(Bloomberg) -- Roger Stone, the longtime Republican operative and the last person charged in Robert Mueller’s investigation, talked to somebody on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign about the dirt WikiLeaks was getting from Russia on Hillary Clinton, according to prosecutors.
But who?
As Stone goes on trial for lying to Congress, obstruction and witness tampering, it is one of the lingering mysteries of the special counsel’s 22-month probe of Russian interference in the election. And it’s one of the many reasons the trial, starting next week, will be closely watched, even as House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry gathers steam just around the corner.
Did Stone, an early Trump confidant and booster, know what documents WikiLeaks had and when it would release them? The government claims he tipped off the campaign, and Mueller’s report refers numerous times to WikiLeaks or Trump’s interest in its stolen cache. Mueller says Trump and campaign advisers “privately sought information” about further releases.
Once, in a car on the way to New York’s LaGuardia Airport with Deputy Campaign Manager Rick Gates, Trump took a call and then told Gates that more Clinton kompromat was coming, according to the report. Part of the mystery is who was on the other end of that line.
Stone, 67, could go to prison if convicted, especially of the witness-tampering charge. He’s accused of threatening a political ally whose testimony the congressional panel also sought. Opening statements in the trial could come as soon as Tuesday.
Potential witnesses include right-wing provocateurs such as Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon, conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi and comedian and radio host Randy Credico. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange won’t appear -- he’s in jail in London fighting extradition in a separate U.S. case.
The Stone case has “the sort of X factors that make the government justifiably nervous that at least one juror will start diving down this crazy rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and personalities, and then it will go bad that way,” said former federal prosecutor Ken White, now a criminal defense lawyer in Los Angeles.
Robert Buschel, a lawyer for Stone, said a court order barred the defense team from commenting on the case.
Stone predicted in an infamous tweet on Aug. 21, 2016, that it would soon be Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s “time in the barrel.” About six weeks later -- just hours after an Access Hollywood tape came out revealing Trump’s boasts about groping women -- WikiLeaks published its first batch of Podesta documents. The U.S. says an associate of a high-ranking Trump campaign official texted him: “Well done.”
Asked by the House Intelligence Committee in September 2017 whether he’d talked to anyone on the campaign about his communications with WikiLeaks, Stone said, “I did not.”
That was a lie, prosecutors say. To prove it, they’ll almost certainly have to identify that person -- or people.
Stone’s involvement in Republican politics dates back at least to the 1972 re-election campaign of his hero, Richard Nixon, who lives on as a tattoo on his back. Stone also worked on the campaigns of Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole and George H.W. Bush, as well as on the younger Bush’s Florida recount battle against Al Gore.
Amid those engagements, he was a Washington lobbyist, a partner in a firm called Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly. The Manafort was Paul, whom Stone introduced to the Trump campaign and who for four months was its chairman.
Manafort was forced to quit (succeeded by Bannon) over revelations about his work for a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine. Prosecutors proved he’d failed to report related income to U.S. authorities and got him convicted for tax and bank fraud.
Gates, too, was indicted but cut a plea deal with prosecutors and testified against Manafort. He has cooperated in the case against Stone and could testify at the trial.
As for Trump himself, “the evidence does not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference,” Mueller said in his report. But he pointed to possible motives for a cover-up, including Trump’s concerns that advance notice of WikiLeaks’ releases “could be seen as criminal activity by the President, his campaign, or his family.”
The White House and Trump’s outside attorney, Jay Sekulow, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
By the summer of 2016, prosecutors claim, Stone was telling top Trump campaign officials that WikiLeaks might have dirt on Clinton. After saying he was in contact with WikiLeaks, he later said they’d communicated through a mutual friend.
Actually, the government says, Stone had two go-betweens with WikiLeaks, identified as Person 1 and Person 2 and later revealed to be Corsi and Credico. He’s accused of withholding from the congressional committee evidence of his conversations with them. Both communicated with Assange, according to the U.S.
In October 2017, Stone allegedly asked Credico to corroborate some of Stone’s testimony, invoking Nixon and imploring him to “Plead the fifth. Anything to save the plan.” Credico declined to voluntarily appear before the House committee, prompting it to issue a subpoena. Stone is alleged to have increased the pressure, urging Credico to follow the “Godfather II” character Frank Pentangeli, who falsely claims not to recall crucial information sought by Congress.
According to prosecutors, he later warned Credico not to answer questions from the FBI either, threatening to kidnap his dog, Bianca, and legally “rip you to shreds.” Credico appeared before Mueller’s grand jury last year, with the dog.
As for Corsi, he’s unlikely to be called to the stand, said White, the former prosecutor. Corsi’s conspiracy theorizing includes a 2011 book pressing the claim, pursued by Trump, that President Barack Obama was born abroad.
“I don’t think you can ever assume you know what’s going to come out of his mouth on the stand,” he said.
Larry Klayman, a lawyer for Corsi, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
And Stone himself -- would White put him on the stand?
“I might,” he said. “It’s a very difficult decision. I think he would be destroyed on cross-examination. But if your entire point is to show the jury how wacky he is, then that might be the best way to do it.”
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