2016 Election Attack: Convicted Felon Roger Stone — ‘A Central Character in the Greatest Crime in American History’
2016 Election Attack: Convicted Felon Roger Stone — ‘A Central Character in the Greatest Crime in American History’
Fourth in a series investigating 2016 US election interference by Russian military intelligence and the network of US white supremacist cells that trafficked GRU stolen goods and promoted Russian lies
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“Roger Stone is a convicted felon — a central character in the greatest crime in American history.”—Heidi Siegmund Cuda
“The truth still exists. The truth still matters.”—Judge Amy Berman Jackson
Mueller — Stone ‘Remains A Convicted Felon’
It was rare for Robert Mueller to make public statements, but when Trump pardoned Roger Stone — just days before he was to begin serving a 40-month prison sentence for lying to lawmakers investigating Russia’s attack on the 2016 election — Mueller wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post.
The Special Counsel tasked with investigating the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia wanted to ensure the world that Roger Jason Stone Jr. was still a convicted felon and no pardon would change that fact. Stone had lied about his links to the Russian government and was convicted of seven charges — including witness tampering and obstructing a congressional committee proceeding.
On July 11, 2020, Mueller wrote:
Russian efforts to interfere in our political system, and the essential question of whether those efforts involved the Trump campaign, required investigation. In that investigation, it was critical for us (and, before us, the FBI) to obtain full and accurate information. Likewise, it was critical for Congress to obtain accurate information from its witnesses…
Congress also investigated and sought information from Stone. A jury later determined he lied repeatedly to members of Congress. He lied about the identity of his intermediary to WikiLeaks. He lied about the existence of written communications with his intermediary. He lied by denying he had communicated with the Trump campaign about the timing of WikiLeaks’ releases. He in fact updated senior campaign officials repeatedly about WikiLeaks. And he tampered with a witness, imploring him to stonewall Congress.
The jury ultimately convicted Stone of obstruction of a congressional investigation, five counts of making false statements to Congress and tampering with a witness. Because his sentence has been commuted, he will not go to prison. But his conviction stands.
Mueller stated that despite being granted clemency, Stone “remains a convicted felon, and rightly so.”
The US District Court judge in the case, Amy Berman Jackson, said on February 20, 2020 that Stone’s blatant disregard for truth should worry all those who care about American democracy, and she accused him of lying for his longtime confidante Trump.
“The dismay and disgust at the defendant’s belligerence should transcend party,” Jackson said.
Stone’s preppy cheerleaders in court — a group of young MAGA men — were connected to the network of US white supremacist cells I identify in the first part of my 2016 Series:
Judge Jackson also noted that Stone had personally threatened her life. On social media, he posted her face with ominous crosshairs. Stone, then lied about that. For him lying was like breathing — a quality he had learned from his mentors Richard Nixon and Roy Cohn.
Judge Jackson, however, said Stone, a Trump campaign adviser and his longtime pal, “knew exactly what he was doing” and reminded people on that day of his sentencing about the dignity of truth.
“The truth still exists,” she said. “The truth still matters.”
And let us reflect on some long since forgotten truths. In the four years that have passed since Stone was sentenced, let us not forget how William Barr caused prosecutors to resign. The attorney general intervened on Stone’s behalf, which was really intervening on Trump’s behalf, and requested a more lenient punishment. Barr’s intervention caused the entire prosecution team to resign. One member left the justice department entirely.
These footnotes in history matter.
Roger Stone is a convicted felon. That matters.
The 2016 Election Attack - Part Four
The most important stories at this moment are the ones long since buried — stories left to independent investigative journalists to tell. I return to these hellscapes of littered tweets and forgotten indictments because they matter in 2024, as our collective amnesia signals a kind of madness and worries the world.
These stories matter, and they must be told.
In 2016, America was attacked by Russian military intelligence. These attacks were amplified by a network of white supremacist cells in the US tied to Mike Flynn, Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, Peter Thiel, and Erik Prince. You can learn more about these US fifth columnists in my American Monster series:
I return to the crime scene of 2016, because I knew then and I know now that the United States of America was attacked and the attacks are ongoing. And we made it easy for them because we are living in what investigative reporter Michael Weiss calls “a nihilistic moment, where you no longer have to hide the worst of yourself.”
Until we come to terms as a nation that the 2016 election outcome was influenced by a joint effort of Russian military intelligence and a network of US white supremacist cells, with the assistance of other hostile foreign nations, America will continue to deteriorate, both in heart and substance.
Truth matters. Decency matters.
We have made it easy for our adversaries to exploit us by not head-checking our own issues. We can and must evolve beyond a country rife with misogyny, conspiracy, racism, and a willingness to celebrate and even idolize the worst among us.
A mutual acquaintance of Roger Stone told me that he attended events with Stone, a wildly popular figure among Trump Nationalists.
He told me that everyone in MAGA knew Stone was a liar and that was okay with them.
“We all knew of his dirty tricks. And we didn’t care, because he was ‘one of us’, and we saw his dirty tricks as necessary.”—former Trump Nationalist
The Trump Nationalists had been trained to believe that the Democrats posed such a threat to America, that a self-proclaimed ‘ratfucker’ like Stone was a necessary evil. They’ve been trained to believe that Russian interference doesn’t matter because “all politicians get help from foreign countries.” Smh.
