Let’s take another look at the Roger Stone indictment to see how thin it was. When you glance at it sideways, it pretty much disappears. Now that is thin!
In paragraph 5 of the indictment, we learn that Stone had contacted the Trump campaign about Wikileaks and “information it might have had that would be damaging to the Clinton Campaign.”
Hey, guess what! Everyone was interested in information that Wikileaks “might have had” about Clinton. The fact that Stone was interested is not surprising. Information is his currency. The fact that the Trump campaign asked Stone what he knew about future releases by Wikileaks is also not surprising. That’s what campaigns do. They get information about their opponents and use it against them. As long as no laws are broken, it doesn’t matter. It’s called politics as usual.
In paragraph 6, we learn that in August 2016 Stone claimed to be in contact with Wikileaks. Later in the same paragraph we learn that he wasn’t (according to Wikileaks aka Organization 1). Again, more posturing by Stone to increase his value to the Trump campaign, from which he had been fired a year prior.
In fact, most of the charges against Stone are variants of this modus operandi — Stone claiming to know more than he does in order to solicit information he can use later in order to make himself look like he knows more than he does. What goes around comes around in an endless perplex of Stone’s ego. His blustering bigger-than-life personality leads him to speak in hyperbole, which explains the so-called witness tampering charge. (Does anyone really think he was going to hurt his friend’s dog?)
As I have noted previously, Stone’s main problem in the indictment is that he said he did not have certain documents that were later shown to exist. These so-called false statements are the basis for five of the seven charges against Stone, who now says he didn’t recall that those documents existed. If he sticks to his guns and pleads not guilty, he will have to convince a jury of that.
But most significantly, there is absolutely nothing in the indictment that connects Roger Stone, let alone Donald Trump, to Russia. There is no collusion. No Russia. And no underlying crime. What you most likely have is a political operative who thinks his candidate (and later president) is being railroaded by a rogue investigation and decides not to cooperate with that Witch Hunt out of a sense of honor.
Yes, it’s one more scalp for Robert Mueller and at worst a personal failure for Roger Stone. But it dwindles to insignificance compared to the conspiracy hatched by the Clinton Machine to invent a Russia-Trump collusion hoax.
Frank Miele writes from Kalispell, Montana, at www.HeartlandDiaryUSA.com and is a columnist at Real Clear Politics. To see more of my columns about the Dishonest Media, the Deep Swamp, the failed presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and Trump’s war to restore American greatness, read my “Why We Needed Trump” trilogy. The books are available at Amazon in paperback or Kindle editions. Also please considering leaving a review in support of my conservative commentary on one or all of my book pages at Amazon! Thanks!
