom dispersed, Stone kissed his wife on the cheek.

Thirty minutes after the jury delivered its verdict, Trump tweeted about his displeasure with it.

"So they now convict Roger Stone of lying and want to jail him for many years to come. Well, what about Crooked Hillary, Comey, Strzok, Page, McCabe, Brennan, Clapper, Shifty Schiff, Ohr & Nellie, Steele & all of the others, including even Mueller himself? Didn't they lie?" the President wrote on Twitter, citing his political foes who either worked on or contributed information to the Russia investigation. "... A double standard like never seen before in the history of our Country?"

Prosecutors asked the judge to take Stone into custody immediately, but she declined. After considering that he may have communicated with right-wing commentator Alex Jones this week -- potentially violating a gag order on his case that prevents him from speaking about it -- Judge Amy Berman Jackson said she would keep a gag order on him as he awaits sentencing. He may return home to Florida, and his sentencing is set for February 6.

Stone potentially faces prison time, but his sentence will be entirely up to the judge. For the most serious of his crimes, witness tampering, he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years.

"He has been here for every court appearance. I have no reason to believe" he won't come to his next appearance, Jackson said Friday.

After leaving the courthouse and arriving where he's been staying in Washington, Stone told CNN, "No comment," when asked if he would seek a pardon from the President.

In recent months, Trump has weighed pardoning Stone if he was convicted, multiple people familiar with his thinking say.

Several of Stone's allies have lobbied the President to do so, but multiple people also have advised the President that doing so would be a terrible idea politically and have cautioned against it, people familiar with the situation have told CNN.

These discussions were happening while a conviction was still hypothetical. Now that a federal jury has convicted Stone, it's not clear where the President stands.

The charges

According to prosecutors, Stone lied during testimony and failed to turn over documents to Congress in 2017 showing he had sought to reach WikiLeaks the previous year. He lied about five facts, obscuring his attempt to use intermediaries to get information that could help then-candidate Trump in the election against Hillary Clinton.

WikiLeaks had released emails in July 2016 that the Russians had hacked from Democratic Party servers, and followed up with drops of emails stolen from the Clinton campaign's chairman in October 2016, continuing until Election Day.

Stone's trial at a federal courthouse in Washington revealed the extent to which the longtime Trump friend was directly in touch with Trump and other campaign officials about Wikileaks' 2016 release of hacked Democratic emails.

When the House had asked Stone in September 2017 if he had discussed WikiLeaks, its founder Julian Assange or the Democratic hack with the Trump campaign, Stone had denied it under oath , saying his legal team "found nothing" of those types of communications.

Prosecutors argued that witness testimony, along with Stone's texts, emails and phone records, showed Stone's interest in reaching WikiLeaks about the hacked documents it had and speaking to the Trump campaign and even Trump himself about it. Prosecutors said Stone had lied to Congress out of a desire to protect Trump.

"It would look really bad for his longtime associate Donald Trump" if the truth had come out, prosecutor Jonathan Kravis had said in his closing argument on Wednesday.

Stone's defense team countered that Stone didn't have a motive to protect Trump when he testified to the House in 2017, because Trump already had won the election and become President.

Witnesses in the trial included a cast of Trump-world characters like former White House strategist Steve Bannon and former Trump campaign deputy chairman Rick Gates, a key cooperator in Mueller's investigation. Both emphasized the campaign's interest in hacks and leaks dating back to April 2016.

During the trial, prosecutors revealed several phone calls between Trump and Stone, including a July 2016 conversation in which, Gates testified, Trump and Stone spoke about the planned release of hacked Democratic emails.

In his written answers to Mueller, Trump said he didn't recall his conversations with Stone, nor discussions about WikiLeaks and the Democratic hack.

Prosecutors argued that Stone's alleged failure to tell Congress about the attempts to reach WikiLeaks left the House Intelligence Committee with a blind spot in its investigation -- causing the committee's final report on Russian interference in the election to be inaccurate.

Stone threatening his once-friend Randy Credico, a comedian and radio host, compounded problems for the House, prosecutors argued.

