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Roger Stone Lied to Protect Trump, Prosecutor Says Stone Trial Links Trump More Closely to 2016 Effort to Obtain Stolen Emails
(about 5 hours later)
WASHINGTON — A federal prosecutor on Wednesday charged that Roger J. Stone Jr. lied repeatedly to a congressional committee about his efforts to contact WikiLeaks during the 2016 presidential election because “the truth looked bad for the Trump campaign and the truth looked bad for Donald Trump.” WASHINGTON — President Trump was more personally involved in his campaign’s effort to obtain Democratic emails stolen by Russian operatives in 2016 than was previously known, phone records introduced in federal court on Wednesday suggested.
In his opening statement in Mr. Stone’s trial in the federal courthouse in Washington, the prosecutor, Aaron Zelinsky, promised jurors that reams of documentary evidence, buttressed by testimony of witnesses including the former White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon, would prove Mr. Stone’s guilt. Federal prosecutors disclosed the calls at the start of the criminal trial of Roger J. Stone Jr., Mr. Trump’s longtime friend, who faces charges of lying to federal investigators about his efforts to contact WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign. Russian intelligence officers had funneled tens of thousands of emails they stole from Democratic computers to WikiLeaks, which released them at critical points during the presidential race.
In a riveting outline of the government’s case, Mr. Zelinsky painted a portrait of Mr. Stone, a self-described “dirty trickster,” trying to aid Mr. Trump’s campaign through underhanded dealings and subterfuge and later concealing his work. The prosecution is one of the few cases still outstanding from the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. The records suggest that Mr. Trump spoke to Mr. Stone repeatedly during the summer of 2016, at a time when Mr. Stone was aggressively seeking to obtain the stolen emails from Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. The prosecutors noted that they did not know what Mr. Stone and Mr. Trump had discussed. But they stressed that the timing of their calls dovetailed with other key developments related to the theft and release of the Democratic emails.
Mr. Zelinsky said that Mr. Stone repeatedly threatened a fragile witness struggling with alcoholism in an attempt to cover up his own efforts to determine whether WikiLeaks had information that would damage Mr. Trump’s election opponent, Hillary Clinton. Mr. Stone also concealed hundreds of text messages and email exchanges that would have exposed his efforts to contact the founder of WikiLeaks and to relay information to senior Trump officials. The phone records are the first concrete suggestion that Mr. Trump may have had a direct role in his campaign’s effort to benefit from Russia’s hidden hand in the election. At the very least, the calls and other evidence underscored the eagerness of senior campaign officials and other Trump associates to reap the rewards of what the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, later called a sophisticated and alarming covert Russian influence operation.
In August 2016, Mr. Stone wrote to Paul Manafort, then the chairman of Mr. Trump’s campaign, that he had an idea “to save” Mr. Trump, but “it ain’t pretty.” Mr. Zelinsky also said that in the summer of 2016, as Mr. Stone was trying to contact WikiLeaks, he had two phone calls with Mr. Trump himself, although he said the government does not know what they discussed. And the disclosures came amid the impeachment inquiry into Mr. Trump’s efforts to pressure a different foreign government, Ukraine, to potentially interfere in the 2020 election, again in ways that would personally benefit him.
Mr. Stone, a former Trump campaign adviser who has been friends with the president for 40 years, is charged with seven felonies, including obstructing justice, false statements and tampering with a witness. The case revolves mainly around his testimony to the House Intelligence Committee in September 2017, when it was investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. Mr. Mueller scrutinized the links between WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign during his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 race. But the phone calls between Mr. Trump and Mr. Stone were not described in the version of Mr. Mueller’s report that was publicly released last spring, most likely because officials redacted evidence related to continuing criminal investigations and prosecutions, including the case against Mr. Stone.
That same committee is now leading the impeachment inquiry into whether Mr. Trump pressured the president of Ukraine this year to begin investigations that would help him politically as his re-election campaign gained momentum. Mr. Stone’s contacts with Mr. Trump are an issue in his criminal case because he is accused of lying about his discussions with Trump campaign officials about WikiLeaks, among other charges.
Congressional investigators were focused on WikiLeaks because it was the repository for thousands of emails and other documents that Russian operatives stole from Democratic computer networks in a covert effort to increase Mr. Trump’s chances of victory. Mr. Stone, a former campaign aide and 40-year friend of the president, has acknowledged trying in 2016 to contact Mr. Assange for information damaging to Hillary Clinton. But he has denied any knowledge of Russia’s role in the theft of the emails and has said he never managed to reach Mr. Assange, though he continually bragged that he had a back channel to him.
