Longtime Trump associate, Roger Stone was arrested Friday following a seven-count indictment issued by the Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The indictment alleges one count each of obstruction of a proceeding and witness tampering, and five counts of making false statements to House Representatives.
The 24-page indictment lays out allegations that Stone knowingly and willfully “made materially false, fictitious, and false statements” before the US House of Representatives Committee on Intelligence tasked with investigating Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
The indictment references two individuals, “Person 1,” identified as a a “political commentator who worked with an online media publication during the 2016 US presidential campaign” and “Person 2,” who “was a radio host who had known STONE for more than a decade.” The indictment also references an organization identified as “Organization 1,” which was responsible for releasing stolen documents from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton Campaign.
It is alleged that “Stone had sent and received numerous emails and text messages during the 2016 [presidential] campaign in which he discussed Organization 1, its head, and its possession of hacked emails.”
In May 2017, the House Committee sent a letter to Stone requesting any information “that reasonably could lead to the discovery of any facts within the investigation’s publicly announced parameters.” Stone replied with a letter stating that he “has no documents, records, or electronically stored information, regardless of form, other than those widely available that reasonably could lead to the discovery of any facts within the investigation’s publicly-announced parameters.”
The indictment goes on to allege that Stone lied to the House Committee numerous times about the extent of his knowledge and his possession of relevant documents, emails, and texts in relation to the investigation into Russian interference.
It is further alleged that Stone attempted to influence the testimony of Person 2, before the House Committee, by forwarding an excerpt of his letter to the house Committee and urging Person 2 to “falsely confirm what Stone had previously testified to.” The indictment references alleged communications between Stone and the unnamed persons, in which Stone reported that Person 2 would “take the 5th” before the House Committee, and that he directed Person 2 to “do a ‘Frank Pentangeli’ before HPSCI in order to avoid contradicting Stone’s [own] testimony.” (Frank Pentangeli was a character in the Godfather II in which he falsely denies any knowledge of the Corleone family before a Congressional Committee.)
The indictment claims that on or around December 2017, Person 2 invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to testify before the House Committee “in part to avoid providing evidence that would show Stone’s previous testimony to Congress was false.”
The Washington Post has reported that “Organization 1” is likely the Julian Assange-led WikiLeaks, and Politico has reported Person 2 as likely to be radio host Randy Credico.
Stone is scheduled to make an appearance Friday at 11 AM EST at the federal courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.