Stone had told the House that he had an intermediary, whom he later identified as Credico, trying to reach Assange during the campaign. But prosecutors alleged another man had sought to get to Assange on behalf of Stone and the campaign, making Stone's claims about Credico false.

When Credico was called before Congress following Stone's testimony, Stone sent him emails and texts directing him to lie or to refrain from sharing the truth. Credico warned him that Stone may have perjured himself already, but Stone persisted, quoting over and over again lines from the film "The Godfather: Part II," referring to a character who is pressured by the Mafia family to lie to Congress.

Inside the courthouse

The trial got off a chaotic start on November 5 -- Stone missed some of the jury selection because he felt ill -- and brought out a memorable cast of characters both as witnesses and in the audience of the courtroom. At times, the proceedings drew laughs from the courtroom, with Credico even offering to do celebrity impressions in the witness box. But as the trial went on, the mood became more somber. By Friday morning, the second day of jury deliberations, Stone carried a Bible with him into the courthouse.

Stone's wife, Nydia Bertran Stone, was by his side throughout the trial, along with a cadre of supporters, including some who have identified themselves as part of the Proud Boys, a far-right group, and a man dressed in floor-length black-and-white robes who Stone described as his "spiritual adviser" and who led Stone's wife and others in prayer.

Prosecutors hit a stirring, philosophical note just before sending the case to the jury, making a broad appeal for the truth in the final words of their closing argument. Prosecutor Michael Marando had latched onto a phrase used in the defense's closing argument, "So what?"

"So what? ... Well, if that's the state of affairs that we're in, I'm pretty shocked. Truth matters. Truth still matters, OK?" Marando said to the jury.

"I know we live in a world nowadays with Twitter, tweets, social media, where you can find any view, any political view you want. ... However, in our institutions of self-governance, courts of law or committee hearings, where people under oath have to testify, truth still matters," he added, before asking for the jury to find Stone guilty.

The jury of nine women and three men, including a former congressional candidate and a federal government lawyer, deliberated over two days. During their almost nine hours discussing Stone's charges, the jury asked the judge questions that indicated a close reading of prosecutors' wording of the charges. At 11:11 a.m. Friday, the jury wrote to the judge: "WE HAVE REACHED A VERDICT."

Stone had been arrested last January in a predawn raid at his home in Florida by armed federal agents, caught exclusively on camera by CNN. That kicked off weeks of Stone's attempts to draw support, especially on social media. But he crossed a line by posting on Instagram a photo of the judge with crosshairs behind her head -- and Jackson then limited his ability to speak publicly about the case.

Jackson oversaw the weeklong trial in Washington's federal district court, cementing her status as one of the most significant arbiters over Mueller's work. She previously sentenced Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort to a years-long prison term following his guilty plea in the Mueller investigation, and is set to sentence Gates on December 17.

Trump campaign and WikiLeaks

Gates' testimony in Stone's trial was an especially telling reminder of Mueller's finding that the Trump campaign had welcomed the release of hacked documents that could help them in the 2016 election.

Gates testified he had witnessed Trump take an evening phone call from Stone as they rode to New York's LaGuardia Airport from Trump Tower in late July 2016. Stone and Trump apparently discussed WikiLeaks' planned release of hacked Democratic emails.

"After Mr. Trump got off the phone with Mr. Stone, what did Mr. Trump say?" prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky asked Gates on Tuesday. "He indicated more information would be coming," Gates responded.

The call happened days after WikiLeaks' first release on July 22, 2016, of emails the Russian military had allegedly hacked from the Democratic National Committee.

Gates said WikiLeaks' announcement that it had pending information on then-presidential candidate Clinton was a "gift."

"It was in a way a gift that we had not sought," said Gates. "There were a number of us who felt it would give our campaign a leg up."

Bannon, another high-profile witness, testified that he and the Trump campaign viewed Stone as an "access point" to WikiLeaks.

Credico spent the longest time in the witness box during the trial.

He wasn't in court to hear the verdict but told CNN afterward that he was "stunned," "shell-shocked" and "not rejoicing."

"The whole thing is depressing. It started out as a fender bender that turned into a 21-car, tractor-trailer pileup," Credico said.

"It's a sad, man-made tragedy that could have been avoided."