Indictments aren’t just words on a page — they offer forensic clues, government evidence, linking multiple storylines. Our intelligence agencies knew in 2016 that Russian military intelligence had attacked our country by stealing private data from a US presidential candidate’s campaign and her party. That crime — those stolen goods — were then muled by Kremlin cutout Julian Assange/Wikileaks.
Here, the Department of Justice lays out the details:
According to the government’s evidence, in January 2017, the United States House of Representatives Select Permanent Committee on Intelligence (“House Intelligence Committee”) announced an investigation into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, including allegations that Russia was involved in the publication of documents related to the presidential election by WikiLeaks in 2016. On September 26, 2017, in testimony to the Committee, Stone made a number of false statements relating to the identity of a person he had referred to in August 2016 as his “back-channel” or “intermediary” to the head of WikiLeaks; whether he had asked that person to do anything on his behalf; whether he had written communications with that person; whether he discussed that person with anyone involved with the Trump campaign; and whether he had written communications with third parties about the head of WikiLeaks. On October 13, 2017, Stone sent the House Intelligence Committee a letter falsely stating that the person he had referenced in August 2016 was an individual named Randy Credico. Stone then engaged in witness tampering by urging Credico either to corroborate this false account, or to tell the Committee that he could not remember the relevant events, or to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid testifying before the Committee. Credico ultimately invoked his Fifth Amendment right in response to a Committee subpoena.
"At his core, Mr Stone is an insecure person who craves and recklessly pursues attention."—Judge Amy Berman Jackson
Let us not forget who Stone’s longtime partner is: convicted felon Paul Manafort, with whom Stone operated ‘The Torturer’s Lobby’ and for whom lying for the Russians was simply part of the contract.
So let’s revisit Stone’s indictment, where we learn through communications with conspiracy author Jerome Corsi that targeting political opponents with ageism was part of the ratfucking:
“Would not hurt to start suggesting HRC old, memory bad, has stroke…”
The lies about Clinton’s health were then rickrolled around the psychosphere. RT soon reported on Clinton's so-called "bad health," along with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, the National Enquirer, and by August 18, Trump started promoting conspiracies about Clinton’s health.
That the Hillary Clinton unhealthy ageism lie was successful — doctored videos of her appeared on all fifth column media outlets from here to Russia — is why this narrative warfare is being rebooted again. This time, targeting President Biden. Same playbook.
The lies for which Stone was convicted reveal the work both Stone and Manafort were performing for the Russians. While Manafort was sharing polling date with an old Russian spy “to get whole” with Oleg Deripaska, Stone was bragging about his contacts with hackers.
According to the indictment, Stone bragged about telling the Trump campaign in advance of the email dump that occurred on Putin’s birthday — October 7, 2016 — by WikiLeaks. These were emails that were stolen by Russian military intelligence from Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta.
But when he was asked by the House Intelligence Committee whether he had any emails regarding the hacked documents released by WikiLeaks, “Not to my knowledge,” he responded.
As the indictment revealed, he had exchanged dozens and dozens of emails about WikiLeaks. A New York radio host and comedian, Randy Credico said he feared for his life, because Stone threatened him after telling him to perjure himself to cover for Stone’s lies. Stone told Credico to “do a ‘Frank Pentangeli” — a reference to “The Godfather” — to lie for Stone, according to Mueller. Stone accused Credico of being a “rat” and a “stoolie” and threatened to steal his dog, a white Coton de Tulear named Bianca. “Prepare to die cocksucker” Stone told him. Credico said he didn’t sleep at his home for two years, he was so frightened of Stone.
Gangsters and Thugs
All this mobbiness should not distract from that fact that Stone’s case was directly tied to the indictment against 12 officers from Russia's GRU military intelligence agency. They were charged with conspiring to defraud the United States by hacking, stealing and staging the release of email messages.
Mueller’s multiple indictments revealed the government had evidence of Stone’s direct communications with Russian intelligence and WikiLeaks — establishing direct ties between Russia and Stone.
Russian Spies
So when I think about the network that Stone belongs to — a network that made up conspiracy theories like Pizzagate based on goods stolen by the GRU; a network that pushed Russia’s lies from a well-oiled lie factory in St. Petersburg; a lobbying partner that took a reported $70 million dollars to work for Russia — even installing a Russian puppet in Ukraine — refining his act in Ukraine before working as Trump’s campaign manager — I don’t think about obstruction of justice or witness tampering.
I think about Russian spies. I think about the worst traitors in American history.
I think about Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen. I think about people like that.
I think about the brave women who took down Aldrich Ames, a Russian spy responsible for so much murder. I think about the bravery of our public servants.
I think about the public servants who resigned rather than work under that ratfucker William Barr.
I think about Roger Stone’s sins — his confessions in A Storm Foretold. His Big Lie and his Small Lies…
… his malignancy on US politics, which goes back decades. That’s what I think about.
Roger Stone is a convicted felon — a central character in the greatest crime in American history.
He worked with the foreign intelligence of a hostile nation to install an asset of that hostile nation into our nation’s highest office.
He’s free to do so again.
He may still be welcome in the smokey rooms of GOP schemers, where ratfuckers such as he are deemed a necessary evil.
But perhaps even there he has overstayed his welcome.
Stone “remains a convicted felon, and rightly so.”
Truth still exists. Truth still matters.
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To read the first three in the 2016 Series, please go here:
To read the first 13 in the American Series, please go here:
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