The main takeaway from informal presidential advisor Roger Stone’s arraignment Tuesday is that the Russian collusion narrative has collapsed. If there was anything there, we’d…
The main takeaway from informal presidential advisor Roger Stone’s arraignment Tuesday is that the Russian collusion narrative has collapsed. If there was anything there, we’d know about it by now.
Stone was hauled in to Federal Court Friday morning after a theatrical, televised arrest that should be the subject of a Justice Department investigation or Congressional inquiry. Why the excessive threat of force? Who tipped off CNN? The extreme intimidation tactic may have been intended to “send a message,” but it only tended to confirm the biases of those who see Robert Mueller’s entire effort as a rogue operation.
The “process crimes” Stone is charged with, such as lying and witness tampering, are potentially serious. But he was not charged with facilitating Trump campaign collusion with Russian hackers, and the indictment itself gives little reason to believe there ever was any.
It was certainly not a crime for the Trump campaign to be interested in what Wikileaks had on Hillary Clinton or other Democrats. Wikileaks had established itself as a reliable — though notorious — source for purloined information. Weeks before Wikileaks published the emails, Democrats had made public that their computer systems had been hacked, allegedly by Russian operatives, though Wikileaks has denied that Moscow was their source.
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But regardless of where the emails came from, once Wikileaks began to publish them, everyone in America wanted to know what was in them, no doubt especially the Trump team.