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Top House Dems Call for FBI Action on Trump Campaign’s Advance Knowledge of Ongoing Russian Cyber Hacking to Affect Election

UNITED STATES CONGRESS

Washington, D.C. (Oct. 14, 2016)—Today, Reps. Elijah E. Cummings, John Conyers, Jr., Elliot L. Engel, and Bennie G. Thompson, the Ranking Members of the House Committees on Oversight and Government Reform, Judiciary, Foreign Affairs, and Homeland Security, issued the following statement in response to evidence that the Trump campaign apparently knew months beforehand about the hacking of emails from the account of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta:

“Troubling new evidence appears to show that the Trump campaign not only was aware of cyber attacks against Secretary Clinton’s campaign chairman, but was openly bragging about it as far back as August.  For months, we have been asking the FBI to examine links between the Trump campaign and illegal Russian efforts to affect our election, including interviewing Trump advisor Roger Stone.  In light of this new evidence—and these exceptional circumstances—we call on the FBI to fully investigate and explain to the American people what steps it is taking to disrupt this ongoing criminal activity.  Elections are the bedrock of our nation’s democracy and a model we hold out to the world, so we must counter any foreign or domestic efforts to threaten the integrity of our electoral process.” 

Roger Stone’s Public Statements About Upcoming Podesta Attacks

This past August, Trump adviser Roger Stone sent out messages on Twitter indicating that he had been informed personally about upcoming cyber attacks on campaign chairman John Podesta.

Trust me, it will soon the Podesta's time in the barrel. #CrookedHillary

— Roger Stone (@RogerJStoneJr) August 21, 2016

This followed:

@JohnPodesta makes @PaulManafort look like St. Thomas Aquinas Where is the @NewYorkTimes ?

— Roger Stone (@RogerJStoneJr) August 15, 2016

On October 3, 2016, Stone tweeted:

I have total confidence that @wikileaks and my hero Julian Assange will educate the American people soon #LockHerUp

— Roger Stone (@RogerJStoneJr) October 3, 2016

Four days later, October 7, 2016, WikiLeaks publicly released emails illegally hacked from Podesta’s email account.

Roger Stone’s Public Statements About Backchannel Communications with WikiLeaks

Stone has stated repeatedly in public appearances that he communicates directly and through back channels with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

On August 8, 2016, Stone stated publicly that he “communicated with”Assange about the upcoming release of illegally-hacked emails.  Stone made these statements during a Republican campaign event while answering a question about a potential “October surprise.”

On August 13, 2016, Stone stated publicly that his own email accounts had been hacked “as soon as it became publicly known that I was in communication with Julian Assange.”

On October 12, 2016, Stone stated publicly:  “I do have a back-channelcommunication with Assange.”

Previous Letter to FBI About Allegations of Coordination Between Trump Campaign and Russians

On August 30, 2016, Reps. Cummings, Conyers, Engel, and Thompson sent a letter to FBI Director James Comey requesting that the FBI assess whether connections between the Trump campaign and Russian interests contributed to cyber attacks against the Democratic campaign organizations to interfere with the election.  The letter stated:  “It is unclear whether U.S. law enforcement authorities have interviewed Mr. Stone about his communications with Mr. Assange or about his knowledge of how WikiLeaks obtained the illegally-hacked documents.”

On September 28, 2016, FBI Director James Comey testified before the House Judiciary Committee, but would not directly answer questions about any investigation regarding these matters.  Instead, he stated that the FBI is examining “just what mischief is Russia up to in connection with our election.”

On October 7, 2016, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security issued a joint statement concluding: 

“The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations.  The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts.  These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process.  Such activity is not new to Moscow—the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there.  We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.”

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Will Judiciary Democrats Subpoena The Congressional Black Caucus & NAACP In The Roger Stone Case?

Chaos, the breakfast of "Legal Geniuses" (trademark pending).

EXCLUSIVE: Roger Stone's spiritual adviser says embattled political operative has 'turned to God'

Randy Lancaster-Short is Roger Stone's long time spiritual advisor and is not a fan of the Congressional Black Caucus or the NAACP.

So, riddle me this, if Judiciary Democrats are launching a probe into Roger Stone, will they bring in Randy Lancastser-Short, too?

