Trump’s Calls With Roger Stone Figure in Trial
Roger Stone Prosecutors Point to Dozens of Calls With Trump Campaign
(Bloomberg) -- Jurors in Roger Stone’s criminal trial heard a recording of the Republican operative testifying to a congressional committee that he told no one on President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign about his communications with WikiLeaks.
Then they heard evidence that Stone had almost 60 conversations with top campaign officials, as well as with Trump himself -- plus a fusillade of obscenities as Stone’s threats to an ally were read out to the court.
Stone, 67, is charged with lying to Congress, obstructing its probe into Russian interference in the presidential election, and witness tampering. On Thursday, the first full day of testimony in federal court in Washington, prosecutors played excerpts of Stone’s more than 2 1/2 hours of testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in 2017. It included a Sept. 26 exchange in which Stone was asked if he spoke to campaign officials about WikiLeaks.
“I did not,” he said.
Prosecutor Jonathan Kravis immediately asked a witness, former FBI agent Michelle Taylor, how many conversations Stone had with the Trump campaign as WikiLeaks was releasing tens of thousands of documents stolen from Democratic Party computers to damage the campaign of Trump’s rival, Hillary Clinton. Taylor had worked for Special Counsel Robert Mueller in his probe of Russia’s meddling.
Using a chart to illustrate her testimony, Taylor identified 25 calls with Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman, Paul Manafort; 28 with Manafort’s top deputy, Rick Gates; two with campaign chief executive officer Steve Bannon; and two with Trump.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson noted that the chart showed only the existence of the calls, not their content. Defense attorney Bruce Rogow compelled Taylor to reiterate that point when he cross-examined her.
Rogow argued on Wednesday that Stone believed he had been truthful and responsive to Congress, given what he understood as the scope of the committee’s inquiry: probing Russian interference in the election and any involvement by people tied to the campaign.
Bannon and Gates are expected to testify for the government. Jurors will also hear from comedian and New York radio personality Randy Credico, who Stone told the committee was his back channel to WikiLeaks -- and whom Stone alternately cajoled, berated and threatened not to contradict his testimony when he was called before the intelligence panel, according to Stone’s indictment.
As messages from Stone were read out, the jury heard him mocking Credico as drinking excessively, warning he’d legally “rip you to shreds” and threatening to snatch his dog. In one message, he told Credico to “prepare to die,” adding an explosive obscenity. When Credico ultimately received a subpoena to appear before Mueller’s grand jury, Stone called it “a complete waste of time” and suggested Credico tell the special counsel to “go f--- himself.”
Credico appeared, asserting his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.
In answering questions from the House committee, Stone had initially declined to identify his WikiLeaks intermediary, saying only that it was a journalist and that their discussions had been off the record. Prosecutors say he left out another go-between, conservative author Jerome Corsi, with whom Stone corresponded about WikiLeaks releases in July and August of 2016.
After telling the panel he couldn’t divulge Credico’s identity without his permission, Stone’s attorneys did just that in a letter to the committee weeks later, apparently without first telling the radio host or seeking his permission, Taylor testified. Stone also told the committee he had no relevant written communications, specifically telling the panel his then-unnamed intermediary “was not an email guy.”
The disclosure of Credico’s identity touched off a months-long series of email exchanges between the radio host and Stone in which the men resorted to Watergate scandal and Godfather II movie dialogue, and often salty language, to make their points. The Intelligence Committee subpoenaed Credico after he declined to appear voluntarily, putting him in the position of having to contradict Stone, perjure himself or take the Fifth.
In messages shown to the jury, Credico blamed Stone for placing him in a no-win situation and said he should have testified honestly to begin with, that there was no intermediary. (He was unaware of Stone’s contacts with Corsi, prosecutors said Wednesday.) Stone responded with the blizzard of threats and mockery.
Stone urged his sometime ally to mimic Frank Pentangeli. The Godfather II character, when summoned before Congress to testify about organized crime, claimed to be unfamiliar with what the subject, even after the senators noted he was contradicting his written testimony.
The movie dialogue was accompanied by Taylor’s offering a verbal footnote on the context. Asked by Kravis if she’d seen the film, the former FBI agent said she had, and recently, too.
In all, Stone told Credico seven times to invoke the Fifth Amendment, “anything to save the plan,” he said, referring to Richard Nixon, whose campaign launched his career decades ago. He invoked Pentangeli twice and told Credico three times not to speak to law enforcement, Taylor said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Harris in Washington at aharris16@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Peter Jeffrey
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