Meanwhile, on the Russia Front

Wow!  In the time I stopped posting a lot has happened with Trump and Russia.

We have learned that Donald Trump was planning to build a Trump Tower in Moscow and possibly bribe Vladimir Putin with a penthouse to make it go through. We have learned that plans were cancelled only when the news came out that the Russians had hacked the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

We have learned that the FBI opened a counter-intelligence investigation into Trump after he invited the Russians into the Oval Office, told them he fired James Comey as FBI Director to stop the Russia investigation, and revealed super-top-classified information to them.

Rudy Giuliani, as Trump's lawyer, first said that negotiations on the Trump Tower in Moscow might have continued as late as the 2016 election and then walked it back.  He also said that when he denied any Moscow contact during the election, he only meant the top four or five people in the campaign, not minor functionaries like the campaign manager.*

And then there were the Roger Stone and Paul Manafort revelations.

I will save Manafort for later.

As for Roger Stone, there were no big surprises, since his friend Jerome Corsi had already leaked his plea agreement.  Stone was indicted for that old standby, perjury, which is what prosecutors use when more serious offenses are too hard to prove.  All perjury is technically a crime, but whether it is actually prosecuted usually depends on the seriousness of the underlying conduct that the defendant lied about.

In Roger Stone's case, it is not clear that there was any underlying crime at all. It is clear from the indictment that Stone was regularly in contact with Wikileaks and getting advance scoops (not all of them accurate) on what was about to be dropped.  But talking to Wikileaks is not a crime.  Possibly it might be for actual members of the campaign -- it might constitute accepting foreign campaign contributions or illegal coordination with an independent entity or some technical violation of campaign law.  But to judge from the indictment, the campaign took care not to have any direct contacts with Wikileaks, and instead hung on Roger Stone's word as to what was going on.

Roger Stone was not a member of the campaign, although he was in contact with many members.  So far as I know, it is not a crime for a private citizen not affiliated with a campaign to be in contact with Wikileaks.  Certainly Roger Stone did not think it was a crime, because he ran around very publicly boasting about his inside line with Wikileaks and advance knowledge of what was about to drop.

But communications with Wikileaks, although not a crime, are apparently not all that easy to do.  At least, Stone's communications appear not to have been with Julian Assange of Wikileaks directly, but rather Stone contacted a friend in the US who contacted a friend in London who communicated with Assange.  There is some uncertainty as to who the London contact was, but Stone's American go-betweens were Randy Credico, a left-wing radio personality who supported Bernie Sanders, and Jerome Corsi, a right-wing writer and conspiracy theorist.

Stone's earlier contacts with Wikileaks were with Corsi (referred to in the indictment as "Person 1" because he was the earlier contact).  The indictment mentions three e-mails between Stone and Corsi about contacting Wikileaks, from July 25, 2016 to August 2, 2016.  Corsi informed Stone that Wikileaks was going to expose Hilary Clinton as "in bed w enemy" and reveal evidence that she had had a stroke or was otherwise in failing health.  Stone must have passed this on because over the next few days rumors of Hilary's failing health ran rampant in the right wing media.  In fact, Hilary really did have pneumonia and collapsed at a 9-11 memorial, so Wikileaks may have been on to something.  But she had not had a stroke, and Wikileaks never did release what Corsi promised.

Perhaps disappointed in the failure, or perhaps inspired because Credico actually had Assange on his radio show, Stone switched his intermediary to Credico.  The indictment identifies four texts from Credico to Stone on the subject and multiple e-mails and texts in September and October between Stone and Credico.  These included Stone's request for Hilary's State Department e-mails for August, 2011 (something never produced that Wikileaks almost certainly did not have) and talk of an October surprise that would sink the Clinton campaign.  When the dump was delayed, Credico attributed the delay to pressure from the Clinton campaign.  The release ultimately turned out to be Clinton campaign chair John Podesta's e-mails, released October 7, 2016.  Although Corsi was earlier, Credico really does appear to have been the more important go-between.

During Congressional investigations, Stone identified Credico as his go-between, but denied having any others and denied any written communications.  OK, so that is an absolute, open-and-shut case of perjury, since the Mueller investigation has those written communications, with both Corsi and Credico.  Stone also denied asking for specific documents, when Mueller had e-mails doing just that.  He also falsely denied passing information on to the Trump campaign.  Finally, and far more seriously than mere perjury, Stone pressured Credico to go along with his story.  He urged Credico to imitate "Frank Pentangeli," a character in Godfather II who lied to a Senate investigating committee and thereby spared his godfather a charge of (you guessed it) perjury.  He also ended up being ordered to commit suicide for going in front of the committee at all, a thought that Credico presumably did not find encouraging.

When Credico did testify, Stone called him a "rat," a "stoolie," told him "Prepare to die," and threatened his dog.  Stone's defense has been that this was mere bluster not meant to be taken as a serious threat of homicide, but any time you threaten someone's little dog too, it tends to be taken seriously.

So Stone has been charged with one count of obstruction, one count of witness tampering, and five counts of perjury.  The serious question has to be why.  If there was no underlying crime, why engage in perjury and witness tampering to cover it up.  And even granting that some of the written communications, especially the specific requests for obviously stolen information, were embarrassing, why was Stone willing to give up Credico, but not Corsi?

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*Giuliani's behavior has been bizarre, but Kevin Drum, who usually dismisses the idea of Nth dimensional chess, has what I believe is the correct explanation:

[I]t’s obvious what Giuliani has been doing ever since he started representing Trump last year: tossing out chaff so vigorously that nobody can tell from day to day what the current story is supposed to be. The point of this—and this is the important part—is not just to confuse everyone. It’s to make Giuliani the bearer of bad news so that eventually, when Trump is forced to admit something damaging, it’s “old news” that he’s been “saying all along.” The complete explanation for Giuliani looks something like this: 

Giuliani is chosen as Trump’s “lawyer” because TV networks love him and will always give him airtime.

In times of crisis, Giuliani starts tossing out story after story, creating confusion and making Giuliani, not Trump, the center of attention.

All of these stories are deniable by the White House since they come from someone whose actual position is kind of vague. Eventually, though, one of them sticks. 

Later—which could be days or weeks depending on how long Trump lies low—Trump publicly acknowledges the final story and says it’s already been litigated to death and is old news.

 By then, (a) everyone really is confused, (b) they don’t remember all the details from a few weeks ago, and (c) there’s some new scandal that’s seized everyone’s attention. So Trump’s confession slides under the radar.

This isn’t a foolproof hack of the media, but it’s pretty good.