I bet Randy has many tales to tell.

Dems launch Justice probe, seek Stone-related interviews

"It was not supposed to be like this."

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The House Judiciary Committee is launching a wide-ranging probe of Attorney General William Barr and the Justice Department, demanding briefings, documents and interviews with 15 officials as it tries to determine whether there has been improper political interference in federal law enforcement.

Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., on Friday sent Barr a letter listing a series of matters that the committee finds “deeply troubling,” including Barr’s involvement in the case of President Donald Trump's longtime confidant Roger Stone.

Stone was convicted in November of lying to Congress and other charges. Barr overruled prosecutors who had recommended that Stone be sentenced to seven to nine years in prison, leading the four top prosecutors on the case to step down from it.

Nadler also is questioning Barr about his involvement in other cases related to friends and associates of Trump and about internal investigations into department employees who investigated Trump after the 2016 election.

“Although you serve at the President’s pleasure, you are also charged with the impartial administration of our laws,” Nadler wrote to Barr. “In turn, the House Judiciary Committee is charged with holding you to that responsibility.”

The committee is asking for briefings on the issues listed and interviews with 15 Justice Department officials involved in those matters, including the four prosecutors who resigned from the Stone case.

It is unclear whether the department, which declined to comment on Nadler's letter, will cooperate with any part of the probe. Trump has vowed to block “all” of the subpoenas from Democrats and refused to cooperate with their impeachment inquiry last year. Still, despite his declarations, many administration officials came forward during the impeachment probe once faced with subpoenas.

Barr has already agreed to testify before the committee on March 31. It will be the first time he has appeared before the panel since he became attorney general a year ago, and the meeting is sure to be contentious. Since Barr was sworn in, House Democrats have questioned whether he was too close to Trump, criticized his handling of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report and impeached Trump for his pressure on Ukraine to investigate Democrats. The Senate acquitted Trump this month.

In the letter, Nadler asked for a broad swath of documents related to the committee's concerns, including communications between Trump and the Justice Department. The committee is unlikely to get any of those documents, as a president’s personal conversations are generally considered privileged by the courts.

The sharpened look at Barr’s activities comes as many Democrats have been wary of prolonging the Ukraine inquiry that led to Trump’s impeachment. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff have put off — but not ruled out — a subpoena for former national security adviser John Bolton, who refused to participate in the House impeachment inquiry but later said he would testify in the Senate trial. The Senate voted not to call witnesses, but Bolton is writing a book that could detail his involvement in the Ukraine matter.

Just after the Senate voted to acquit Trump, Barr faced blowback over his decision to overrule the prosecutors in the Stone case. Trump congratulated Barr shortly afterward.

Stone was convicted of lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstructing the House investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to tip the 2016 election. He was sentenced last week to more than three years in prison.

Barr appeared to try to deflect some of the rising criticism over Stone, saying in an interview with ABC News that Trump’s tweets about Justice Department prosecutors and cases “make it impossible for me to do my job.”

But Barr also said the decision to undo the sentencing recommendation was made before Trump tweeted about it, and he said Trump had not asked him to intervene in any cases.

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DCNF Has A Wikileaks SIGTARP Leaking Propaganda Issue With Jeannie Rhee

The one reason I just adore The Daily Caller New Foundation is because it was captured as a leaking tool for the DOJ.

Suckers.

Yes, you can construct a distractive narrative through controlled leaking.

FUN FACT! JEANNIE RHEE, FORMER ATTORNEY OF WILMER HALE, THE LAW FIRM OF BOB MUELLER, WAS HIRED TO REPRESENT THE DETROIT LAND BANK AUTHORITY AND PAID WITH TARP.

Brett M. Kavanaugh argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Kenneth W. Starr and Craig S. Lerner.^[*]The Independent Counsel argues that the attorney-client privilege should not prevent disclosure of confidential communications where the client has died and the information is relevant to a criminal proceeding.

Now, let us just see how long it takes the DCNF to report on the fact that Jeannie Rhee was hired to represent the Detroit Land Bank Authority in SIGTARP matters, considering the fact that I was nice enough to provide all the links and it was found in Wikileaks.