Prosecutors say that Mr. Stone, 67, falsely testified that he possessed no emails or text messages about the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he never asked an intermediary to seek information from or pass messages to Mr. Assange. He also lied about discussing his interactions with that intermediary with anyone tied to the Trump campaign, prosecutors said. They also said that he tried to dissuade a witness, Randy Credico, from testifying before the House committee, urging him to stonewall investigators. Mr. Stone, 67, is charged with seven felonies, including obstructing justice, making false statements and tampering with a witness. The case revolves mainly around his testimony to the House Intelligence Committee in September 2017, when it was investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Mr. Stone boasted repeatedly in 2016 that he was in touch with WikiLeaks and had inside information about its plans to release emails that would undermine Mrs. Clinton’s campaign. Later, when the special counsel and congressional committees began investigating Russian interference in the election, he said his claims were mere puffery. In his opening statement in a federal courtroom in Washington, Bruce S. Rogow, Mr. Stone’s defense lawyer, said his client never acted with “criminal intent.” Far from trying to deceive congressional investigators, he said, Mr. Stone voluntarily testified before the House committee and sought to give his deposition publicly.
How much if anything Mr. Stone knew about what WikiLeaks had in store for the Clinton campaign has been a mystery since Aug. 21, 2016, when Mr. Stone wrote on Twitter, “Trust me, it will soon the Podesta’s time in the barrel.” But Aaron Zelinsky, the lead prosecutor who also served on Mr. Mueller’s team, said Mr. Stone deliberately lied to the congressional investigators because “the truth looked bad for the Trump campaign and the truth looked bad for Donald Trump.”
That prediction seemed remarkably prescient because about six weeks later, WikiLeaks began releasing 50,000 emails that Russian agents had stolen from the computer of John D. Podesta, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman. He said Mr. Stone, a self-described dirty trickster, went to extreme lengths to cover up his lies to the committee, including threatening another potential witness named Randy Credico, as well as Mr. Credico’s friend and even Mr. Credico’s dog.
Mr. Stone also concealed hundreds of text messages and email exchanges that would have exposed his efforts to contact Mr. Assange and to relay information to senior Trump officials, prosecutors said.
They set out a detailed time line showing how Mr. Stone’s interactions with Trump campaign officials overlapped with developments involving the Russian hackers or WikiLeaks. On June 30, 2016, they noted, Guccifer 2.0, the pseudonym used by the Russian hackers, posted a message about the presidential campaign, about two weeks after the theft of the emails was publicly revealed. That same day, prosecutors said, Mr. Stone made a call to Mr. Trump that lasted about two and a half minutes.
Mr. Stone was in contact with Guccifer 2.0 but has said he did not know who was behind that persona.
On July 31, after a five-minute phone call from Mr. Trump’s home phone line, Mr. Stone wrote a message directing an associate to “see Assange.” At the time, Mr. Assange was holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, trying to avoid prosecution.
In August, Mr. Stone wrote to Paul Manafort, then the Trump campaign chairman, saying that he had an idea “to save” Mr. Trump, but “it ain’t pretty.”
That same month, Mr. Stone wrote on Twitter, “Trust me, it will soon the Podesta’s time in the barrel.” That prediction seemed remarkably prescient because about six weeks later, WikiLeaks began releasing 50,000 emails that Russian agents had stolen from the computer of John D. Podesta, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman.
Mr. Stone told the House committee that his Twitter message was based on research from a friend about the business dealings of Mr. Podesta and his brother in Ukraine. The friend, Jerome Corsi, initially backed up Mr. Stone’s account. But in interviews with investigators, he said that was merely a “cover story” that he and Mr. Stone devised.Mr. Stone told the House committee that his Twitter message was based on research from a friend about the business dealings of Mr. Podesta and his brother in Ukraine. The friend, Jerome Corsi, initially backed up Mr. Stone’s account. But in interviews with investigators, he said that was merely a “cover story” that he and Mr. Stone devised.
Mr. Zelinsky, the prosecutor, told a predominantly female jury on Wednesday that Mr. Corsi was one of two intermediaries whom Mr. Stone deployed in his efforts to get in touch with Mr. Assange. The other was Mr. Credico, a New York radio host, whom prosecutors said Mr. Stone pressured to either lie or stonewall the House committee. Mr. Zelinsky, the prosecutor, said Mr. Stone lied to congressional investigators about his interactions with Mr. Corsi.
Mr. Stone also told Mr. Credico not to cooperate with Mr. Mueller’s investigation, said Mr. Zelinsky, who worked on the inquiry. In a January 2018 text message, Mr. Stone described the special counsel’s investigation to Mr. Credico as a “waste of your time.” He said Mr. Stone also told Mr. Credico not to cooperate with Mr. Mueller’s investigation. In a January 2018 text message, Mr. Stone described the special counsel’s investigation as a “waste of your time,” then referred to Mr. Mueller with an expletive.
Mr. Zelinsky said Mr. Credico would testify but suggested that he might seem unreliable. “If you were looking for someone to pin something on, Randy Credico is a pretty good person to pick,” he said. But he said that to an “amazing” degree, most of the evidence of the case was contained in documents. Mr. Zelinsky suggested Mr. Credico, a New York radio host who struggles with alcohol, might strike jurors as a less than perfect witness. But to an “amazing” degree, he said, the evidence against Mr. Stone is laid bare in documents.
The defense was expected to make its opening statement on Wednesday afternoon. The charges against Mr. Stone carry a maximum penalty of 20 years. Stephen K. Bannon, who ran the Trump campaign in its final months and then became a top White House adviser, is also expected to testify in the trial.
Zach Montague contributed reporting.Zach Montague contributed reporting.