MUELLER GRAND JURY WITNESS ACCUSES CLINTON-LINKED PROSECUTOR OF CONFLICT OF INTEREST

• An associate of Roger Stone who appeared before the Mueller grand jury on Nov. 2 is accusing the special counsel of a conflict of interest.
• Tyler Nixon says that he was questioned prior to his testimony by Jeannie Rhee, a prosecutor who previously represented the Clinton Foundation.
• Nixon says he finds it “deeply troubling” that Rhee is involved in the investigation, which has recently focused on Stone.

An attorney who appeared as a witness before the Mueller grand jury is accusing the special counsel’s office of a conflict of interest because one of the prosecutors involved in the special counsel’s case has worked for Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.

The prosecutor, Jeannie Rhee, has questioned witnesses about Roger Stone, the Trump confidant who is one of the targets of the investigation, numerous sources tell The Daily Caller News Foundation. Rhee questioned Tyler Nixon, an attorney for Stone, just before his grand jury appearance on Nov. 2.

“[Rhee’s involvement] was not disclosed to me prior to my testimony, and I find this to be deeply troubling and certainly Ms. Rhee should be recused or removed from the investigation,” Nixon told TheDCNF.

Recusals related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe became an issue after the appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general on Nov. 7.

Among the reasons that Democrats have called for Whitaker’s recusal are his comments criticizing the Trump-Russia probe as well as his work in 2014 on a political campaign for Sam Clovis, a former Trump campaign official who testified before the Mueller grand jury as a witness in 2017.

Seven top congressional Democrats, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and California Rep. Adam Schiff, cited Whitaker’s work with Clovis in a letter Sunday to the Justice Department’s top ethics official. The Democrats asked DOJ whether Whitaker has been advised on whether he should recuse himself from the probe.

Rhee’s work on the special counsel’s team poses a larger conflict of interest than Whitaker’s links to Clovis, Nixon asserts.

“I find it astonishing that there are cries for the recusal for Mr. Whitaker when I know that I was personally interviewed on behalf of the special counsel by an attorney, Jeannie Rhee, who was Hillary Clinton’s and the Clinton Foundation’s personal attorney not one or two years prior to her joining the special counsel,” Nixon told TheDCNF.

As a partner at Wilmer Hale, Rhee represented the Clinton Foundation in a 2015 racketeering lawsuit filed by the conservative watchdog group Freedom Watch. That lawsuit sought access to the private email account that Clinton used as secretary of state. Rhee, who did not represent Clinton herself, also donated the maximum allowed under federal law to Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

 (RELATED: Not A Single Lawyer Working On The Mueller Team Is A Republican)

Nixon said that while Rhee was friendly, even “jovial,” during his interaction with her, he takes issue with Rhee investigating people like Stone who investigated the Clintons and Clinton Foundation during the campaign.

Stone, a longtime confidant of President Donald Trump, is also critical of Rhee’s involvement in the investigation.

“It seems somewhat incredible that Democrats are calling for Acting Attorney General Whitaker to recuse himself from the Mueller investigation based on his prior political activities, but they think it’s perfectly alright for Hillary Clinton’s personal attorney and campaign donor to lead a potential prosecution of Roger Stone,” Stone told TheDCNF.

A spokesman for the special counsel’s office told TheDCNF that Rhee was cleared by Justice Department ethics experts to work on the Mueller team.

“Department ethics experts reviewed the matters to which the Special Counsel was appointed and determined that Ms. Rhee is authorized to participate,” said Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller.

Nixon testified in favor of Stone during his grand jury appearance regarding a conversation he witnessed between Stone and Randy Credico, a comedian and longtime acquaintance.

Stone has claimed that Credico was a confirming source for him during the 2016 campaign about WikiLeaks’ plans to release information damaging to the Clinton campaign. Stone has insisted that he did not know the content, source or timing of WikiLeaks’ releases.

Credico, who was in contact with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during the campaign, has denied being Stone’s source. But Nixon testified to the grand jury about a dinner he attended with Stone and Credico in mid-November 2017 in which Credico indicated that he was the link between Stone and WikiLeaks.

David Lugo, a filmmaker who knows both Stone and Credico, also testified to the grand jury on Oct. 19 that Credico told him that he was a source for Stone.

Credico has contradicted his denials in various public comments. He filmed himself on April 28 at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner describing himself as “the guy that was the in-between guy between Assange and Roger Stone.”

Rhee also took part in the questioning of Jerome Corsi, an associate of Stone who said Monday that he expects to be indicted for lying to prosecutors.

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WATERGATE Revisited - Roger Stone Updates 2-13-2020

"Operation Watergate ~ And we are back."

First, this happened...

Feds seek 7 to 9 years in prison for Trump ally Roger Stone

Then, this happened...

Trump congratulates Barr after prosecutors resign from Roger Stone case

Then, this happened...

Attorney who oversaw Roger Stone case resigns after Trump pulls nomination

Then, this happened...

Anti-Trump social media posts by Roger Stone jury forewoman fuel controversy in case

Are Roger Stone & Trey Gowdy Old School Civil Rights Legal Dogs?

Is Roger Stone an Old School Civil Rights Legal Dog?

No one possesses the legal acumen to report from the front lines of the #cyberwars because he is absolutely perfect to do the "Colored" Commentary.

Roger has been around, for a hot minute in history, going all the way back to Watergate.

Yes, Watergate is back open, and all its ancillary assassinations, even in character.

Roger is not stupid.

He continues to introduce the legal term "to bear false witness", which is ethics, the basis of the extraordinary writs, into the public discourse.

Roger knows we are ushering in the Quantum Renaissance and is joining the rank and file of those who are willing to fall on their swords.

Pay attention to how he talks about not being able to afford justice, going broke, being shunned from society without due process.

Sound familiar?

So, I am going to go out there and claim Roger Stone as an Old School Civil Rights Legal Dog, because he has a few stories to tell.

Is Trey Gowdy an Old School Civil Rights Legal Dog?

Do I really need to even answer this?

Do not be mean to my Trey.  He knows stuff.

Appreciative to Fox News for the chance to weigh in on legal/political issues. Sure to be a lot of both in 2019. Practicing law with Nelson Mullins, contributing where appropriate with Fox, and living in South Carolina. Looking forward to a great year.

— Trey Gowdy (@TGowdySC) January 30, 2019

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Sixth Time Is Always A Charm: Who Is The Last Foreign Company To Challenge The Mueller Special Counsel Appointment?

Bob, after a long day dealing with "Legal Geniuses"
(trademark pending)

Say what you will, but I am going with "Secret Foreign Company A" ,which more than likely did not register anywhere as a LLC or a Corporation, because it is a Corporate Shape Shifter, just like the Detroit Land Bank Authority.

See, if "Secret Foreign Company A" claims to be one of those Public Private Partnerships like the Detroit Land Bank Authority claims to be, will "Secret Foreign Company A" have legal standing to challenge in appeal, considering the fact that it cannot file its Corporate Parent Disclosure Form, because it was never incorporated, and lacks possession of any financial instrument?

Oh, the suspense!

Anyway, back to the appointment of Special Counsel Mueller.

You do know who made sure these legal challenges were planned out a long time ago, right?

Mueller scores big win as court rejects challenge to his appointment

Special counsel Robert Mueller scored one of the biggest legal wins of his tenure on Tuesday, as a federal appeals court rejected claims that his appointment was unconstitutional.

In a unanimous ruling, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals turned aside arguments that Mueller wields so much power as a special prosecutor that he should have been nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

The appeals court judges also found no flaw in Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s appointment of Mueller in the wake of the recusal of then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The court said that because the attorney general can repeal the regulations used to appoint Mueller at any time, he remains under the control of a Cabinet official.

“Special Counsel Mueller effectively serves at the pleasure of an Executive Branch officer who was appointed with the advice and consent of the Senate,” Judge Judith Rogers wrote, joined by Judges Sri Srinivasan and Karen Henderson.

Mueller’s office declined to comment on the decision.

The D.C. Circuit challenge was brought by Andrew Miller, an associate of former Trump adviser Roger Stone, who was indicted in January on charges of witness tampering and lying to congressional investigators.

MUELLER INVESTIGATION

Trump's inner circle might escape Mueller charges — but still won’t be safe

Last year, Mueller’s office demanded that Miller appear before a federal grand jury in Washington probing the Russia matters, but Miller moved to quash the subpoena by citing alleged flaws in Mueller’s appointment. Miller’s challenge was backed by conservatives looking for a vehicle to escalate the legal attack on Mueller’s office.

In addition to arguing that Mueller’s appointment was flawed because he was not confirmed to the post by the Senate, Miller’s attorney Paul Kamenar argued that Rosenstein lacked authority to make the appointment because only the head of the Justice Department at the time — Sessions — could do so.

Before the ruling, Kamenar said he expected to lose before the D.C. Circuit and was eager to take the case to the Supreme Court.

On Tuesday, Kamenar said they are contemplating their next step.

“We are disappointed with the decision and will be considering further legal action, whether before the full court of appeals or the Supreme Court,” he said.

Miller worked as an assistant to Stone, who began saying last spring that he was bracing for an indictment by prosecutors from Mueller’s team.

Stone initially said he expected any charges would relate to his business dealings or tax issues. However, the indictment returned last month showed prosecutors were keenly focused on whether he had advance knowledge of the WikiLeaks election-year release of emails pilfered from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's personal email account.

Stone has denied any contact with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange or of having any privileged information about WikiLeaks' plans, notwithstanding an August 2016 tweet in which Stone predicted it would soon be “Podesta’s time in the barrel.”

For a time, it appeared prosecutors might be waiting for a ruling on Miller’s protests before proceeding to indict Stone, but they ultimately brought charges without Miller’s testimony.

However, in an interview with POLITICO, Stone said Miller’s duties for him were so menial that the snag in obtaining his testimony could not have done much to stymie Mueller’s investigators.

“I can't imagine,” Stone said. “Andrew Miller is a house painter. He did not work for me in ’15 or ’16. He came to the convention mostly to make sure I get out of bed in the morning after staying out too late at night.”

The D.C. Circuit’s ruling is the fifth federal court decision in recent months to uphold Mueller’s authority.

CONGRESS

Cohen will present document to criminally implicate Trump

Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court in Washington rejected Miller’s arguments last year, although she wrote that his attorney raised “legitimate questions.”

U.S. District Court Judges Amy Berman Jackson in Washington and T.S. Ellis III in Alexandria, Va., also turned aside somewhat narrower challenges to Mueller in separate criminal cases he brought against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

And another D.C.-based jurist, Judge Dabney Friedrich, rebuffed a similar legal attack on Mueller mounted by a Russian company the special counsel had charged with scheming to use impersonation, fake social media accounts and other deceptive tactics to interfere in the 2016 election, chiefly on behalf of Trump.

That firm, Concord Management and Consulting, endorsed Miller’s appeal and presented arguments against Mueller at the November D.C. Circuit session where Kamenar pressed Miller’s case.

Manafort ultimately elected to plead guilty and waive most of his appeal rights.

Concord still has the right to appeal if it is convicted, but since criminal appeals must generally wait until after a trial and sentence, Miller’s challenge to the grand jury subpoena he received presented a more attractive means to push the issue of Mueller’s legitimacy quickly to the appeals court and on to the Supreme Court.

The fight the D.C. Circuit panel ruled on Tuesday is separate from another grand jury battle that recently traveled to the Supreme Court that also involves Mueller. In the other showdown, a company owned by a foreign government argued it should not have to comply with a grand jury subpoena.

Another D.C. Circuit panel rejected the company’s arguments. Chief Justice John Roberts briefly held off the $50,000-a-day fine the firm faced, but the Supreme Court ultimately turned down the company’s request for emergency relief. The identity of the company and foreign nation involved remain a mystery, but court records made public in recent weeks confirmed a POLITICO report from last year that the prosecutors involved appeared to be from Mueller’s team.

The opinion issued Tuesday was relatively dismissive of Miller’s arguments, but Kamenar said the longer wait for a decision from the D.C. Circuit in the case showed that the challenge had some force.

“The fact that the court took over three months to decide this appeal after oral argument compared to the three days it took in December to decide another challenge to a Mueller subpoena issued to an unnamed foreign corporation, demonstrates that this was a serious and substantial challenge,” Kamenar said.

Rogers, the author of the opinion upholding Mueller’s authority, is an appointee of President Bill Clinton. Henderson was appointed by President George W. Bush. Srinivasan is an appointee of President Barack Obama.

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The Standing Armies Of General Attorneys Herald A Proclamation

There are many methods to herald when you
invoke the original purpose of the Second Amendment.

This is so powerful.

McQuade Announces The League Of Old School Civil Rights Legal Dogs

They all took oaths.

DOJ Alumni Statement on the Events Surrounding the Sentencing of Roger Stone

We, the undersigned, are alumni of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) who have collectively served both Republican and Democratic administrations. Each of us strongly condemns President Trump’s and Attorney General Barr’s interference in the fair administration of justice.
As former DOJ officials, we each proudly took an oath to support and defend our Constitution and faithfully execute the duties of our offices. The very first of these duties is to apply the law equally to all Americans. This obligation flows directly from the Constitution, and it is embedded in countless rules and laws governing the conduct of DOJ lawyers. The Justice Manual — the DOJ’s rulebook for its lawyers — states that “the rule of law depends on the evenhanded administration of justice”; that the Department’s legal decisions “must be impartial and insulated from political influence”; and that the Department’s prosecutorial powers, in particular, must be “exercised free from partisan consideration.”

All DOJ lawyers are well-versed in these rules, regulations, and constitutional commands. They stand for the proposition that political interference in the conduct of a criminal prosecution is anathema to the Department’s core mission and to its sacred obligation to ensure equal justice under the law.
And yet, President Trump and Attorney General Barr have openly and repeatedly flouted this fundamental principle, most recently in connection with the sentencing of President Trump’s close associate, Roger Stone, who was convicted of serious crimes. The Department has a long-standing practice in which political appointees set broad policies that line prosecutors apply to individual cases. That practice exists to animate the constitutional principles regarding the even-handed application of the law. Although there are times when political leadership appropriately weighs in on individual prosecutions, it is unheard of for the Department’s top leaders to overrule line prosecutors, who are following established policies, in order to give preferential treatment to a close associate of the President, as Attorney General Barr did in the Stone case. It is even more outrageous for the Attorney General to intervene as he did here — after the President publicly condemned the sentencing recommendation that line prosecutors had already filed in court.

Such behavior is a grave threat to the fair administration of justice. In this nation, we are all equal before the law. A person should not be given special treatment in a criminal prosecution because they are a close political ally of the President. Governments that use the enormous power of law enforcement to punish their enemies and reward their allies are not constitutional republics; they are autocracies.

We welcome Attorney General Barr’s belated acknowledgment that the DOJ’s law enforcement decisions must be independent of politics; that it is wrong for the President to interfere in specific enforcement matters, either to punish his opponents or to help his friends; and that the President’s public comments on DOJ matters have gravely damaged the Department’s credibility. But Mr. Barr’s actions in doing the President’s personal bidding unfortunately speak louder than his words. Those actions, and the damage they have done to the Department of Justice’s reputation for integrity and the rule of law, require Mr. Barr to resign. But because we have little expectation he will do so, it falls to the Department’s career officials to take appropriate action to uphold their oaths of office and defend nonpartisan, apolitical justice.

For these reasons, we support and commend the four career prosecutors who upheld their oaths and stood up for the Department’s independence by withdrawing from the Stone case and/or resigning from the Department. Our simple message to them is that we — and millions of other Americans — stand with them. And we call on every DOJ employee to follow their heroic example and be prepared to report future abuses to the Inspector General, the Office of Professional Responsibility, and Congress; to refuse to carry out directives that are inconsistent with their oaths of office; to withdraw from cases that involve such directives or other misconduct; and, if necessary, to resign and report publicly — in a manner consistent with professional ethics — to the American people the reasons for their resignation. We likewise call on the other branches of government to protect from retaliation those employees who uphold their oaths in the face of unlawful directives. The rule of law and the survival of our Republic demand nothing less.

If you are a former DOJ employee and would like to add your name below, click here. Protect Democracy will update this list daily with new signatories.

Signatories have been vetted to the best of our ability.

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